A Naturalistic Study of Tutor Guidance During Invention Tasks

• In Event: 73.062 - Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: 73.062-2 - Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Language, Literacy, Communication, and Reasoning

Abstract

The literature on human tutoring explores the age-old question of how best to guide students through a learning activity. However, most of this research has been conducted in the context of standard school learning activities such as problem-solving and reading. This study explored how tutors guide middle school students through a discovery-based task called Invention. Analysis of tutor talk revealed that compared to typical tutoring tasks, Invention tasks encouraged more student-centered dialogues with more tutor prompting, less didactic explaining, and more student participation. Moreover, tutor explanations were inversely related to student transfer outcomes. The results have implications for guidance of discovery-based activities by both human and computer tutors, when transfer is the ultimate goal.

Authors

• Catherine Chase, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jenna Marks, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jessica Wille, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Melissa Bradley, Teachers College, Columbia University