A study was done on 24 3rd grade students to demonstrate how successful math tutoring is based more on brain structure than intelligence. The size and wiring of certain brain structures can help predict how well a student can learn, not basic math ability or I.Q. tests. Before tutoring the students, they scanned the student's brains and had them take I.Q. tests on reading and memory.After the 8 weeks, the students improved 67% averagely on efficiency, accuracy, and problem solving, but individual improvements varied from 8% to 198%. This is because all the students have different brains and how well their brains will function after tutoring. The researchers found that the 3 brain structures that were the largest were the ones that would help the students benefit from tutoring. The structure that was most dominantly improved was the hippocampus, which is one of the brains most important structures for memory. They also found that the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia helped the student benefit from tutoring because they are important for long-term memories.
Study senior author Vinod Menon, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences said, "We can actually predict how much a child is going to learn during eight weeks of math tutoring based on measures of brain structure and connectivity," and study lead author Kaustubh Supekar, a postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences said, "The results are a significant step toward the development of targeted learning programs based on a child's current as well as predicted learning trajectory." NOS Themes
1. Science is based on evidence: The researchers tested students not only on their ability to learn math, but also on how their brain either helped or did not help.
2. The role of motivation and curiosity: People wanted to know if there was a way to see why or why not a student was improving in a subject through tutoring.
Article: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/04/29/why-johnny-cant-add-even-after-tutoring
This is quite interesting because I always used to think that tutors weren't that BIG of a help, but I have been proven wrong. It does seem like common sense that having people help you prepare for tests and projects will help your grade, but at the same time, some kids get so attached to their tutors that they can't do anything independatly. And being independant is an important thing in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI always knew tutoring was really helpful, but I didn't know how much it really helped. After reading this I know it helps a lot more than I thought it did. I found an article that also proves tutoring helps kids learn.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.parentsleague.org/publications/selected_articles/does_tutoring_help_or_harm_your_childs_education/index.aspx
Maybe tutoring is effective because it provides one on one attention to the student instead of being taught along with the entire class. Also, a student probably would feel more comfortable asking more questions to improve understanding to a tutor, not in front of the entire class.It would be interesting to see how the learning environment effects test scores.
ReplyDeleteI found this article very interesting because I have always felt like I understand things better when I have gotten tutored in that subject. This is probably because tutors are fit to you instead of an entire class of thirty people. They can help you more with some things and skip things that you already know or don't need as much help on. I'm not sure if this is applicable for the third graders in the test, but another reason tutoring might help is because it forces you to actually spend that time on the subject you are being tutored in.
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