Jouranl_10

“Can Computers Tutor Students as Effectively as Teachers?” by Ken Luterbach and Jeanie Cole (Learning& Leading with Technology, March/April 2008, PP8-9)

In this point verse counterpoint article, we hear different voices about the effect of the computer tutoring. Ken Luterbach thinks the computer can tutor students as effectively as teachers. On the contrary, Jeanie Cole thinks no computer can replace teachers.
Luterbach shows the research comparison, the students achieved the same scores either in traditional teacher-led instruction or in computer-based training. The struggling students performed a little better with computer-based training than the traditional teacher-led instruction. However, Jeanie Cole thinks students need teachers to provide connections, challenges, and adjustments in the classroom. Students need to connect with other students and teachers. Teachers can praise student and give them feedback as the students work. Teachers can challenge students and move their work to do work of the gifted class. Students can acquire collaborative learning skill through teamwork for their projects. In addition, teachers also can adjust to students’ styles of learning, such as hands-on activities, visual resources, games, physical movement, posters, video clips, and other methods to meet the students’ needs. Therefore, computers are valuable as classroom tools, but can not replace the teachers.
Questions…
1. How can educators integrate the computer tutoring in the effective learning process?
For some projects, teachers can encourage students to explore the computer to teach themselves with questions list from the teachers. For some struggling students, teachers can provide the computer tutor tool as a supplementary tool after school. These students can repeat and focus on their blocks. This will help the struggling students to overcome their difficulty.
2. As educators, how can we meet students’ special needs?
As teachers, we need get to know our students and their parents very well. We need to praise students and take an interest in them. Though this, we can connect ourselves with our students. There are at least seven multi-intelligences. On the other words, different students learn well in different ways, such as visual and musical methods. We need to know the type of their learning styles and provide the activities to meet their needs.