Structuring and Adjusting Content for Students: A Study of Live and Simulated Tutoring of Addition

This study examined how six experienced teachers acquired information about students’ knowledge and used that information to adjust their instruction while tutoring, moving through a curriculum script—a loosely ordered but well defined set of skills and concepts students were expected to learn.

Abstract

This study examined how six experienced teachers acquired information about students’ knowledge and used that information to adjust their instruction while tutoring. Each teacher tutored five simulated students and one live student in the algorithm for whole number addition. A diagnostic/remedial perspective in which the teacher forms a detailed model of the individual student’s knowledge and misconceptions was assumed in the early stages of the study, but did not describe adequately the tutoring of the teachers. Diagnosis was not their primary goal. Rather, each teacher appeared to move through a curriculum script—a loosely ordered but well defined set of skills and concepts students were expected to learn, along with the activities and strategies for teaching this material.