In 2017, IBM abandoned a five-year $100 million push to create computer-powered tutoring system, wrote Greg Toppo in April. It didn't work. Now Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, dreams of giving “every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.”
So far, the best use of AI tutoring comes from a new Stanford study: Tutor CoPilot helped human tutors become "slightly more effective" in explaining math, Toppo writes. Weak tutors became better at "offering different ways to explain concepts to those who get a problem wrong." They were less likely to just give students the answers.
A Louisiana school that couldn't hire enough human tutors has turned to an AI-powered reading tutor from Amira Learning, reports Aubri Juhasz for WWNO.
Students read a story at their reading level. If they get stuck, the bot will provide help.
When a little girl named Jaclyn stalls on the word map, Amira jumps in.
“There are three sounds in this word,” Amira says. Three boxes and three red balls appear on the screen, one for each part of the word.
Amira tells Jaclyn to drag the balls into the boxes one at a time while saying each sound. Together, they sound it out — “m-a-p.”
A majority of students at Gretna Park Elementary speak English as a second language. "Amira" can tutor in Spanish.
Principal Michelle Montagnino says kids who used Amira regularly after school went up an entire proficiency level.
"One study found students in Savannah, Georgia who used the tool frequently saw their reading scores improve," writes Juhasz. "Another in Utah, showed similar gains for kids who used adaptive reading programs, including Amira, for the recommended amount of time." However, most students didn't use the tool for the recommended time, and didn't make gains.
Online tutoring -- a human on a screen -- has struggled to get students to use it, reports Hechinger's Jill Barshay. One-on-one virtual tutoring seems to help, if students do it, but virtual small-group tutoring does not.
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