The Science of Tutoring
Here are some of the science-backed concepts I use while teaching, many of which are “outside the box” of traditional teaching yet supported by scientific evidence.
Embracing Confusion
You may fear confusion and take it as a sign you don’t understand the topic. Confusion is actually normal when learning something new. Trying to match the new material to your existing understanding can cause “cognitive dissonance,” which is a clash between what you expect and what you’re actually learning. Confusion is uncomfortable, but if you can relax with confusion you will have new insights and learning will be more enjoyable.
The book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel argues that confusion can be a tool for deeper learning.
Taking breaks
When you’re not actively focused on learning new information, your brain is still processing the information. When you take a break, you help your brain to consolidate your learning and make it more permanent.
Breaks actually speed up learning. A researched method of managing your time called the Pomodoro Technique involves frequent breaks, and studies have shown it can improve productivity and reduce stress.
Chunking
Chunking is a learning strategy that involves grouping information into smaller, more manageable units. I will show you how to chunk into smaller tasks, then help you understand them individually before we try putting them together into a larger problem. This reduces cognitive load, improves recall, and helps understanding.
A cognitive psychology book that discusses the research behind chunking is Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience by Daniel Reisberg.
Metacognition
Metacognition is thinking about one’s own thinking.
When I guide you to start thinking this way, you can monitor your own learning process, understanding when confusion has developed and what learning strategies work best to resolve it.
Metacognition also helps you examine your mindset, which is your prior attitude toward learning. For instance, in math you may sometimes assume you’ll fail before you’ve given yourself a chance to succeed. But with metacognition you can understand that you have this assumption and learn to change it.
Metacognition also enables transfer of learning, which means looking for familiar concepts in new material.
The book Mindset: the New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck is a popular book that discusses the role of metacognition in learning.
Self-explanation
I will help you become a teacher to yourself. One technique for doing that is self-explanation. This means actively explaining new information to yourself in your own words. As you do this, you help identify gaps in your knowledge, relate new information to prior knowledge, and identify misconceptions.
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, mentioned above, also explains the research behind self-explanation.
Flash cards for retrieval practice
When you first learn something, you might forget it soon afterward. But each time you try to bring the information back to mind, you will remember it a little longer.
That’s why testing yourself with flash cards regularly will help strengthen your memory.
This is called “retrieval practice,” meaning you practice “retrieving” the information from your memory.
Clarifying your questions
It’s helpful to actively seek and identify areas you don’t understand yet and write out what questions you have about these areas. This is a type of self-explanation I will introduce early in our work together. See Mindset: the New Psychology of Success for a description of self-explanation in general.
Transfer of learning
Part of self-explanation is transfer of learning, or connecting new information to prior knowledge.
For example, if I’m teaching a new math technique, I will ask you to look for parts of that technique you recognize. I may even have you connect the new technique to non-math knowledge, such as coming up with an imaginary picture or animation that helps you make sense of it.
Teach someone else
I will have you explain new knowledge back to me in your own words, even pretending that I’m the student and you are the teacher. Studies show that this helps you gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. When you put your mental concepts (which may start out vague) into actual words, you are practicing actively recalling the information, and then you can get feedback from me.
“The Protégé Effect: How Teaching Others Can Improve Your Own Learning,” a study by Elizabeth Newton and colleagues, found that teaching others can help students develop a deeper understanding of the material and improve their ability to transfer knowledge to new situations.
