For example, schools with predominantly Irish background don’t have data that looks like Irish schools.
there’s strong evidence that smaller classroom size really does help a lot with performance across a wide variety of subjects.
Could you point to this data?
As to your anecdote, how long-term were your tutoring relationships? The post Razib quotes is all about about how everyone fools themselves into thinking that they were much better than the students’ previous teachers. On the other hand, if the students could learn the material once, maybe there is a scenario in which they could retain it. So I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if they did, but how do you assign credit to your having “taught well”? One difference between tutoring and school teaching is that some tutoring is for prerequisites that the student now has to use and has motivation to learn and gets a lot of practice on.
This is what I normally point to although more because they give a lot of good references and are online than because of their own research. Unfortunately, there are a lot of complicating factors here. In particular, suburban schools with generally white students from high income backgrounds are more likely to be in small class room environments, and school districts which try to keep class room sizes small are also very likely doing other things to also improve the learning environment. I can’t point to anyone who has corrected enough for all of those factors for my general satisfaction. I’d describe the data summarized in that link as strong but not conclusive.
I don’t unfortunately have that off-hand. There was a study a while ago that looked at schools where the students were primarily of different European group descents. Googling for it doesn’t turn up anything (unfortunately the obvious keywords are drowned out by many other articles looking at similar sorts of stuff for blacks and other groups). Glados linked to data below that if anything actually goes against this sort of claim a fair bit, so I’m going to withdraw it until I can find something.
everyone fools themselves into thinking that they were much better than the students’ previous teachers.
I’m friends with a couple of teachers—some of them are more excited about it than others, and those that are less excited aren’t fooling themselves. I’d guess there’s a large amount of sampling bias here, in that teachers who write about their problems and education policy tend to care more than teachers who don’t. I would guess that that would lead them both to be better teachers AND to be more motivated to convince themselves they were better.
Most of the teachers I know have only been teachers for one year (I just finished my second year of grad school—some friends from undergrad got their credentials and just finished their first year of teaching) and I don’t talk to them about their students very much, so I don’t really have personal experience with longer term effects (or lack thereof).
I haven’t thought much about it because I find the underlying sentiment sort of skeevy (if I give myself time to reflect this effect is often diminished I think) but also because I’m busy and not interested in teaching below university level, at which point selection effects kick in.
As to your anecdote, how long-term were your tutoring relationships?
Varied, most were in the range of a semester to 2 years.
The post Razib quotes is all about about how everyone fools themselves into thinking that they were much better than the students’ previous teachers.
Yeah, this is obviously a problem. I suspect that in many cases I wasn’t better than the previous teachers in any substantial fashion, but a 1-1 setting will work better than almost any other setting, so even if the teacher is better at teaching, having a tutor will still likely work well.
One difference between tutoring and school teaching is that some tutoring is for prerequisites that the student now has to use and has motivation to learn and gets a lot of practice on.
This is definitely a problem. A lot of the students I tutored were students who were failing classes because they hadn’t mastered basic material from 2 or 3 years ago.
On the other hand, as long as were using anecdotal evidence (which frankly using to this extent makes me uncomfortable) I had one student who was very smart, possibly smarter than I am, and I started tutoring him when he was a junior in highschool and couldn’t do almost any math beyond about 7th grade (had trouble solving any equations more complicated than something like x+8=10). In his case it was very clearly an incredibly poor learning environment (although based on other data, it does seem like the the students were so disruptive that the teachers were spending most of their time just trying to control the students). I tutored him for about 1.5 years and he is he’s now a computer science major at a respected university, and doing quite well. He got an A in linear algebra two semesters ago and is now taking algorithms and some other similar classes. I obviously had some impact but the fact that his general intelligence was very high obviously helped in terms of success and long-term retention.
a 1-1 setting will work better than almost any other setting
I can see a lot of mechanisms that would allow tutoring to move faster or go further, but the original post claims that the students do quickly learn the material in the ordinary class, only to quickly forget it. I don’t see any mechanisms for tutoring to lead to better recall. Do you?
There might be. A 1-1 setting makes it easier to see if a student has a superficial understanding that is more likely to be forgotten. But the essential point you raise is definitely a valid one. I’m not aware of any studies that look at retention rates for tutoring.
Could you point to this data?
As to your anecdote, how long-term were your tutoring relationships? The post Razib quotes is all about about how everyone fools themselves into thinking that they were much better than the students’ previous teachers. On the other hand, if the students could learn the material once, maybe there is a scenario in which they could retain it. So I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if they did, but how do you assign credit to your having “taught well”? One difference between tutoring and school teaching is that some tutoring is for prerequisites that the student now has to use and has motivation to learn and gets a lot of practice on.
This is what I normally point to although more because they give a lot of good references and are online than because of their own research. Unfortunately, there are a lot of complicating factors here. In particular, suburban schools with generally white students from high income backgrounds are more likely to be in small class room environments, and school districts which try to keep class room sizes small are also very likely doing other things to also improve the learning environment. I can’t point to anyone who has corrected enough for all of those factors for my general satisfaction. I’d describe the data summarized in that link as strong but not conclusive.
Thanks!
How about data on the Irish-Americans you mentioned?
I don’t unfortunately have that off-hand. There was a study a while ago that looked at schools where the students were primarily of different European group descents. Googling for it doesn’t turn up anything (unfortunately the obvious keywords are drowned out by many other articles looking at similar sorts of stuff for blacks and other groups). Glados linked to data below that if anything actually goes against this sort of claim a fair bit, so I’m going to withdraw it until I can find something.
I’m friends with a couple of teachers—some of them are more excited about it than others, and those that are less excited aren’t fooling themselves. I’d guess there’s a large amount of sampling bias here, in that teachers who write about their problems and education policy tend to care more than teachers who don’t. I would guess that that would lead them both to be better teachers AND to be more motivated to convince themselves they were better.
Did you read the original post? Does it match what you observe?
Most of the teachers I know have only been teachers for one year (I just finished my second year of grad school—some friends from undergrad got their credentials and just finished their first year of teaching) and I don’t talk to them about their students very much, so I don’t really have personal experience with longer term effects (or lack thereof).
I haven’t thought much about it because I find the underlying sentiment sort of skeevy (if I give myself time to reflect this effect is often diminished I think) but also because I’m busy and not interested in teaching below university level, at which point selection effects kick in.
Varied, most were in the range of a semester to 2 years.
Yeah, this is obviously a problem. I suspect that in many cases I wasn’t better than the previous teachers in any substantial fashion, but a 1-1 setting will work better than almost any other setting, so even if the teacher is better at teaching, having a tutor will still likely work well.
This is definitely a problem. A lot of the students I tutored were students who were failing classes because they hadn’t mastered basic material from 2 or 3 years ago.
On the other hand, as long as were using anecdotal evidence (which frankly using to this extent makes me uncomfortable) I had one student who was very smart, possibly smarter than I am, and I started tutoring him when he was a junior in highschool and couldn’t do almost any math beyond about 7th grade (had trouble solving any equations more complicated than something like x+8=10). In his case it was very clearly an incredibly poor learning environment (although based on other data, it does seem like the the students were so disruptive that the teachers were spending most of their time just trying to control the students). I tutored him for about 1.5 years and he is he’s now a computer science major at a respected university, and doing quite well. He got an A in linear algebra two semesters ago and is now taking algorithms and some other similar classes. I obviously had some impact but the fact that his general intelligence was very high obviously helped in terms of success and long-term retention.
I can see a lot of mechanisms that would allow tutoring to move faster or go further, but the original post claims that the students do quickly learn the material in the ordinary class, only to quickly forget it. I don’t see any mechanisms for tutoring to lead to better recall. Do you?
There might be. A 1-1 setting makes it easier to see if a student has a superficial understanding that is more likely to be forgotten. But the essential point you raise is definitely a valid one. I’m not aware of any studies that look at retention rates for tutoring.