Explaining My Solutions: An Integrated Model of Peer Tutoring for Facilitating Mathematical Communication Abilities

Abstract

For elementary students, mathematical communication ability is a fundamental learning objective. Previous studies have showed that self-explanation could allow students to inspect what they have learned in the learning process, while peer tutoring could facilitate students to reorganize their learning knowledge as well as to express their idea. As a result, both could enhance students learning performance. Therefore, this study aims to design a system that may increase the mathematical communication abilities of elementary students. The study also conducts a learning activity which incorporates representation generation, self-explanation and peer-explanation in mathematical word problem solving. Preliminary evaluation shows that the integrated model may facilitate students’ mathematical communication abilities.