When the Tutor Is a Model: Learning Gains, Guardrails, and the Quiet Rise of AI Co‑Tutors
A tutor has three student chats open. In the first, a student has confused a factor with a multiple. In the second, another has substituted a negative number incorrectly. In the third, the student has already found the answer but is rapidly losing patience with being asked to explain it. The tutor must diagnose each problem, compose an appropriate question, maintain the students’ attention, and decide when further explanation becomes counterproductive. Doing this well requires mathematical knowledge, pedagogical discipline, emotional judgment, and enough spare attention to avoid replying to the wrong child. ...