Studying the Effect of Tutor Learning Using a Teachable Agent that Asks the Student Tutor for Explanations

We have built Sim Student, a computational model of learning, and applied it as a peer learner that allows students to learn by teaching. Using Sim Student, we study the effect of tutor learning. In this paper, we discuss an empirical classroom study where we evaluated whether asking students to provide explanations for their tutoring activities facilitates tutor learning - the self-explanation effect for tutor learning. The results showed that students in the self-explanation condition displayed the same amount of learning gain as students in the non-self-explanation condition, but with a significantly smaller number of problems tutored (during the same time). The study also showed an apparent increase in effectiveness relative to a prior study, which is arguably due to improvement of the system based on the iterative system-engineering effort.