Teaching My Middle School Nephew Math, and AI Tutors Are Actually Useful
My nephew is in 8th grade and really hates math, so every weekend I’d sit him down to teach him, and it was stressful for both of us. But when I took a photo of his problem-solving process and used it to ask, 'Tell me where I went wrong,' he became much more comfortable asking questions.
Things he wouldn’t ask a person for fear of feeling embarrassed, he would ask the AI. What worked best was having him explain in his own words why he got the answer wrong.
That said, there are occasional calculation mistakes, so I still double-check the final answer myself. Even so, the old routine of getting stuck on one problem and bickering for 30 minutes has dropped a lot.
3 answers
Fr, kids these days seem more comfortable asking AI than people lol
I tried something similar with my own kid, not a niece/nephew, and what actually worked wasn’t the “AI tells them” part so much as “making them explain it.” I showed a photo of the solution, asked why it was wrong, and then had my kid explain it back in their own words. This is great because it filters out when they’re only pretending to understand. But calculation mistakes happen really often, so I just have the final answer checked separately. I definitely agree that it reduces stress from a parent’s or aunt/uncle’s perspective.
Well, that's a bit... If AI confidently explains an incorrect solution, the kid might just memorize it as is. My niece/nephew used something similar and ended up learning the concept completely wrong, which caused them a lot of trouble. I'm not sure whether just checking the answer is enough. I think a person should go over the solution process at least once, too.