Kevin also says that “before too long, [programs with inner-loop adaptivity] might even be better than a teacher at helping individual students identify their mistakes and correct them, because as as teacher I can’t even sit with each student for 5 min per day.” I’d say it’s likely programs might be better than teachers at that “before too long” only if you think of “identifying a mistake” as telling Joanie that in _this_ step, she didn’t convert a decimal to a fraction correctly. It’ll be a very long time before a computer will be able to say _why_ she made that mistake, and thereby help her correct her thinking.

http://www.philosophywithoutahome.com/blog/2013/03/18/review-of-math-tutor/#comment-870

My intention was to respond to your critique that a computer can’t figure out what mistake you’re making, because it only checks your final answer. Programs with inner-loop adaptivity do, in fact, check each step of your work. Before too long, I they might even be better than a teacher at helping individual students identify their mistakes and correct them, because as as teacher I can’t even sit with each student for 5 min per day.

FYI for everyone out there, there is a NEW FREE program that incorporates elements of this: https://mathtutor.web.cmu.edu/ . Curious what this community thinks of it. As always, Dan, let me reiterate that I’m a big fan of your work and the work of other commenters on this blog.