Article Title: Parents turn to apps for homework help
Article Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/education/story/parents-turn-apps-homework-help-20150427
1. The issue being discussed is that many parents are now tapping social media and mobile apps for
"online tuition" to help their children. Parents snap pictures of practice papers or school assignments,
and post up to 20 questions daily on each of these groups which questions will be answered within a
few hours by other parents or tutors.
2. Even though this method of finding answers to questions which their child does not know how to
do is popular, but I don't think that this is correct because the parents cannot keep helping their child,
the child should learn how to do the problems themselves. Even if their parents want to use this
method to find out the answer, after looking at the solution, they should tell their child the answer or
help them do. They should do it together while the parent is being the one guiding the child. If the
parent just gives their child the answer to the question, the child will not learn anything from it and
when this question comes out in an exam paper, the child would not be able to answer it since
they just copied the solution when they tried it the first time, hence the child would only be able to
memorize the solution to a specific question with specific values and they would not be able to apply
the knowledge of how to answer that question to other similar questions. So when the question is
tweaked slightly, the child will not be able to solve the question. For example, I know someone
whose parents keep letting him copy the solutions, which made him not being able to answer similar
questions which only the values are changed but the method is the same. In conclusion, I believe that
the parent should not just let the child copy-and-paste the solution to the question but instead teach
them step-by-step the understanding and reasoning behind the solution so that they will be able to
apply that knowledge to other questions.
I agree with what shihui is saying, but I think the point she made contradicts with what she is saying, as her suggestion is the correct use of the online tuition. So she is actually saying that online tuition apps is fine if used correctly. She is opposing the wrong use of tuition apps, and not the tuition app. However I understand that tuition apps also need to be careful, as if they just give them the answer, there is the tendency for the parents to just let the child copy as they them selfs do not understand, so the tuition apps need to be careful as well.
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