Mathematics Synchronous Peer Tutoring System for Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to develop and explore the impact of a synchronous peer tutoring system, which integrated a structured peer tutoring strategy with technological advances, for students with learning disabilities (LD). The system provided a learning activity management module for teachers to administer peer tutoring activities, and included various math representation objects, communication tools, and reward schema for facilitating online peer learning activities. Four fourth-grade students with LD participated in this study in the online peer learning setting for two semesters. The results indicated that the proposed system was effective to enhance the mathematics learning of students with LD, especially the learning of conceptual and application math problems. Students with LD showed improvement in math fluency on conceptual problems. The findings also supported the effectiveness of the math objects provided by the synchronous peer tutoring system for facilitating communication among students and understanding of math concepts in the online activities. The results are discussed from the perspective of online peer learning research.