5 Reasons I Turned Myself Into a Robot

For years I was convinced that in-person tutoring could never be replaced. Over the past decade, I therefore worked tirelessly to build up a successful in-person tutoring establishment, having trained dozens of tutors and personally having tutored over a thousand students. So, what prompted me to shift gears completely and create an online, customized learning software? What prompted me to create “Robot Rohen”?

Here are the 5 reasons why my team and I have spent the better part of the past 3 years creating this online, adaptive learning platform — www.DiagKNOWstics.com

1. Consistent Quality. Often human tutors have a bad day, or are good at tutoring some topics but not others. Tutors get tired by the end of a long day, or impatient with some students. These all lead to inconsistent/unequal and often low quality of in-person tutoring. The Robot Rohen always delivers the same, high quality instruction, and is programmed to be the best for all topics, not just ones that particular tutor is good at.

2. Availability. Often we got requests at the very last minute/late at night, and all of our tutors would be booked. With Robot Rohen, not a single student in need has to go untutored, because there is no maximum # of students that can be tutored at once — again, all at the same high quality of instruction.

3. Price. This high-end tutoring often costs thousands of dollars, and is unaffordable to the masses. This way someone with a limited budget can now get tutoring that delivers the quality of a $50/hour tutor — but at a cost of less than $1/hour

4. “No Shame” — Some human tutors, while knowledgeable, sometimes create an environment where students are uncomfortable asking their questions. Many students admit that they are ashamed to honestly tell their tutor when they “still don’t understand” something since they “don’t want to look stupid”. That breaks my heart. With Robot Rohen, the student won’t feel any shame since they are the only human in the room — and they can click on the “I have no idea” option as often as they need without feeling judged.

5. Active Learning — the software has students constantly answering content questions, which simulates a testing environment. In most tutoring sessions, tutors tend to “intervene” too quickly, which gives the student very little authentic practice of answering questions on their own. This is why students often feel like they “get it” during a tutoring session, but still can’t answer questions on the exam — it’s because they haven’t had any practice doing that! This way, they will have forced practice answering questions on their own as they move through the program — so they should be a lot more prepared for their tests!