A cognitive tutor is an intelligent tutoring system which develops a cognitive model of a student as he or she interacts with the program, providing problems and individualized instruction based on this model.
Cognitive Tutor is also the name of a product produced by Carnegie Learning. In each lesson, it tends to tell of a real world scenario. Then, it asks the student to solve a section math problems related to the scenario. The next section makes the student think of how they solved the problem and teaches them the concepts used to solve. Another scenario and questions with similar concepts are given. An example might be lesson of scientific notation for Algebra I. Students are told about how Sci. Notation is used to describe distance between planets and asked to simplify distances between planets. Then they are told how to simply move the decimal rather than simplify through multiplication, and are asked to apply this skill. The next section will be dedicated to Sci. Notation for unusually small numbers, like diameter of a cell. At the end they are asked to apply both concepts on a variety of different problems and explain in complete sentences what happens to numbers when multiplied by powers of 10 with negative or positive exponents.