Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.
He points to the following conclusions based on his "Hole-in-the-Wall" research:
- Remoteness affects the quality of education
- Educational technology should be introduced into remote areas first
- Values are acquired; doctrine and dogma are imposed
- Learning is a self-organizing system
He introduces the word "Outdoctrination," and he outlines his vision for:
An educational technology and pedagogy that is digital, automatic, fault-tolerant, minimally invasive, connected & self-organized... to address remoteness, values, and violence
During his speech, he quotes a scientist (whose name escapes me now) who said to him,
A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.
My own opinion on this is that a good teacher passes on his/her passion to the students. From my point of view, that's the only upside of having a human teacher. If that cannot be provided, well... yes, a machine will suffice.
Awesome research for the future of education...
I'm a sixth grade student and I would like to say that I think that Mr. Mitras idea to give children unlimited access to the internet so that the children would hopefully learn, was fantastic because then India has a way better chance at expnding their economy and to help the IT revolution. this will help with outsourcing towards india.
ReplyDeleteHello Anonymous!
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting the blog and for your comment. Yes, it is a fantastic project, and I hope his ideas will spread to other parts of the world.