I ask everyone reading this blog to scroll down to the bottom and watch the video if you have time. The blog should make sense without it but it is still interesting to watch.
I chose to do my blog this week on the talk that I gave this week in class. My talk this week was about a Ted talk that I was watching that was given by Sugata Mitra. He is an educational scientist and his talk revolved around the idea that some schools in the world are in locations that good teachers can not or will not go. This is where many problems lie in the world with children not having access to a good education. There are places like this around the world in poverty stricken areas and even here in Canada as well. I am not going to provide a transcript of his talk but I will summarize one of his main points that he thinks could revolutionize our education system and change it for the better.
Mitra is a huge proponent of Self Organized Learning Environments (or SOLEs). The way he describes these learning spaces is fairly simple. They are small areas that have around 8 children in them. There are two computers with access to the internet. A bench is placed in front of each computer and the children are split into groups that are fluid. What I mean by fluid is that the children have the autonomy to go between groups or even share information with each group. A mediator (or a person on skype which he refers to as granny cloud because the initial group of these mediators was composed of British grandmothers) is displayed on a screen to admire the children and encourage them but not to take an active role in their learning. The children guide their own learning and if you have watched the video, the results of these environments using this method are pretty incredible. The students learn arguably better and retain the knowledge longer than those who are enrolled in our current system. Children as young as 10 are teaching themselves biotechnology among other things addressed in the video at a level that is greater than some people in post secondary can learn it with our current system by simply using the internet and using the other student’s minds and ideas.
I stand behind Mitra’s studies with these SOLEs 100%. I feel that this method could allow us to give a quality education to people who otherwise would not have the option while getting rid of our classroom set ups and lecture based system we have now. Also, Mitra’s experiments were only over a two month period. Given a longer period of time, what sort of learning would occur in these children? As Mitra says at the end of his talk, “We could change everything”.
What do you think of this idea of child driven learning? Do you think this could ever be implemented in places around the world regardless of poverty level or location? Can you find any similar ideas that let the children take the reigns of their learning?
Here is the link to the video
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education?language=en
Life Long Learning: Evidence Based Education 
Hi Koleton!
I’m glad that you chose to do your blog on this topic this topic this week. Through your talk, and with what you further discussed in your blog, what resonated with me the most was the speed at which these children were learning. It amazes me that without having to instructed to the extent Western and traditional educations systems do, they demonstrated how effective children driven education could be. Moreover, the potential this approach to learning could have in wider populations in varying locations; especially since this form of learning was constructed from a place where resources are scarce therefore the tools they have to learn are minimal. Mitre’s study goes to show that this does not matter since these children in the child driven education settings are thriving with what they have. Referring back to your talk, I had made a comment of how this method could potentially transform the role of the traditional teacher. Since the child driven education focuses more on the child and their intellectual exploration, teachers would merely be the supervisors in this learning environment (Garther, 1971). From Mitra’s work and presenting that not only can these children learn a lot faster without the traditional role of a teacher – this begs the question: have students outside the child driven education system been cheated in the sense that the opportunity to learn at a much more efficient and explorative-friendly way? I find it interesting what the children of Mitra were able to inspire and it goes to show that it does not matter what materials or resources you have. Any individual has the power to learn without being told how it is done.
Reference
Garther, A. (1971). Children teach children: Learning be teachers. Harper and Row Publishing, Inc. New York, N.Y.
LikeLike
Hey ! Very interesting topic ! As young individual are most sensitive to information when they are young , I feel like this project of child driven education could be the next big thing. I think it would be super benefitcal to have it in places in our everyday class room too. As this would be an hard implementation here , because of how bounded we are with our traditional ways of class room set up ; teacher teaching students.
LikeLike
I think self driven education methods are very and appealing. The biggest issue I have thought of is if there are two students who wish to learn the same material. Of these two students one is from a poor impoverished family, the other from an upper-class family. This lead me to something known as the “Head Start” program. “Head Start was begun as an effort to ameliorate disadvantaged children’s lack of exposure to the ‘hidden curriculum'” – of the home (Zimmerman, 2001). This leads me to think perhaps the answer is not completely within the ball park of self-regulated learning. Perhaps the best educational experience would be a mixture of structured and free learning.
reference:
Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (Eds.). (2001). Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: Theoretical perspectives. Routledge.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on psychinedindex.
LikeLike