Thoughts On Sugata Mitra's Ted Talk About The Future of Learning
This was a very interesting Ted Talk.
I am not surprised that the children who were given access to the computer in the hole in the wall learned to use it and were able to teach themselves about complex issues. Children are completely unburdened by fears and expectations the way adults are. I think of my own children and how from very early ages I could hand them my phone and they would fiddle around with it until they figured out how to do all sorts of things with it. However, I question his thoughts about the future of learning.
Children can be eager to learn but I suspect that the children in the small Indian villages were even more fascinated by the computer Mitra gave them than others might be,because they have so very little. The reality is that most of them probably do not even have indoor plumbing. Getting a computer to use whenever they want must have been a monumental event....naturally they experimented as much as possible with it.
School in the cloud? Sounds great in theory, but I spent last week observing 8th grade classes. The kids were doing an independent assignment, not on a computer, but they were expected to work independently or in groups to complete the assignments. Only a handful of these students actually spent their class time doing the assignment. The rest were either secretly playing video games on their personal devices, or where chatting among themselves about things that had absolutely nothing to do with the assignment. So, how does SOLE work with a bunch of American teenagers who couldn't care less about DNA (or whatever the topic at hand is) and would much rather be shooting people on a video game or talking about who likes who. Can "cloud granny" get their attention and keep it? The teacher in the actual classroom had a hard enough time and he was right there in their faces!
I witnessed a student tell the teacher during a discussion about the Vietnam War that he was going to join the Marine Corps so he could kill Communists(...and terrorists too,he added as an afterthought) because they are bad. Yet this student could not tell the teacher what Continent Vietnam is on. Other students had similar issues and made similar comments. They could not locate Vietnam on a map. One pointed to a body of water... the Bay of Bengal. Another had no idea whether France was part of Western or Eastern Europe, let alone what role France played in Vietnam or how any of this history could be relevant to what's going on it our world today. This was all in spite of the fact that they have been in social studies class all year and they have been studying Vietnam and the Cold War for quite a bit in that class. I could go on and on. (And, in case you were wondering, this was not a class full of LD or special ed. students.)
One thing they did find fascinating was when a student shared that he had heard John F. Kennedy had an extramarital affair. This immediately caused a great commotion as several students pulled out their phones and began "researching" that issue.
Oh, but I guess it doesn't matter because KNOWING IS OBSOLETE!
Knowing is never obsolete...only how we get the information changes. Teachers need to provide guidance and push students to learn.
It seems to me that Sugata Mitra is the one in the cloud!!
This was a very interesting Ted Talk.
I am not surprised that the children who were given access to the computer in the hole in the wall learned to use it and were able to teach themselves about complex issues. Children are completely unburdened by fears and expectations the way adults are. I think of my own children and how from very early ages I could hand them my phone and they would fiddle around with it until they figured out how to do all sorts of things with it. However, I question his thoughts about the future of learning.
Children can be eager to learn but I suspect that the children in the small Indian villages were even more fascinated by the computer Mitra gave them than others might be,because they have so very little. The reality is that most of them probably do not even have indoor plumbing. Getting a computer to use whenever they want must have been a monumental event....naturally they experimented as much as possible with it.
School in the cloud? Sounds great in theory, but I spent last week observing 8th grade classes. The kids were doing an independent assignment, not on a computer, but they were expected to work independently or in groups to complete the assignments. Only a handful of these students actually spent their class time doing the assignment. The rest were either secretly playing video games on their personal devices, or where chatting among themselves about things that had absolutely nothing to do with the assignment. So, how does SOLE work with a bunch of American teenagers who couldn't care less about DNA (or whatever the topic at hand is) and would much rather be shooting people on a video game or talking about who likes who. Can "cloud granny" get their attention and keep it? The teacher in the actual classroom had a hard enough time and he was right there in their faces!
I witnessed a student tell the teacher during a discussion about the Vietnam War that he was going to join the Marine Corps so he could kill Communists(...and terrorists too,he added as an afterthought) because they are bad. Yet this student could not tell the teacher what Continent Vietnam is on. Other students had similar issues and made similar comments. They could not locate Vietnam on a map. One pointed to a body of water... the Bay of Bengal. Another had no idea whether France was part of Western or Eastern Europe, let alone what role France played in Vietnam or how any of this history could be relevant to what's going on it our world today. This was all in spite of the fact that they have been in social studies class all year and they have been studying Vietnam and the Cold War for quite a bit in that class. I could go on and on. (And, in case you were wondering, this was not a class full of LD or special ed. students.)
One thing they did find fascinating was when a student shared that he had heard John F. Kennedy had an extramarital affair. This immediately caused a great commotion as several students pulled out their phones and began "researching" that issue.
Oh, but I guess it doesn't matter because KNOWING IS OBSOLETE!
Knowing is never obsolete...only how we get the information changes. Teachers need to provide guidance and push students to learn.
It seems to me that Sugata Mitra is the one in the cloud!!
Thanks for sharing your take on Sugata's TED talk. I agree that it would be very difficult to achieve the same results from his hole in the wall work here in the U.S. I do believe there are some rural and impoverished areas where we could possibly see similar results. However, in order to make a widespread impact, it would require more than just computers and grannies. We're talking about a transformation in how we think about teaching and learning. The history class you described brings several interesting questions to light. If students had so many questions and missing pieces of information about the topic they'd been studying for so long, it makes me wonder about the teaching and learning strategies the teacher and students were using. If the teacher were to use frequent formative assessment opportunities (digital or non-digital), he/she would realize quickly what students do and don't know and be able to make adjustments. It also seems that the teacher wasn't playing an effective role during independent research, if so many students were off task. As illustrated in this case, the teacher is certainly still needed, but perhaps in a different capacity.
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of how it works in a UK school by way of comparison - it's not just India - also, several schools in the US are finding this approach works for them too https://greenfieldarts.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post, Beth! I agree, I wasn't completely surprised that the children were able to teach themselves how to use the computer in the wall. In the same example you've given, my two young children have learned over the years to operate my smart phone without any given direction. It was simply by trial and error. Also, I can only imagine how intriguing a computer would appear to impoverished children in India.
ReplyDeleteI, too, do not think that learning is obsolete. As you stated, the method in which we learn simply changes. I recently observed a project based high school and was blown away by these students. Their senior projects were mind blowing. While there, I had the opportunity to observe a 12th grade AP English class. I was simply blown away when the poem they were discussing became an active debate. These students were able to discuss the government in a manner that most adults could not. If learning was obsolete, would these students be able to develop projects that help the community, environment, and the learning students to come.