Check out this TED talk on the new Self Organized Learning Experience project from Sugata Mitra
http://www.ted.com/talks/
Ive never been impressed by Mitra’s “hole in the wall computer” for a variety of reasons but SOLE looks like a real educational framework around some of the core ideas that came out of that experiment and others.
Im also attaching the SOLE toolkit mentioned in the video for others to duplicate the experience. SOLEToolkit
This looks like a very interesting and practical experiment.
– Bryan Forst
2 replies on “Teaching SOLE….”
Thumbs up for this in that often teachers with all honorable intentions get in the way of learning. When students are engaged, and there are many ways to do this, learning becomes almost automatic. The teachers role has dramatically changed in the last 20 years to that of a facilitator of learning rather than a teacher. The teacher is still an important person but as a support to offer encouragement and guiding questions. I believe there is only two things we should have taught a student by the time they leave school and that is how to question and a desire and love of learning. Everything else should be inconsequential.
As a career educator in the U.S., I inherintly knew what Mitra has now proven. My most enjoyable & successful times with young people occurred when we were able to “sneak” out of the beaureaucratic formularized approach & let the “students” drive the learning. I taught HS English classes with 6 different primary languages & half the class speaking little or no English at the beginning of the year. By using the “grandmother” method & allowing individuals to incorporate & share their strengths, most of the young people advanced 4 to 5 reading levels in 1 year and had fun doing it! As Mitra emphasized, the key is encouragement & providing an environment where laughter (especially at onee’s own mistakes) is a regular part of the curriculum & testing is not an end result but simply part of the process. I applaud his research & the direction is trying to steer education.