Key
learnings:
•
Let go the control so the students take charge.
•
The power of collaboration.
• The
importance of students knowing the WHY.
One
of the most influential speakers at the conference was Sugata Mitra. He is a
professor of educational technology at Newcastle University. He designed the
“hole in the wall” experiment 15 years ago that involved embedding a computer
into a wall a slum in India where children had never experienced a computer,
the Internet, or even English to discover what would happen. The outcomes of
his experiment showed that children can and will direct their own learning when
their interest is sparked and when they are given control over their learning
environment. He concluded that when students work collaboratively they learn
beyond their chronological age because working as a group acts as a kind of
“intellectual amplifer”. When applying the results of his experiment to the
classroom Mitra adopted the “I don’t know, you figure it out” style of teaching
within a self-organised learning environment. If students thought there was a
good reason for doing it, they would research and self-teach new topics and
concepts. The role of the teacher within this learning environment was to
provide the motivation and creative self-organising methods.
Podcast
on Sugata Mitra's experiment: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/school-in-the-cloud/5498986
Mitra’s
ideas build on many of the philosophies we value at FOS such as the inquiry
process, independent learning and modern learning environments. The challenges
for me as an educator who values organisation, sequence and (if I am being
really honest) control over what the students are doing, are to actively plan
motivating learning opportunities where they why is clearly articulated, where
students take control and work collaboratively to investigate a question or
problem. My goal is to seek support from our highly talented GATEs specialist
to help me with this.
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