Intrinsic motivation does not have to be learned. It does not have to be taught or developed. Children have it in abundance from an early age. They explore their world daily, discovering and asking questions to enrich their lives. They do this without hesitation and with great pleasure. It is our job, as educators, to continue this path, to draw out their intrinsic motivators, to help them learn. Often in our quest to teach curriculum we miss the mark and turn them off. Some never return to their state of intrinsic motivation at school.

We need to be more cognizant of the interests of each of our students and find a way to touch each of their interests thereby keeping them interested in learning and willing to explore all facets of the topic. It is only through helping them to be motivated by their interests will we improve all levels of education. 

Sugata Mitra

Yesterday Sugata Mitra made a new post on his blog. I have copied and pasted it here for all to read. Included are my observations and comments about what he has written.

Happy reading!

http://sugatam.blogspot.ca/

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2013

Schools in the Cloud – What could they be? 

 Let’s look back at some past work: 

1.   Groups of children can learn to use a computer and the Internet by themselves, under certain conditions described a little later. This is a finding from a set of experiments between 1999 – 2004, often called the ‘hole in the wall’ experiments.

2.     There are places all over the planet where it is difficult or impossible to build schools.

3.     There are places all over the world where good teachers cannot, or do not wish to go.

4.     Children who know how to read can use the Internet in groups to research and answer questions far ahead of their traditional curriculum.

5.     This kind of learning is a ‘self organizing system’ in the technical sense of those words. It happens in a ‘minimally invasive’ environment and appears to be a  ‘emergent phenomenon’, again, in the technical sense of those words.

6.     The emergence of learning in children from a chaotic, self organized situation seems to be helped by the occasional presence of an admiring, interested, but not necessarily knowledgeable, adult or adults.

7.     Reading comprehension is a key requirement for this kind (perhaps any kind) of learning

8.     We don’t know, but can ask, whether children in groups can learn to read by themselves. This question is courtesy Nicholas Negroponte. We could also ask if children in groups can read at higher levels of comprehension than individually.

Is it possible to put all this together into a learning system for children in need?

If you give children, below the age of 13, access to a computer connected to the Internet, they learn how to use it. However, there are some conditions for this to happen.

1.     The computer has to be in a safe, public place so that parents will let children come there. A playground, for example, is a good place. Public visibility is important so that people can see what the children are doing and the children know this.

2.     There should be no adult directing them, children don’t like having people breathing down their necks watching their every move.

3.     About four or five children with one computer seems to be the optimal number.

4.     They should know that they are free to do what they like and there is no pre-selected activity. What they choose to do is a group decision. Usually they find and choose to play games.

If you then ensure the computer is in working order, children begin to tire of games in a month or so and look for other activity. Painting is a very popular activity and they learn to save and load pictures in the process. Some children learn to look for and install games from the Internet. In the process they discover Google.

If they can read sufficiently well in English or some other language that is adequately represented on the Internet, such as Spanish, Italian, Chinese etc., children begin to search for answers to questions. These questions are usually about games, but in the process of looking up these words related to games, they stumble upon other sites. In about six months time, they begin to understand keyword searching.

Some begin to search for homework related materials while others look for news or sports. I have seen some look for a job for their fathers, a horoscope forecast for their family, or medicines for the elderly.  They must have considered these questions important.

If a group of children find a question that they think is important, they will search for an answer. On the Internet, this will usually result in finding good information. Groups of children, in the presence of good information will discuss possible answers. Most of the time, such a process results in the emergence of good answers. A by-product of this process is learning.

We can bring this process into classrooms through Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs). This is now fairly well understood and accepted by many teachers around the world.

We can ‘beam’ people to places where they cannot physically go by using the Internet. The ‘Granny Cloud’ is a group of mediators that are Skyped into schools. It has been in existence since 2009 and is currently (2013), quite active.

Can the SOLE and the Granny Cloud come together?

Well, we have some problems:

1.       Are SOLEs really self-organizing? When conducted in a classroom, children are asked to make groups (by themselves), each group is given an Internet connection and they are asked to answer a question. We allow them to move around, change groups, talk and look at each other’s work. But it is we who are telling them to do all this. Are we moving away from the chaotic self-organization of the hole in the wall? (this question is courtesy C.Y. Gopinath). We could argue that an ‘attractor’ or a ‘seed’ is required for emergent behavior to happen in a self organizing system. But is the adult organizing a SOLE just a seed? Or is this adult the traditional teacher in disguise. Is it fake? This is a troublesome question

2.     If self organized learning is an alternative to traditional teaching, then how is the Granny Cloud of any use? Are we not bringing traditional teaching back, disguised with some clever technology? To my mind the Granny Cloud was to improve children’s English, but did I actually mean to ‘teach’ English? “The first granny said, "How did you do that?!" She …sold them on their own power. Then (on the Granny Cloud) you said, "sorts everything out." I hope you misspoke. I hope your granny cloud does nothing of the sort. I hope they don't work one-on-one with struggling learners because that would take us back to the empire.” wrote Thomas Garrod in an email to me.

3.     None of the original holes in the wall are in working condition. Payal Arora pointed this out, several years ago. Technical sustainability is a big problem, often confused with the sustainability or the usability of the method of self organized learning.

The TED prize gives us the opportunity to sort all this out and get some answers.

Schools in the Cloud must be sustainable facilities that provide unsupervised self organized learning environments to children. The role of the Cloud Granny reverts to the admiring adult, who sometimes asks a question, but mostly observes and records learning as it happens.

But what about reading comprehension? I don’t know.  The eMediators will have to tell me how to do this, as we progress. This will be our central research question

The role of the Granny Cloud will be somewhat different when they are remotely in charge of a School in the Cloud. In addition to developing one or more approaches to how they will interact with the children, they will also have access to much of the hardware in the facility. They will eventually be able to turn the lights on or off, check the batteries in solar powered systems, look anywhere in the facility, and, perhaps, ‘walk’ around through multiple cameras.

“A session is not a lesson”, Jackie Barrow had once said. That just about sums it up.

Seven facilities will be set up over the next year or so. Five will be in India ranging from very remote villages to urban slums and the urban middle class. Two will be set up in England, in relatively affluent areas with excellent schools. What we do in each of them will, I think, emerge, as we go along.

What else can one do when studying emergent phenomena?

 Sugata Mitra

My thoughts on what he has written…

The type of teacher required to run a SOLE is not your typical classroom teacher. They must be willing to trust the instincts of the students in their class. They must be willing to overlook conventional roles and routines and simply become an observer, or a silent evaluator. To truly do a SOLE justice they must allow the students to follow their instincts. In my class the students came up with the questions, formed the groups, monitored the groups, and developed presentations. The only factor during the research were time constraints, which we learned to work around.

Teachers are required to impart knowledge, but not necessarily at the time of the SOLE. I have bitten my tongue many times this year as they asked me questions. My question back is always, “What do you think?” followed by “Why.” They always reach a solution themselves and not always my choice but a solution that works. I let them take the lead, run with it and make the decisions. The students always performed well, made sure everyone in the group was involved in the research and presentation and made sure everyone was able to answer questions.

I would argue that reading comprehension grows very nicely in a SOLE as the students share the reading and discussion of what they have read. My lowest students were reading at grade level when we finished on the last day of June. In my experience reading comprehension improved immensely because the students were engaged in their research. They asked the right questions and discussed the impact of those questions. They spent time examining some questions from various view points, trying to see all the possible answers.

I would disagree with the idea that SOLE as performed in classrooms are teacher directed. Teaching using SOLE does not have to involve direct teaching during the SOLE. Traditional teaching is there to supplement the learning by providing insights and advancements to what they are doing separate from the SOLE. The discussions around the topics develop through models about speaking, being respectful, explaining what you are saying, providing examples, taking turns, and listening acutely to what is being said.

The one unexpected by-product of using SOLE was that the students themselves realized that their understanding of all the other students changed for the better. They were able to see each person as an individual instead of being someone else who was there in the classroom. They got to know each other better and became more tolerant and understanding of the idiosyncrasies of the other students. What were thought of before as inappropriate behaviours were now understood and discouraged. SOLE built a community in a way I had not expected. They knew it and are very proud of it. I was impressed with it.

Choices

 

What is it that students want? I read studies, articles, blogs and tweets. I watch video after video but rarely do I see what it is that students want from their education. We have experts lined up around the world ready to give their opinions but nowhere in there do we hear from the students. And that is a shame.

Over the years I have listened to my students. Sometimes I listened but thought, “I am the teacher. I decide what they will do.”  As I further listened and matured myself, I realized they had some important words to impart.

“Don’t bore me,” is always near the top of the list. When I read through reading assignments and look at the questions I always think they are good questions and need to be answered. But the reality is that students, despite teachers doing everything to engage them, do not see this type of reading useful. “We have to read this stuff that is sometimes interesting but answering the questions is about as boring as it gets.” When asked why they explain they say that the interest level is not there. It is not something they want to learn about so feel that they are being forced to do it. In my experience forcing someone to do something is the same as failure. You have already lost before you start.

“I want to learn about…(insert a topic here).” They have minds that are developing. Before they came to school the students explored their world and followed their interests. When they came to school they were made to learn things they were not interested in or weren’t ready for. When given a choice of topics they learn more and remember more of it because they are interested in it. They are naturally following their own thoughts and ideas.

So why is it that adults think they know what children inherently need in order to develop educationally? It would appear that our view of children as helpless individuals who need extreme amounts of directed learning to succeed in life is the major factor. We do not really see them as people. When I was growing up there was a saying about children. We were, “to be seen and not heard.”  It appears that this idea is still floating around in our world. We need to change this idea. We need to accept the thoughts and feelings of children. They are not all trying to get out of doing work, nor are they all inherently lazy, non-thinking individuals. They have great ideas and become functioning members of a class when given a chance. I saw this during the past year when I switched over to SOLE. Behaviours that were disruptive virtually disappeared. Engagement increased dramatically. Student happiness increased ten fold. Parents were hearing about things the student learned about because the students were interested in what they were learning.

All this was because I believed in giving them choices, allowing them to make decisions and become a partner in their education. They appreciated it.

Libraries as leaders

Today’s discussion with two librarians about the future of libraries was an eye opener.  On one hand the more experienced librarian was advocating for the status quo, the promotion of books and the development of stronger research skills through taking the time to research and write papers.  On the other hand the new to being a librarian espoused her idea that a library should become more of a technological reform centre encouraging people to come in and share their ideas and work in social situations. In essence I believe both are correct.

Libraries have been the one focal meeting point where ideas are discovered and discussed. Through the use of the books in the library people gain a better understanding of their world around them and are able to see how other people have handled similar problems and issues. Libraries are the research engines that have spurred and supported great minds for centuries. A teacher once said to me, “When in doubt, go to the library and find the answer.” Libraries still hold these values as they struggle with readership and a growing dependence on the internet. Fiction books are already moving towards e readers because of their storage capacity and portability.

To maintain their relevance libraries need to become more of a place for discussions among adults, places where non-fiction ideas are discussed and shared. They need to be the places where basic research is performed with their librarians being the research specialists, able to help those who perform research to find the materials they need in a technological way. Far too many people can perform a basic research for information but have little knowledge of the short cuts necessary to find the information they need quickly and accurately. Libraries also need to become the centre of historical research for a town, city or country. They need to be the collectors of the information. In essence libraries need to become stronger research centres.

It was interesting to hear the younger librarian simply sharing her thoughts rather than trying to convince her colleague that she was right. It was also interesting that the older librarian admitted she was resistant to change. Are we all not resistant at some point? The reality is we live in a changing world. To stay relevant we need to find a way to be more up to date. Libraries, and schools, should lead the charge.

 

SOLE Hangout

Here is a video of Alisha and Cameron performing a SOLE from the comfort of their own houses. They used Google Hangout to accomplish this.

Great work Cameron and Alisha! Special Thanks to Alisha's mother Jenn for supervising this and to Daniel and Andrew for their support.