Motivated to Learn

If you want to see a wild experiment in self-motivation, click on this now-famous TED presentation by University of Newcastle (U.K.) Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences. Sugata Mitra; it should blow you away:

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

The good professor donated an Internet-connected laptop “kiosk” (pictured above in the background) to a community of under-educated children in southern India. The kids were given a genetics problem, vastly beyond any possible capability they had… and were left alone with the device. Basically, they taught themselves how to use it, enhanced their language skills, actually began to understand the question, mastered “search,” and solved the problem.

“Mitra discovered that groups of children spontaneously formed supportive learning communities when given access to Internet stations and challenged to answer scientific questions… Mitra tells how a humble pre-teen girl led him to believe that he had underestimated his first experimental group of Tamil-speaking children. ‘So a 12-year-old girl raises her hand and says, literally, 'apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecules causes genetic disease, we’ve understood nothing else.'’ Emboldened by findings that one academic reviewer called ‘too good to be true,’ Mitra is seeking billions in funding and millions of voluntary man-hours to launch his educational vision into a global movement.” Fast Company.com, February 1^st. By the way, the kids are still Googling away; they’re addicted to it.

So like, computers can replace teachers, right? I mean with one-on-one interactivity with a cool device, kids can pace themselves, are immediately tested as to their mastery of a particular subject, and can move through a course of study in they own way… backing up and going forward as they develop understanding. Teachers cost money, computers represent a much cheaper alternative, and as school districts face massive budget cuts, programmed learning is the answer, right? But it feels so wrong…

Nevertheless, “Districts all over are experimenting with teacher-less computer labs and green-lighting entire classrooms of adult-supervised children exploring the Internet--an Android powered tablet designed specifically for students. Teachers' unions' protests notwithstanding, the cybernetic takeover might mean a redefinition of ‘teacher’ as a research assistant or intellectual coach, since subject-matter lecturers are no match for access to the entirety of human knowledge.” FastCompany.com. The Department of Education, in a 2009 report, observed that: “Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.” That’s it, then, right? Hey, add sexy visuals, interactive game-like learning systems, and kids will learn so fast, we’ll be handing out PhDs to teenagers!

Now you know I’m spinning this in another direction, but it’s not a bad direction, after all is said and done: “Yet, student-driven classrooms do have serious flaws. In the condition without any adult supervision, Mitra found that children achieve only half of what their peers in face-to-face instruction can. The lure of video games and other mindless online activity quickly eclipse the fleeting intrigue of scientific exploration. Children, it seems, still need the encouragement (or coercion) of an adult to keep them from drifting off….” FastCompany.com. Miami-Dade County, Florida is conducting a really big experiment in programmed learning: “[O]ver 7,000 students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools enrolled in a program in which core subjects are taken using computers in a classroom with no teacher. A ‘facilitator’ is in the room to make sure students progress. That person also deals with an y technical problems.” New York Times, January 17^th.

With state-mandated class-size limitations, the school district felt it had to find a labor-saving method to comply with the law. But this e-learning solution was imposed on students, and the reaction has not been as positive as administrators might have hoped; the NY Times presents this response: “Alix Braun, 15, a sophomore at Miami Beach High, takes Advanced Placement macroeconomics in an e-learning lab with 35 to 40 other students. There are 445 students enrolled in the online courses at her school, and while Alix chose to be placed in the lab, she said most of her lab mates did not… ‘None of them want to be there,’ Alix said, ‘and for virtual education you have to be really self-motivated. This was not something they chose to do, and it’s a really bad situation to be put in because it is not your choice.’”

The problem might be mitigated if the “facilitators” were actually “teachers” who actually… er… “teach.” This blended approach would allow adjustments, humanizing the educational experience, while still bringing the advantage of a resource-rich computer-learning-system to the classroom. “Michael G. Moore, a professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, said programs that combine virtual education and face-to-face instruction could be effective. This is called the ‘blended learning concept.’

“‘There is no doubt that blended learning can be as effective and often more effective than a classroom,’ said Mr. Moore, who is also editor of The American Journal of Distance Education. He said, however, that research and his experiences had shown that proper design and teacher instruction within the classroom were necessary. A facilitator who only monitors student progress and technical issues within virtual labs would not be categorized as part of a blended-learning model, he said. Other variables include ‘the maturity and sophistication of the student,’ he said…. Despite some complaints about the virtual teaching method, administrators said e-learning labs were here to stay. And nationally, blending learning has already caught on in some areas.” NY Times.

The truth is that this teaching system is in its nascent stages, but clearly, there is something wonderful buried deep in this field of “some of our ideas work, and some just don’t.” We really need to succeed in this noble effort, or the United States will fall farther behind those “better than we are” educational models in developing nations. Our future depends on it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and these are questions to which we really, really need good answers.