Long before getting into this field, I stumbled upon the story of Dr. Sugata Mitra and his 'Hole in the Wall' experiments. (He describes them in this TED talk; you'll want to fast-forward to the seven-minute mark)
In the late 1990s, Mitra worked with an education group that was focused on the early field of computer science. One day, Mitra tried something out; he opened up a hole in his building's outer wall and put a computer in it. He waited.
Two neighbour kids eventually walked past and took notice. They played around with the computer a bit. Mitra noticed that the older sibling was teaching the younger how to browse the internet on it.
Mitra repeated the experiment, this time in a particularly rural community, where people were unlikely to have had any exposure to computers. Again, the local kids stopped by and started fiddling with it. They clicked buttons and tapped keys, and took note of what those actions did. Over time, the children were able to teach themselves how everything worked. They could collaborate, bounce ideas off each other, and slowly figure out what to do with the machine.
Mitra ran further iterations of the experiment, and they all had the same through-line: children were capable of teaching themselves computer literacy. One could argue that this was due to a combination of curiosity and agency; the kids were able to take control of their own learning, and do it at a pace that worked for them. They could try things out and make mistakes without having an authority figure chide them.
The children were also able to become the teachers, by helping others figure out the computers.
Two neighbour kids eventually walked past and took notice. They played around with the computer a bit. Mitra noticed that the older sibling was teaching the younger how to browse the internet on it.
Mitra repeated the experiment, this time in a particularly rural community, where people were unlikely to have had any exposure to computers. Again, the local kids stopped by and started fiddling with it. They clicked buttons and tapped keys, and took note of what those actions did. Over time, the children were able to teach themselves how everything worked. They could collaborate, bounce ideas off each other, and slowly figure out what to do with the machine.
The children were also able to become the teachers, by helping others figure out the computers.
Obviously, having an expert guide a novice is a core idea in education (social constructivism). However, I'd argue that sometimes, the novice can figure it out on their own. They just need to be confident.
In fact, 'confidence' was a major concept this week in our Learning & Development class - it's one of the keys to learning. A student can prove surprisingly resourceful if they have confidence that - even if they stumble at first - they can learn something difficult and develop a new skill.
Written by AlastairM@OTU
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