The following article is a guest post from Jesse L. who is a recent college graduate looking to make his mark on the world. Currently he is a blogger and a contributor at the Professional Intern. You can follow the Professional Intern on Twitter @TheProIntern.
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1. Technological Impacts in Education: Why Collaboration Matters
Teachers are understandably annoyed when U.S. education is compared to European models. And if you want to encounter extreme displeasure, try making a comparison to the Swedish school system.
It’s not particularly helpful or constructive to make those kinds of comparisons. But suppose we were to look outside our own system for a solution to some of our seemingly unsolvable dilemmas? Where would we look?
If looking to the developed countries of the West isn’t the answer, maybe it’s time for a paradigm shift. Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places.
2. The Double Impact of the Education Dilemma
We’re faced with a serious problem. And acknowledging it shouldn’t depend on one’s political leanings or personal philosophy. Sugata Mitra explains in his excellent TED presentation about the education quandary occurring globally in certain geographic pockets which are hit with an inexorably greater problem than exists elsewhere.
“These are places where good teachers won’t go. On top of that, those are the places from where trouble comes. So we have an ironic problem. Good teachers don’t want to go to just those places where they’re needed the most.” Sugata goes on to talk about incredible experiments in self-learning in poverty stricken areas of India.
All of these experiments contain serious potential for application in public education, alternative learning scenarios and online school environments for children and adults alike.
3. The Role of Technology
These various experiments had one thing in common: leave a computer in an area where kids can access it and they can learn by themselves how to use it. And they don’t just learn how to use the technology. They figure out in very short order how to use it most effectively to extract—and digest—advanced information contained in the computer.
In one case, young kids figured out difficult information involving gene sequencing in DNA that, quite frankly, I can’t even begin to grasp. The unifying theme that seems to be common in all his examples is simple—kids want to learn. Regardless of geographic region or culture, kids actually like learning. Implementation of Sugata’s research may have very positive implications for education solutions in remote regions or as alternatives for kids not succeeding in traditional education environments.
And applying his insights to the unique issues facing the U.S. education system could result in interesting results. It would be nice to at least begin a serious conversation about his methods. After all, the kind of collaboration where kids work together to find the answer is often considered cheating in our education paradigm—at least when it’s unsanctioned.
4. Why Collaboration Matters
T
he significant takeaway from Sugata’s research isn’t that a child will succeed by gaining access to a computer. That’s missing the point. The educational magic that’s happening is found in the mix of kids, computers and collaboration.
The kids in India who exhibited such astonishing intellectual acuity in a remarkably rapid fashion weren’t just spurred into academic achievement by using technology. It was the collaboration—working together to solve a problem—while using a computer that seems to be what produces these results. And if you find yourself doubting that, consider Sugata’s duplication of these results in the British school system.
5. Universal Application Across Cultures
Sugata duplicated the Indian results by splitting a British classroom into groups and allowing each group of four children to share a computer and use any resource they could access to solve a problem.
The results were excellent at 76% per group. But when the teacher expressed skepticism about whether this was truly “deep learning,” Sugata arranged to come back in two months and proctor a paper test— with no access to computers—to be given individually. The results of the individual paper exam were identical at 76%. This seems to suggest that a collaborative self-learning model can be used to great effect. The problem with our education system isn’t that people don’t like learning.
Humans seem to have an inherent desire to learn. Maybe we just need to get out of the way and give people the tools and structural framework that can allow learning to happen.
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