Additional Assignment #2

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

Mr. Mitra challenges many core principles, ideas, and beliefs we hold in education today.  He does this by changing the notion of learning.  The following are my answers to questions from the EDM310 class blog (or you can take them as statements from my understanding of the lecture).

1.  "Where you have interest, you have education" - Arthur C. Clark

2.  If the motivated learners are kids, they can teach themselves.

3.  What conditions are necessary for people to teach themselves?  Being intrigued...asking questions, and using a source of information to answer the questions.

4.  Computers and internet access are sources (the most powerfully organized and effective sources) in which we can get information.

5.  The desire to learn is the key factor in learning.

6.  Questions and problems are by-products of having a desire to learn.

7.  How do you motivate someone to learn?  This is a hard one.  Part of me thinks that motivation is purely intrapersonal (you are motivated by a personal inward drive).  But also, people are motivated by rewards or competition.

8.  My motivation to learn comes from many different areas.  Sometimes, just the excitement of gaining new knowledge or adding to my preconceived notions motivates me.  Other times I want to learn something to be able to teach it to my friends.  Competition helps also, I like having the highest scores on tests especially something hard, like in chemistry.  I like to feel like I can do something most people find difficult.  This is the egotistical side of me.

9.  Learning requires motivation!

10.  Yes, I teach myself daily.  In every one of my classes, I have to learn and practice on my own. 

11.  What do my college teachers do?  They throw a lot of information at me, expect me to be motivated to learn it (which I should be, I am in college now), and test me on what I have either memorized or actually spend time to learn. 

12.  Don't these type teachers seem backwards and irrelevant?  The video mostly changed the way I think about learning.  Learning is an emergent system with characteristics that we can't govern.  It is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and when we try to rule the process of learning, we are actually interfering with the process itself!  This video has many implications on me as a teacher and has formed many challenging questions.  I think from here, we must respect the new system of learning and guide children to be successful  members of society with this foreknowledge.