NISR Advisory Board

Self organised learning environments and the sacrifice of education to qualification.James Stanfield (james.Stanfield@ncl.ac.uk)

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BACKGROUND

HOW DID IT COME ABOUT?

Sugata Mitra starts the “Hole in the Wall” experiment in 1999

1999 2007 2013 2015

Sugata Mitra presented three TED talks (07-13), culminating to winning the $1M TED Prize

Around the world, educators are also bringing the SOLE concept to the classroom

The concept: Self-Organizing Learning Environments (SOLEs)

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GLOBAL MOVEMENT

+ Others

Gocharan (Lab 0)

West Bengal(Lab 1)

SOLE New Delhi (Lab 3)

SOLE Maharashtra(Lab 4)

West Bengal(Lab 2)

SOLE UK(Labs 5 & 6)

Stand-alone Labs SOLE Global Projects

SOLE Central is a university research centre, which is collecting and analysing research across the School in the Cloud ecosystem

Research interests

Impact of SOLE on:

• Individual learners• Teachers • Schools & communities

Research projects:

• Using SOLEs to help children learn coding• Using SOLEs to learn English as a foreign language• Using SOLE to improve reading comprehension• Using SOLE to promoting young people's engagement• Using SOLE to develop 21st century skills

Granny Cloud

THE SCHOOL IN THE CLOUD IS THE UMBRELLA BRAND FOR A GLOBAL RESEARCH PROJECT WHICH INCLUDES: TED PRIZE FUNDED LABS, INDEPENDENTLY-FUNDED SOLE PROJECTS AND THE GRANNY CLOUD

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Why?Developing countries – lack of schools, teachers & resources & growth of the internet.

Developed countries – lack of engagement, disconnect between schools and outside world, schools failing to develop key skills, questions about the qualification system.

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Learning at the edge of chaosThe way in which children behave during SOLE sessions around the world are reminiscent of self-organising systems: • Governed by very simple rules – continuously evolving• Chaotic and unpredictable• Self correcting• Small changes have large impact• Whole is greater than the sum of the parts

The evaluation problem

• In a complex and chaotic world, similar conditions could produce very different outcomes. • Therefore, if something works once, there would be no guarantee that it will work the

same again a second time. • Regularity and conformity therefore break down to irregularity and diversity and effects are

no longer the straightforward and continuous functions of causes. • Furthermore, universal theories now provide inadequate accounts of local developments

and it is these emerging local rules and behaviours that undermine our ability to generalise about “what works.”

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From the Hole in the Wall to the School in the Cloud• Children in unsupervised and self-organised groups can learn to

use the Internet for their own purpose (1999-2005).• They learn to search and find answers to questions they have. • Such ‘hole in the wall’ environments can be created inside

schools. They are called ‘Self Organised Learning Environments’ (SOLEs, 2006-2010).

• In SOLEs, children can learn almost anything by themselves. Their reading comprehension, searching skills and self-confidence seem to improve quickly. Search engines are at the heart of this process.

• This process is helped by the presence of a friendly, but not necessarily knowledgeable, mediator.

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The future of assessment• Current assessment systems look for identical responses

from learners.• Open-ended questions cannot be asked in such

assessment.• We need a new assessment system that looks for

imagination, creativity, critical thinking and the ability to learn quickly, when there is need to know. The emphasis needs to change from ‘What is the answer?’ to ‘how will you find the answer?’. Use of the Internet should be allowed during examinations.

• Fair evaluation of such a new assessment system is not possible by human examiners for large numbers of learners. More research on automated and continuous evaluation of open-ended questions and tasks is needed.

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The future of Pedagogy• ‘Spontaneous Order’ as an emergent process seems to be a

new mechanism in children’s education, in the presence of the Internet.

• It is irrelevant to provide direct factual information, manually. Reading, writing and arithmetic are of newer and lower priority.

• The role of memory in education does not need emphasis, devices are playing that role.

• Encouragement can replace guidance. The teacher’s role is that of a friend, not a guide or a mentor or a facilitator.

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Whether in the case of elementary schools, of scholarships, or of the class list at the Universities, it affirmed that evils of the same type tended to follow in every case the subjection of teaching to examination.

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“the centralising influence which great prizes had on education, leading all schools to adopt the same methods and thus cutting one deep rut in which all those engaged in education travelled ; and it then laid special stress on the narrowing and depressing effect which reading with a view to satisfy the examiner's mind necessarily has on the student.

• the temporary strengthening of the rote-faculties to the neglect of the rational faculties, • the rapid forgetfulness of knowledge acquired, • the cultivation of a quick superficiality and power of cleverly skimming a subject, • the consequent incapacity for undertaking original work, • the desire to appear to know rather than to know, • the forming of judgment on great matters where judgment should come later, • the conventional treatment of a subject and loss of spontaneity, • the dependence upon highly skilled guidance, • the belief in artifices and formulated answers, • the beating out of small quantities of gold-leaf to cover great expanses, • the diffusion of energies over many subjects for the sake of marks, • the mental disinclination that supervenes to undertake work, which is not of a directly remunerative

character.

It was sufficient to affirm that in its broad features the system was hopelessly evil and to be mercilessly condemned. It was a system from which the soul had been taken, leaving but an earthy remainder; it put lower motives in the place of higher motives, and denied and discouraged the generous interest that the young feel in the great subjects of knowledge.

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