[IAEP] Sugata Mitra: The child-driven Education

[forster at ozonline.com.au]

> What a depressing talk... Did anyone see any learning happening?
> -walter

Walter

I presume you refer to the student achievements being at the lower end of Bloom's Taxonomy: internet search and data retrieval with little evidence of having thought about the information on the way?

In one test, which may have been a test of simple recall, the students were tested 2 months later. The test results were just as high. That implies that the students did process the information more deeply, simple recall I would expect to decay faster.

The experiments did show that young children can achieve a lot with interesting challenges and suitable tools. It also showed that learning is socially mediated, (as in Vygotsky).

What I would like to see is more depth. Given that children learn spontaneously with interesting challenges and good tools and that they learn socially, which were already established facts, what can be done to to build on this?

Tony