Dr. Sugata Mitra: Unsupervised Learning

Most people would agree that there is no replacement for a good teacher, but what happens when the good teachers do not want to go where they are needed the most? In this TED Talks video, Dr. Sugata Mitra argues that every country on earth has regions where good teachers are needed but are not available. He also has suggestions for improving these situations.

Mitra says, “Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.” He experimented with the ways children will drive their own education by placing computers (without instructions) in various areas of the world such as embedded in a wall in a slum in Delhi, India; then observed the students' interaction with the devices and the students' ability to identify and make use of its resources. Mitra found that the children’s interest in the computers allowed the students to work together to educate themselves in using the hardware and software and in navigating the Internet to find the answers to both simple and complicated questions.

I encourage you to watch the video and check out Hole-in-the-Wall , a learning methodology created by Dr. Sugata Mitra .