Interview with Prof. Sugata Mitra
Trained as a physicist and biologist, Prof. Mitra received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Solid State Physics of Organic Semiconductors from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 1978. After completing a research fellowship in Austria, he returned to IIT as for further post-doctoral research and teaching. Since then, he has worked to set up laboratories and head research and development centres in the publishing and training industries. He joined Newcastle in 2006.
The global consequences of Mitra’s discovery for closing the digital divide have resulted in many international awards and other honours.
Professor Mitra devises new ways to make computers, software and other artificial systems more intuitive for learning and more useful through the incorporation of such human characteristics as self-organisation and adaptive, proactive and emotive behaviour. Like all fundamental research, it leads in surprising directions. One of the best known is Mitra’s discovery that modern multimedia computers and children are literally “made for each other,” with cognitive processes so similar that children need little or no instruction to master computing at the basic level. Mitra is building on this discovery through the design of hardware and software that enable children to reach the intermediate to expert level entirely on their own.
OEB News Service: Curiosity, you once said, can be seen as the key to effective learning. In light of this comment, would you please elaborate on the current directions of your own scientific curiosity for us?
Prof. Sugata Mitra: Regarding the need for future oriented education, it is necessary to scrutinize our traditional perception of teaching and even to ask unorthodox questions. This can be seen as my main interest today. Concerning this issue, there really is a bunch of interesting questions that I want to investigate. For example:
- Why is there only one model for primary education (schools, teachers, and classrooms)? What other models are possible?
- How much can children learn from each other if given the Internet and other resources?
- How can machines replace teachers? Please do not see this as a negative comment about teachers. It is for those places on the planet where good teachers don’t go, for whatever reason.
- Why is current distance education considered not as effective as “face to face”? Why is the teacher’s presence so important? What does “presence” mean?
- How effective can peer-to-peer networking technology be for education?
- How does learning happen in the brain? What is its connection with consciousness? What is consciousness?
OEB: After being a leading staff member in the field of education technology at India’s NIIT for so many years, it seems that your emphasis is now on teaching students and doing research. In what way is this work linked to your globally renowned project “A Hole in the Wall”, which you initiated in 1999?
Prof. Sugata Mitra: I have always conducted research in whatever job I have been doing. Here at Newcastle I continue to do that. I enjoy teaching and have done it at NIIT as well. My current work can be seen as a derivative of the experiments regarding “A Hole in the Wall.” Also, this kind of work is continuing, and I am conducting it from Newcastle. Additionally, I am working on technology for schools for the poor. I am setting up experiments in both Newcastle and India to try and understand some of the answers. Currently, I am working on remote presence and self-organised learning by children.
OEB: What terms would you use to describe the technical and pedagogical requirements that come along with these kinds of investigations?
Prof. Sugata Mitra: I think a combination of Internet and networking technology, robotics, remote control, and psychology is what is required.
OEB: The educational concept deriving from your work is named Minimal Invasive Education (MIE). Could you give us some further details of this approach?
Prof. Sugata Mitra: Minimally Invasive Education is composed of several innovations in hardware technology, software technology, and cognitive design. It is one of the first attempts at applying the principle of self-organising systems to children’s education. Self-organising systems are usually studied in the context of physics and mathematics, and this attempt, arguably, represents amongst the first in the social sciences.
Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) is new educational technology for achieving mass computer literacy and some basic primary education at a cost that is considerably lower than traditional alternatives. It employs learning models such as collaborative constructivism and a series of interlocking innovations, both technological and pedagogical. Computers are made available in shared, public spaces, free of charge, and no structure is imposed on when, how, or what children learn.
OEB: You characterize MIE as a concept that will have important consequences for the area of education in general. What to you mean by this, and what are your findings so far?
Prof. Sugata Mitra: There are close to two billion children in the world. I don’t think there are or will ever be enough schools and teachers for them. We need new models. I think the answer lies in empowering children to learn by themselves to whatever extent possible. This is the basis of Minimally Invasive Education.
“Schools” of the future will have to be very different from those we have today. They will have very few teachers present, but many teachers will participate through remote-presence technology. There will be robots, both physical and on the Internet, which will help and monitor children’s learning.
Children will learn to live together and learn together. They will know how to evaluate different points of view. Self-organised learning systems will continuously evolve their own curricula and learning methods. Doctrines will be destroyed. I call this “outdoctrination”. It may be our only hope…
Prof. Mitra, many thanks for your time.
The interview was conducted by Nina Wittrock from OEB News Service.
Back
