Open Education: The Hole-In-The-Wall Experiment

I have advocated what I call the Open Model of Education on previous posts.

Open Model of Education vs. Closed Model of Education
and
The Questions We Choose To Ask and Answer: The Open Model of Education

I had the joy to read a great post on the  Open Education blog that describes the Hole-In-The-Wall experiment conducted by Sugata Mitra. The experiment focused around self-organization by children to teach themselves and each other.

Open Education describes it this way..

Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiment revealed that even without the direct input of a teacher, if there is an environment that stimulates curiosity, then it is possible for children to self-instruct and share pertinent knowledge. Because of its fundamental structure, Mitra dubbed the entire process “minimally invasive education.”

Ultimately, Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiments demonstrated that children could teach themselves and each other provided they were motivated by curiosity and peer interest. Perhaps the greatest surprise to many was that such learning could take place without direct adult supervision or formal teaching.

Here is the TED Talk given by Sugata in which he describes his theory and the Hole-In-The-Wall experiments.