Abstract :
What and how much can children learn without subject teachers? In an
attempt to find a limit to self organized learning, we explored the capacity of
10–14 year old Tamil-speaking children in a remote Indian village to learn
basic molecular biology, initially on their own with a Hole-in-the-Wall public
computer facility, and later with the help of a mediator without knowledge of
this subject. We then compared these learning outcomes with those of
similarly-aged children at a nearby average-below average performing state
government school who were not fluent in English but were taught this subject
and another group of children at a high-performing private school in New
Delhi who were fluent in English and had been taught this subject by qualified
teachers.We found that the village children who only had access to computers
and Internet-based resources in the Hole-in-the-Wall learning stations
achieved test scores comparable with those at the local state school and, with
the support of the mediator, equal to their peers in the privileged private urban
school. Further experiments were conducted with unsupervised groups of
8–12 year-olds in several English schools using the Internet to study for GCSE
questions they normally would be examined on at the age of 16.We conclude
that, in spite of some limitations, there are opportunities for self-organised and
mediated learning by children in settings where they would otherwise be
denied opportunities for good, or indeed any, schooling.We also show that this
approach can be enhanced by the use of local or online mediators
