[ba-unrev-talk] Minimally Invasive Education
The famous "hole in the wall" kiosk experiment
http://www.niitholeinthewall.com/ (01)
"On the morning of 26th January 1999, passersby outside the NIIT
headquarters in New Delhi were treated to an unusual sight. A computer
peeped out of a hole that had been carved out in the wall that separated
the NIIT premises from the adjoining slum. As the day wore on, the curious
onlookers, mostly children living in the slum, approached the computer. The
TV-like device seemed inviting. First with hesitation and later with more
assurance, they began to explore. It took the children a few minutes to
work out the use of the touchpad embedded in the wall. After that, it was a
series of "hits-and-misses" as they fooled around with the computer. This
went on for the whole day...and the next...and the next... " (02)
"Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) is a pedagogic method, and derives its
name partly from the medical term minimally invasive surgery. The idea of
MIE crystallized over a period of time based on observations and
educational experiments conducted at NIIT. It was observed that, even in
the absence of any direct input, mere curiosity led groups of children to
explore, which resulted in learning. This, coupled with minimal input from
peers, or from someone familiar with the situation, helped the children
learn more. This led us to believe that any learning environment that
provides an adequate level of curiosity can cause learning among groups of
children. The children's desire to learn, along with their curiosity and
peer interaction, drives them to explore the environment in order to
satisfy their inquisitiveness. As the children explore their environment,
they relate their new experience with their previous experience and thereby
new learning takes place. Hence, MIE is defined as, a pedagogic method that
uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation
to induce learning in groups of children, with minimal, or no, intervention
by a teacher. In MIE, the role of a teacher is limited to providing, or
guiding learners to, environments that generate adequate levels of
interest. A known example of MIE is the type of learning that takes place
when an appropriate puzzle is given to children with little or no input
from others. Similarly, the Internet has a great deal of material that can
stimulate curiosity and learning among various age groups of children. " (03)
"Based on the above assumptions, it is hypothesized that even in totally
unfamiliar situations, children in groups will learn on their own with
little or no input from others, provided the learning environment induces
an adequate level of curiosity. The above hypothesis has been proved in
experiments conducted at NIIT. In these experiments, free Internet street
kiosks were provided to a group of slum children who were unfamiliar with
computers and the Internet. The children learnt to use computers and browse
the Internet with no formal inputs from anyone. After a careful analysis of
the experiment and the group dynamics involved, the learning process was
termed "Minimally Invasive Education". Why call it Minimally Invasive
Education? Unlike conventional pedagogic methods, there is no formal
instruction by a teacher or by anyone else. In fact, there is little or no
intervention in the group learning process. " (04)
"The results of the experiment have been quite exciting. Within three
months of opening up of the Internet kiosk, it was found that the children,
mostly from the slum, had achieved a certain level of computer skills
without any planned instructional intervention. They were able to browse
the Internet, download songs, go to cartoon sites, work on MS Paint. They
even invented their own vocabulary to define terms on the computer, for
example, "sui" (needle) for the cursor, "channels" for websites and "damru"
(Shiva's drum) for the hourglass (busy) symbol. By the fourth month, the
children were able to discover and accomplish tasks like creating folders,
cutting and pasting, creating shortcuts, moving/resizing windows and using
MS Word to create short messages that too in the absence of keyboard. When
the issue of whether the kiosk should be removed from the boundary wall
arose, the children strongly opposed to the idea. The parents also felt
that the computer was good for their children. The kiosk continues to be
operational till today with approximately eighty children are using it per
day. " (05)