Minimally invasive education/Minimally Invasive Education



If you say it for me, If you write it for me, If you draw if for me, All I learn is that you are better than me.

How children learn in unsupervised environments
Children will learn to do what they want to do ... Dr Sugata Mitra

If you truly want to engage pupils, relinquish the reins and give them the chance to learn by doing - Ewan McIntosh

Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) is often associated with the research of Dr Sugata Mitra and his The Hole in the Wall experiments. Mitra found that when children are given free public access to a resource (in his case a computer) that they can "become computer literate on their own". He made many other discoveries (see Sugata Mitra Wiki).

The findings of particular interest to me, are that the children taught themselves English so that they could use search engines. He also argues that they improved their English pronunciation on their own. As a teacher in a school with a predominant Pasifika roll, I wondered if I could use this emerging pedagogy to improve the oral language skills of my students.

I had already been playing around with the use of video technology (as a part of my 2010 eFellowship research). Here I used the magic of video to enable children to self reflect and improve upon their spoken language. As a result of this research I also discovered that the use of cameras in the classroom can enable children to reflect on their group participation skills. This meshes very well with Dr Mitras research in that he also focuses on the importance of social interaction skills and value systems.

"Talent [can] blossom into something extraordinary if nurtured. When mentors serve this function - either turning a light on a new world or fanning the flames of interest into genuine passion - they do exalted work..." Sir Ken Robinson - The Element

Sugata Mitra Blog

Sir Ken Robinson - The Element