Sugata Mitra has a PhD in physics and heads research efforts at New Delhi's NIIT, a fast-growing software and education company with sales of more than $200 million and a market cap over $2 billion. But Mitra's passion is computer-based education, specifically for India's poor. He believes that children, even terribly poor kids with little education, can quickly teach themselves the rudiments of computer literacy. The key, he contends, is for teachers and other adults to give them free rein, so their natural curiosity takes over and they teach themselves. He calls the concept "minimally invasive education."
Susan Lister on 22 Jun 08Tharp, Estrada, Dalton, and Yamauchi (2000) propose the Five Standards for Effective Pedagogy as critical for improving learning outcomes for all students, and especially those of diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or economic backgrounds. The Five Standards are: * Standard I - Teachers and Students Producing Together Facilitate learning through joint productive activity among teacher and students. * Standard II - Developing Language and Literacy Across the Curriculum Develop competence in the language and literacy of instruction across the curriculum. * Standard III - Making Meaning; Connecting School to Students' Lives Contextualize teaching and curriculum in the experiences and skills of students' homes and communities. * Standard IV - Teaching Complex Thinking Challenge students toward cognitive complexity. * Standard V - Teaching Through Conversation Engage students through dialogue, especially the Instructional Conversation. These standards are discussed extensively in Teaching Transformed: Achieving Excel
