On a drizzly spring day in Boston earlier this month, three dozen musicians mingled in the President’s Library of the New England Conservatory (NEC), one of the most prestigious music institutions in the country. The weather did not dampen the infectious enthusiasm in the room. After all, 10 of these musicians were about to mark […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFdqvCL2W2k&w=586&h=330] By Natasha Scripture Sugata Mitra thinks big. At last year’s TED, he unveiled his dream to transform primary education. Instead of a teacher, a chalkboard and a generic curriculum, the recipient of the 2013 TED Prize asked us to imagine an environment that empowered children to learn on their own, with the guidance of […]
Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize story may soon be coming to a theater near you. Today during the TEDGlobal 2013 session “Exquisite, Enigmatic Us,” curator Chris Anderson named British director Jerry Rothwell as the winner of the first annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award. Rothwell earned a $125,000 grant to follow Sugata Mitra over the next 18 months as he builds […]
Last week, education researcher Sugata Mitra won the first-ever $1 million TED Prize to build his School in the Cloud. Prior to his TED Prize win, Mitra was known for his “Hole in the Wall” experiment. In 1999, Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall near an urban slum in New Delhi, […]
Following a rousing introduction from Sir Ken Robinson, education innovator Sugata Mitra accepted the first-ever $1 million TED Prize at TED2013. As soon as the TED Prize winner’s identity was revealed, the Twittersphere buzzed about Sugata’s vision for the future of learning. People around the world answered Sugata’s invitation to help reinvent the way kids […]
It’s a question on so many minds: what will the future of education look like? It’s something Sir Ken Robinson has asked for decades. And tonight in Session 3 of TED2013, Robinson got the opportunity to announce the winner of the 2013 TED Prize, someone who has a bold answer. “So many kids are disengaged […]
On Wednesday morning at John B. Russwurm Elementary School in Harlem, students pointed excitedly at cat photos on the Internet. No, they weren’t goofing off. They were participating in a “self organized learning environment,” or SOLE, a teaching method where kids are given an open-ended, curiosity-stroking question and asked to research it in small groups. […]
By Baratunde Thurston So, you might know me. I ran the digital side of The Onion for a long time; I’m the author of How To Be Black. People call me to do things like host White House events on innovation, do the wrap-up at TED salons, join semi-secret cabals at MIT, and comment on the […]
In a classroom in Ontario, a class of 9th graders learned the book Siddhartha, not by listening to lectures from their teacher, but by asking questions like, “How do you know when you’ve reached enlightenment?” Meanwhile, a group of 3rd through 5th graders in rural Georgia was posed a question in Spanish, even though they […]
Sir Ken Robinson is not just an amazing orator — he is the most-viewed speaker on TED.com. His three talks have been viewed an astounding 21.5 million times, making him the sneezing baby panda of the TED ecosystem. Naturally, this made us curious: what talks does Robinson absolutely love? In this new playlist, Robinson selects […]
Our minds and bodies constantly master lessons from our surroundings. In other words, we seem to have a natural inclination to learn. That is the idea behind this week’s TED Radio Hour: “Unstoppable Learning,” brought to you by NPR. This episode explores that dynamic experience of learning that begins in the womb and how recognizing […]
At TED2013, Sugata Mitra accepted the TED Prize for 2013 with a striking talk. His wish: for children to learn about any variety of subjects through self-organized learning. While this bold project will take form with a “School in the Cloud” in India, Mitra encourages members of our community to help with a global paradigm change […]
Where does education go from here? On Tuesday, Sugata Mitra accepted the 2013 TED Prize and offered a bold wish for the world: that we encourage children to explore questions about our world in self-organized learning environments. He proposed the founding of a School in the Cloud based in India, and encouraged TED community members, […]
Professor John Keating of “The Dead Poets Society.” Calculus teacher Jaime Escalante of “Stand and Deliver.” Marine-turned-teacher Louanne Johnson of “Dangerous Minds.” Hollywood might want to take note of a new award-winning teacher on the block, Stephen Ritz, who gave this fast-paced, highly inspiring talk at TEDxManhattan. A parent and teacher in the South Bronx, […]
When Maestro José Antonio Abreu lifted his baton, magic sparked to life. Young people from diverse backgrounds played classical music that could take your breath away, yes, but something deeper transpired too — they demonstrated the skills for both personal and cultural thriving. Abreu founded “El Sistema,” the network of youth orchestras, choirs and music […]
In Kingston, Jamaica, 4- to 6-year-olds in early education programs think about questions like, “What does it mean to be selfish?” In a school on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, fifth graders research topics like, “What is WordPress?” In rural Colombia, students at local libraries puzzle over prompts like, “Why are yawns contagious?” The School in […]