Active learning in Lourdes Alem\u00e1n, Alison Brauneis and Ruthly Fran\u00e7ois’s biology workshop – Pictured in the photo: \u00a0Lourdes Alem\u00e1n and Jacques Pierre (standing, from left to right) and Lunie Labont\u00e9, Jean Philippe Dorzin and Bruno Walter (sitting, from left to right). Credit: Alison Brauneis<\/em><\/p><\/div>\nIn light of the history we have now sketched, there are obviously great obstacles we must overcome to succeed in our MIT-Haiti Initiative.\u00a0 But these great obstacles double as great opportunities for quality education (and social justice) on a global scale.<\/p>\n
The first challenge is: How should we create a new vocabulary for science and math in Krey\u00f2l? This vocabulary does not yet exist at the most advanced levels of these fields. This is unsurprising given the widespread exclusion of Krey\u00f2l throughout the history of education in Haiti. As linguists, we know that a language\u2019s vocabulary is like a muscle: vocabulary develops as one uses it. The more one uses it, the larger it gets, and the more strength it will acquire so it can do what we need it to do.<\/p>\n
There are other challenges: How can we change the habits of the too many teachers and students who have invested so much in learning French (any<\/i> approximation of French!) to the detriment of their progress in other academic disciplines? How can we replace the rote memorization of French texts with best practice for deep and creative learning? In order for Haitian teachers and students to engage in in-depth studies and research in science, mathematics and other subjects, we must promote a new set of habits, a culture of creativity and innovation based on active-learning methods in Krey\u00f2l.<\/p>\n
Indeed we are creating resources that will allow students to delve as deeply and as creatively as possible into math and science\u2014without making entry into these disciplines depend on the prior learning of French. The latter is an elusive target for most, all the more so that even the teachers are, in majority, not fluent in French.<\/p>\n
In taking the first steps toward these goals, we are creating, testing and disseminating high-quality resources for science and math in Krey\u00f2l, using these resources in faculty-formation and curriculum-development workshops in Port-au-Prince. In turn, these professors will share these resources with their own colleagues and students.<\/p>\n
As Descartes did in 17th<\/sup>-century France when he started to use French instead of Latin in order to increase access to science among his French-speaking compatriots, we Haitians and friends of Haiti must promote pedagogical materials in Krey\u00f2l if we want to spread knowledge among the majority in Haiti. This modern democratic culture of active learning is an antidote to the outdated habits of rote learning of French texts that few can deeply understand, habits that are still encouraged in most Haitian schools.<\/p>\nWe are thus working to make quality education truly available to all. If we take \u201call\u201d in its most inclusive sense (to include, say, populations that don\u2019t speak international languages such as English or French), this goal entails that we must find cost-effective solutions to any problems posed by translation, even as we build local capacity so that digital resources can be developed right off the bat in local languages, without the extra step of translation from some international language.<\/p>\n
So our work in the MIT-Haiti Initiative is tracing an example that should help the whole wide world take advantage of online educational technologies\u2014with the assumption that not every student in the world speaks an international language. This is MIT\u2019s Mens et Manus et Mundus <\/i>at its best: it shows the way for how new online education initiatives such as MITx and EdX can maximize their global outreach to benefit populations that have for far too long fallen on the wrong side of the digital or linguistic divide.<\/p>\n
Principles and objectives<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
We will conclude by saying that the basic objective of the MIT-Haiti Initiative is to bolster our Haitian faculty colleagues\u2019 efforts to enhance teaching and learning in Haiti. Our methods rest on two central principles:<\/p>\n
First: We are using Haitian Creole (\u201cKrey\u00f2l\u201d) to make learning truly active, constructive and interactive<\/i> for Haitian students. The best sort of active learning in science and math requires a great deal of reasoning, collaboration and communication. In Haiti, such active learning, especially the interactive part, cannot be done in French or English or any other language that the students, by and large, do not speak fluently. In Haiti, it is only in Krey\u00f2l that the majority of students can truly participate in interactive learning.<\/p>\n
Second: We are using new digital technologies to improve science and math education, according to proven active-learning methods. Thanks to these technologies (for example, a variety of software tools for virtual experimentation, simulation, visualization, modeling, etc., available on the Internet or on USB drives), faculty and students in Haiti will have access to high-quality virtual laboratories on their own computers or on the computers of their classmates or teachers. Such active learning will strengthen their understanding of a variety of complex and abstract concepts.<\/p>\n
One of the core ambitions of the MIT-Haiti Initiative is to increase the capacity of higher education in Haiti. One ultimate goal is to establish a large network of pedagogical resources, without barriers, throughout the country, and to have these methods and resources integrated in the State\u2019s strategies for curriculum and faculty development, as outlined in the agreement that we at MIT recently signed with Haiti\u2019s Ministry of National Education. This approach can be schematized as follows:<\/p>\n
Krey\u00f2l + technology
\n–> active learning in science and math with digital resources
\n–> quality education, research & innovation<\/p>\n
This approach will help us create a smarter Haiti, a Haiti that can lead itself toward sustainable development, a Haiti that can show the rest of the world an example of technology-enabled education made available to \u201call\u201d\u2014with \u201call\u201d taken in its most inclusive sense, beyond language and digital barriers.<\/p>\n
Only when designers of digital-learning resources start paying due attention to linguistic diversity will we be able to realistically envisage a world where quality education is truly available to all regardless of accidents of birth, history or geography. \u00a0Furthermore, the MIT-Haiti Initiative is opening up the pool of potential online learners\u2014to students who otherwise would have no access to English-based resources such as those currently available via MITx and EdX.<\/p>\n
Such efforts will help insure that technology-enabled education can, at least in principle, have truly global <\/i>reach to the extent that these efforts are helping us reach, and learn from, linguistically and socially diverse groups, thus incorporating diverse ways of learning into our methods for online learning.<\/p>\n
One welcome consequence is that this Initiative promotes diversity and inclusion with a profound transformative impact for all parties involved. We help educate a diverse world, as we in turn become educated by the diversity of the world we engage in. A win-win proposition!<\/p>\n
<\/a>Image: Some participants at the MIT-Haiti Symposium at MIT on October 21-22, 2010.<\/em>
Left to right: \u00a0Lyonel Sanon (Facult\u00e9 de Linguistique Appliqu\u00e9e,\u00a0Universit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Ha\u00efti), Evenson Calixte (Universit\u00e9 Quisqueya), H\u00e9riss\u00e9 Guirand (Facult\u00e9 des Sciences,\u00a0Universit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Ha\u00efti), Yves Armand (NATCOM S.A.), Raymond No\u00ebl (Rectorat,\u00a0Universit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Ha\u00efti), Thierry Ch\u00e9rizard (Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty), Patrick Atti\u00e9 (\u00c9cole Sup\u00e9rieure d\u2019Infotronique d\u2019Ha\u00efti), Joseph Hilaire (Universit\u00e9 Notre-Dame d\u2019Haiti),\u00a0Mich\u00e8le Duvivier Pierre-Louis (Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty), Marl\u00e8ne Sam\u00a0(\u00c9cole Sup\u00e9rieure d\u2019Infotronique d\u2019Ha\u00efti), Judy Leonard (MIT), Elizabeth Pierre-Louis\u00a0(Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty),\u00a0 Toru Iiyoshi (MIT), Janin Jadotte\u00a0(Facult\u00e9 des Sciences,\u00a0Universit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Ha\u00efti)\u00a0 Lucie Couet (Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty), Jocelyne Trouillot-L\u00e9vy (Universit\u00e9 Cara\u00efbe), Michel DeGraff (MIT), Jean-Marie Th\u00e9odat (\u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure, Universit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Ha\u00efti), Kurt Jean-Charle (Solution S.A.), Anton L\u00e9vy (Universit\u00e9 Cara\u00efbe), Vijay Kumar (MIT), Carl Darbouze\u00a0\u00a0(Turbo Syst\u00e8me), Sergey Gaillard (EducaTech)<\/em>
Credit: Jeff\u00a0Merriman<\/em><\/p><\/div>\nNote: This post is based on the article \u201c\u2018Many hands make the load lighter\u2019: Haitian Creole and technology-enhanced active learning toward quality education for all in Haiti\u201d\u00a0 presented at the Sixth conference of MIT Learning International Network Consortium (LINC), June 16\u201319, 2013.<\/p>\n
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