( CNN ) -- What if everything you thought you knew about education was wrong ? What if students learn more quickly on their own , working in teams , than in a classroom with a teacher ? What if tests and discipline get in the way of the learning process rather than accelerate it ? Those are the questions Sugata Mitra has been asking since the late 1990s , and for which he was awarded the $ 1 million TED Prize in February at the TED2013 conference . Mitra , professor of educational technology at Newcastle University , won the prize for his concept of `` self organized learning environments , '' an alternative to traditional schooling that relies on empowering students to work together on computers with broadband access to solve their own problems , with adults intervening to provide encouragement and admiration , rather than top-down instruction . Watch Sugata Mitra 's TED Prize talk . Mitra 's work with students in India has gained wide attention and was the focus of a 2010 TED Talk on his `` hole in the wall '' experiment , showing the potential of computers to jump-start learning without any adult intervention . Coming to education trained as a physicist , Mitra said he was encouraged by his boss to start teaching people how to write computer programs . When he bought his first personal computer , he was surprised to find that his 6-year-old son was able to tell him how to fix problems he had operating the machine . He thought his son was a genius , but then heard his friends saying the same thing about their children . Thinking about children living in slums in New Delhi , he said , `` It ca n't be possible that our sons are geniuses and they are not . '' Mitra set up a publicly accessible computer along the lines of a bank ATM , behind a glass barrier , and told children they could use it , with no further guidance . TED.com : Sugata Mitra 's five favorite TED Talks on education . They soon learned to browse the Web in English , even though they lacked facility in the language . To prove the experiment would work in an isolated environment , he set up another `` hole in the wall '' computer in a village 300 miles away . After a while , `` one of the kids was saying we need a faster processor and a better mouse . '' When the head of the World Bank came to see the experiment , Mitra said he encouraged him to go to the New Delhi slum and see for himself . After spending time with the children , bank President James Wolfensohn `` came back and put his hand on my shoulder and said , 'How much ? ' `` Mitra said he received $ 1.5 million , which allowed him to press on with experiments in India , Cambodia and Africa , finding self-organized learning worked to improve English-language pronunciation , reading comprehension and even the basics of DNA replication . Mitra said the traditional system of education is largely based on the necessities created by Britain 's colonial empire in which a vast amount of territory had to be governed by people writing things on paper and sending them around the world on ships . Schools turned out clerks who functioned as interchangeable parts in a vast bureaucracy where the skills of reading , writing and arithmetic were key . He argues that today 's world needs a new system in which the role of computers in aiding learning is paramount . TED.com : A Q & A with Sugata Mitra . To help speed learning , Mitra has recruited hundreds of `` grannies , '' volunteers from the United Kingdom , many of them retired teachers , who function more in the role of `` grandparents '' than teachers , skypeing into learning environments around the world , encouraging students to do their best and praising their achievements . With the TED Prize money , Mitra intends to build a laboratory , most likely in India , where he can test his theories through experiments that supplement schoolwork . He likens it to a `` safe cybercafe for children '' where they can strengthen their English skills , which can be a route to economic advancement . Mitra said he does n't think teachers are obsolete but suggests their roles may be changing as students increasingly have access to self-learning through computers . And he argues that his self-organized teams may be an alternative to regular schools in places where teachers may not be available . Traditional education stresses tests and punishments , two things that Mitra said causes the brain to shut down its rational processes and surrender to fear . Adopting a method closer to that of grandparents , who shower children with admiration , is `` the opposite of the parent method , '' which relies on threats , Mitra said . Note : A version of this article was originally published on February 27 , 2013 .
Education expert Sugata Mitra received $ 1 million TED Prize . Mitra says his research shows the learning power of self-organized student teams . He says instruction need not be top down and the role of teachers is shifting . He hopes to use prize money to build a lab to test his ideas about learning .