We never think alone, researchers say
Most of us remember it well: talking in class is discouraged, do your own work, no looking at somebody else’s work. The belief that learning was an individual, not a group process defined the classroom reality.
Now comes a well-researched book, The Knowledge Illusion: Why We
Never Think Alone, which argues that even the greatest thinkers do not think in a vacuum. We all rely on a “hive mind” — not just our own intellect — to get stuff done, even if we don’t realize it.
The authors, Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach, base their argument on the observation that pilots, for example, collaborate with co-pilots and instruments in order to fill in any gaps in their understanding of flight.
Architects, too, depend on various sub-experts to bring their ideas to fruition. Doctors, lawyers and a variety of professionals consult before coming to firm conclusions upon which to base their decisions and recommendations.
It’s good to be smart, say Sloman and Fernbach, but more importantly “the contributions we make as individuals depend more on our ability to work with others than on our individual mental horsepower.”
In fact, studying in groups helps students learn more effectively. More than 20 years of academic research has consistently demonstrated that when students work together in collaborative teams in classrooms, they learn material better than when they sit alone at their desks.
Research published in the June 2005 edition of Linguistics and Education, an international research journal, quotes R. Keith Sawyer of Washington University in St. Louis. Sawyer’s research identifies a pattern of group dynamics that demonstrates why group study is optimal.
In one case, researchers observed group participants were looking down at the notes they were keeping and then verbally rephrasing the point being made by someone else in the group.
It was the process of “putting it in your own words” that was the explanation for why group studying was helping students learn the material at a deeper level.
This, suggested Sawyer, was an example of active learning, an instructional approach in which the students engage the material they study through reading, writing, talking, listening and reflecting, as opposed to passive learning, where students are just sitting, listening and making notes. Passive learning is often limited to some form of memorization or rote learning, where the learner receives no feedback from the instructor.
Passive learning assumes that students enter the classroom with minds like empty vessels or sponges to be filled with knowledge.
Active learning, on the other hand, involves students in a situation where the instructor strives to create a learning environment in which the student can learn to restructure new information along with their prior knowledge into new knowledge about the topic and then, most importantly, to practise using that new knowledge.
In The Knowledge Illusion, Sloman and Fernbach suggest that human intelligence exists not just in individual brains but in an observably collective mind.
To learn effectively, students should not function in “silos,” but also must seek and internalize knowledge stored elsewhere, especially in other people. At its most profound level, knowledge never belongs to any individual alone but is, at its best, to be found in group settings.
The problem is that most students don’t come to group work knowing how to function effectively in groups. That requires some preparation, and teachers need to talk about the responsibilities members have to the group and how, occasionally, individual goals and priorities must be held back temporarily in favour of group goals.
Students need to develop strategies for dealing with members who are not participating, learn how to resolve disagreement constructively and manage time. Somebody has to be identified as the person keeping track of the direction of the discussion.
The Conference Board of Canada, a not-for-profit think tank, lists among its necessary employability skills being able to understand and work within the dynamics of a group and, as well, to be open and supportive of the thoughts and opinions of others while ensuring that the group’s purposes and objectives remain clear.
In their explanation of “why we never think alone,” Sloman and Fernbach contend that: “We are unaware of how little we understand … . we live with the belief that we understand more than we do.”
Perhaps as a caution to those who find themselves in leadership positions, the authors also counsel that “in a world where information can be shared at the speed of light, ignorance has its costs.”
That’s a world away from what many of us learned in school: To sit in our desks and just do our own work.