Collective Intelligence

I was doing some research online this weekend, and I came across an interesting term: collective intelligence. The more I read about this concept, the more I became convinced that the idea of collective intelligence helps to explain one of the fundamental strengths of the professional learning team model—the whole really can be greater than the sum of the parts.

I found a number of different definitions of collective intelligence at Wikipedia. One definition was “an intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals, an intelligence that seemingly has a mind of its own.” Another definition by George Por, which rang especially true for me, was “the capacity of a human community to evolve toward higher order complexity thought, problem-solving and integration through collaboration and innovation”. In fact, Wikipedia itself is sometimes used as an example of collective intelligence, given that Wikipedia is an organic outcome of the knowledge base and ongoing, collective editing process of thousands of contributors.

I have always thought of a professional learning team as a vehicle for individual improvement, as an opportunity for teachers to learn from each other through a collaborative process and to translate that learning into improvements in classroom practices and improvements in student learning. But the concept of collective intelligence adds another layer to my understanding. PLTs are also entities unto themselves (that is, something more than just a collection of individual teachers), and as a group entity they have the capacity to impact student learning beyond the individual improvements of the constituent members.

Let me give a practical example of what I mean. Let’s say that a teacher comes to her PLT frustrated that one of her students is struggling with fractions. She has tried teaching, re-teaching, working one-on-one, and nothing seems to work. As the PLT discusses this dilemma, various members bring different ideas, perspectives, and resources to the conversation. Because this is a high-functioning team, the goal of the conversation is not just to give the frustrated teacher a laundry list of new possibilities, but rather, as a team, to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the problem and how it might be addressed. Over the course of the conversation, the team discusses the concept of fractions and what it is about fractions that students find difficult. Team members share their own experiences learning about and teaching about fractions, and as each member adds to the conversation, the group identifies possible insights into the reasons underlying the struggling student’s difficulty. The team puts together a plan, which the original teacher will implement, to try several new approaches with the student.

From one perspective, we could say that the original teacher learned something from the other team members, and that she will now be able to improve her practices as a result of that learning. From this perspective, a knowledge transaction occurred: the other teachers shared their knowledge with the original teacher, and she returns to her classroom an even more effective educator. But through the lens of collective intelligence, there is also something else going on here, something of a transformative nature. From a second perspective, the team has increased its collective intelligence through purposeful, organic conversation, and the original teacher returns to the classroom not just as an individual, but as an extension of the team. The team itself has transformed, and through this transformation has increased the individual and collective effectiveness of PLT members.

This is where the concept of collective intelligence has changed my understanding of PLTs. A PLT is not just a setting in which individual teachers come together, learn from each other, and then return to their individual classrooms. A PLT is a collective entity that takes responsibility for a large group of students, and through a variety of structured processes (e.g., conversations, action research, developing common assessments, analyzing student data) is constantly evolving its collective intelligence. Individual teachers become extensions of the PLT, which is in a constant cycle of growth and improvement. By working together in collaboration, the members of a PLT are able to create something greater than themselves, a collective, organic vehicle that is truly more than simply the sum of the parts.