The thought of two minds working together bring many great ideas to my mind. In education, two minds working together means group work, peer tutoring, editing essays, professional development meetings, etc. In society, I am reminded of a football team, a basketball team, or any other entity that depends on the work of others to accomplish a goal. However, is this a basic instinct for humans to work together? I am led to say no and I am led to say yes. I am torn between the two.
When we look around us in society, we see that it is not favorable in some instances to work as a group. In my classroom, there are students who refuse to work with others. They prefer to work alone. are use to this action. Working with others could heighten their understanding as well as heighten the understanding of others. When we look around us now, we have various issues and wars going on. Working together could easily resolve these issues. In these instances, it is not common to work with others. However, it would be very beneficial.
Many sports games require the use of people working together. In addition, many people rely on group work from the work place to the school house. This skill fords people the opportunity to build interpersonal skills, help others, as well as come together to get a task completed.
Rheingold took readers on an adventure when he told two stories, “old story” to the “new story”. In the “old story” he made reference to survival of the fittest, a need to destroy the competition. The “new story” spoke of problems that are spread across various areas. Whether working in a group are learned behaviors or basic instinct, it needs to become more popular in society. The survival of the fittest shrinks but still has a presence in society. Even though I am torn between the idea of humans having a basic instinct to work together, I fully agree that “we must learn that using collective action and working with a group is the best way to create a better society" (2005).
As an educator, I have learned and observed that learning takes place through interaction with others. Students work together to brainstorm, put their ideas together, help one and critically think. Technology has now forded many applications to aid in the collaboration of others. Such innovations such as blogs, wikis, google doc, podcasts, and other applications help learners to work together and collaborate with one another.
Rheingold, H. (2005). Way-New Collaboration. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html
