Education Commons^™

Meta-Collaboration: Thinking With Another, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

What if we could dramatically improve our thought processes and learning strategies by tapping into the social genius of another? What if a classmate, colleague, or friend could help us recognize and claim our strengths, new habits of thought, and strategies from a perspective that we never imagined by ourselves? As human beings, our survival depends on others. Our ability to cooperate and collaborate has trumped the stress response state of competition within our species and throughout evolution. With a group affiliation to nurture these relationships, we can strengthen and reappraise our own thought processes.