Collaboration: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

9.5.18

Collaboration is the key to innovation in design. Collaboration in design allows us to build upon the knowledge, ideas, and skills of others. Together we can synthesize multiple streams of consciousness. Dr. Keith Sawyer argues that creativity builds off interactions with others, allowing us to to exceed what can be accomplished individually.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis takes is a step further:

“The ties between two people make

the whole greater than the sum of its parts.”

That is to say, not only are each of the collaborators bringing their own ideas and creativity to the table, but the interaction itself brings an extra dimension of innovation. Dr. Christakis's analogy of the makeup of diamonds and graphite makes it most clear. Diamonds and graphite are both carbon based entities. They are made of the same substance, but one is hard and clear while the other is soft and dark. The input is the carbon, and the difference in the outcome is based on not what the substance is made of, but how the substance is structured. (Dr. Christakis's TED Talk embedded below)

In Dr. Lisa Dawley's Paper, Social Network Knowledge Construction: Emerging Virtual World Pedagogy, she argues "social network technologies not only frame the way individuals’ interact and learn, but actually impact the thinking process itself" (Dawley, 2009). Instead of a teacher-lectures-to-student model, the whole process of learning gets turned on its head in social network learning. Now, students easily communicate with the teacher, peers, experts in the field, and data.

George Couros, in his book The Innovator's Mindset, speaks to the value of relationships on education as a whole (in fact he has a whole chapter dedicated to it). Cultivating a culture of trust is key to any successful educational endeavor. Students and teachers alike need to feel safe taking risks. Building relationships builds trust. Trust leads to innovation via risk taking (Couros, 2015).

This week I had to opportunity to collaborate on a 3-D design in Minecraft with a classmate of mine, Jason Straus. Our project quickly got off the ground (literally, it was a treehouse), and became much more than an assignment. We spent the week collaborating via text, bouncing ideas, problem solving, and, most importantly, enjoying the process. We embodied the "learning through collaboration" mindset, and I feel our design is better for it.

Collaboration in learning and design can truly propel us to an end greater than we could achieve adding up individual efforts. Our goal should be to recognize these interactions and harness them for maximum return, to build off of interaction, improvisation, and induction from others. If we operate in a vacuum, we lose the opportunity to experience this phenomenon. We waste the potential to be greater than the sum of our individual efforts.

Rocky Moon

Dr. Nicholas Christakis: 2010 TED Talk