(Notably, research has found that asynchronous communication—of the kind that is now common not only among teenagers but among adult professionals as well—reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of group work.) In a clever jujitsu move, Barnwell redirected his students’ use of technology: he asked them to record one another with their smartphones and then analyze their own and their partners’ conversational patterns. Before long, his students were holding lively class-wide conversations—thinking and acting more like a group, and reaping the cognitive benefits that only a group can generate.
