The “Wisdom of Crowds” hypothesis came into our lives in many fields, including business, navigation software and Wikipedia, but not education. When using the wisdom of crowds, the challenge is to make the right judgment in order to find the right ways to introduce crowd-sourcing into processes so that it opens up decisions by harvesting accumulated thoughts and perspectives from the crowd to improve performance. Decision making is done by sharing other people’s different perspectives, enabling reflective thinking development, enabling professional examination from different perspectives and making judgments wisely. The purpose of the article is to introduce the “Wisdom of Crowds” hypothesis to teaching. Using the wisdom of crowds for constructing lesson plans is one possibility for applying the wisdom of crowds in education. Some examples for lesson plans constructed with the help of wisdom of crowds will be presented.

What is Wisdom of Crowds?

In 1907, Sir Francis Galton asked 787 villagers to guess the weight of an ox. None of the villagers guessed the weight correctly. After Galton averaged their guesses, he was surprised that this gave him a near perfect estimate (Galton 1907; Surowiecki 2004). This is a classic demonstration of the wisdom of crowds, where people pool their abilities and demonstrate collective intelligence. The concept wisdom of crowds was coined in 2004 by Surowiecki, who argued that there are circumstances in which large groups exhibit more intelligence than smaller, more elite groups. Furthermore, large groups are potentially smarter than the smartest person in the group or any of the so-called experts, and collective intelligence shapes businesses, economies, societies and nations. Accumulation of knowledge in groups leads to better decisions than decisions made by individual members of the group (Casari et al. 2012; Cooper and Kagel 2005). However, the group is not necessarily “wiser” than any of its members. Certain people may be wiser, but as a group they are more accurate in their answers. Reservations should be made regarding the wisdom of crowd theory. The experts’ contribution cannot be ignored. For example, gifted scientists’ theories were sometimes contrary to the crowd at a given time. Many unpopular claims by gifted scientists are ultimately validated.

There are certain similarities between this idea and the statistical sample. Thus, a random sample of people will be more representative of the population with reference to possible outcomes (Fleenor 2006). According to Surowiecki, the advantages of the wisdom of crowds are that determinations are faster and more reliable than decisions made by a committee or by experts.

The most common application of the wisdom of crowds is for market predictions. In this context, groups with diverse knowledge and skills make better decisions than homogenous groups or experts. When we search for solutions to different problems, having many and similar solutions is not enough. Variety adds viewpoints whose absence might be critical. Diversity improves the group’s ability to solve problems. Groups that contain only smart people cannot excel in making decisions, because the members replicate each other’s skills (Fleenor 2006). Four conditions are necessary for a crowd to be suitable for making an intellectual majority decision (Surowiecki 2004):

  1. 1.

    Diversity of opinions: The crowd must be composed of a collection of people with different and diverse opinions and characteristics. Each individual in the group has private information on the event.

  2. 2.

    Independence of judgments: The judgment of people must be created autonomously, and must be independent of the opinions of other people in the crowd.

  3. 3.

    Decentralization: The education of the people in the crowd must be different and each member of the crowd is influenced by his experience when making judgment. A person must have local knowledge and the people in the crowd rely on knowledge and experience acquired in different and diverse areas. Decentralization is the key to better diversity, independence and appropriateness of judgments.

  4. 4.

    Aggregation of information: Aggregation of all the answers turns the personal judgments into a general decision (Yampolskiy et al. 2012).

Examples of the Wisdom of Crowds

There are many examples in which the wisdom of crowds was used in different fields. For example, in 2000, the CEO of US Gold Corporation Rob McEwen published the geological plans of his mines on the Internet and asked surfers’ advice on mining for gold. More than 1000 individuals and companies from 50 different states, including MA students, advisors, mathematicians, physicists, and army officers, met the challenge. The participants identified 100 potential sites for mining, half of which were new to the company. Eighty percent of these yielded significant amounts of gold. In 2001, the company’s profits jumped from 2 to 52 million dollars (Wilson 2013).

Surowiecki (2004) gave some examples of the wisdom of crowds. For example, in the television show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” group intelligence faced individual intelligence and group intelligence won every time: 65 % of the answers of a friend called on the phone were correct, compared to 91 % correct answers when the audience was asked for the answer. Another example is that capital markets and trade in the stock exchange change according to crowds. Surowiecki’s examples from technology include social media that can be used for producing collective insights and the Google search engine which also works with the help of crowds for effective and rapid finding of data.

Feeding the data into Wikipedia encyclopedia, which is carried out by the crowd, is not less accurate than the prestigious Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 2005, the prestigious journal Nature compared the two encyclopaedias in dozens of entries and found the same rate of errors and omissions (Giles et al. 2005). Giles (2005) claims that Wikipedia’s high quality is embedded in Surowiecki’s theory. When the number of writers and their diversity increase, so does the quality of the content. It can be seen that wisdom of crowds entered many areas of our lives. It is used for decision-making, creating and sharing knowledge. In all the above examples, there is a variety of independent opinions of people from different fields that lead to aggregation of information and to collective intelligence.

Wisdom of Crowds in Education

When discussing collective wisdom, Surowiecki refers to fields such as politics, economics, sports, psychology, biology and everyday life. However, he does not mention education or any research on attempts to use the wisdom of crowds for organized educational reforms, classroom interactions, etc. If crowds possess the solutions to problems in many diverse areas, why not also in the field of education and teaching? By using Surowiecki’s conclusions, we can see some possibilities for enhancing educational processes (Ricks 2009).

Information sharing exists in education, for example in teachers’ forums where the main activities are discussion groups and sharing of files (Yaniv 2011). Frameworks for sharing information and experience, updating and affording support are important in the field of education. However, this is not wisdom of crowds, but rather wisdom of experts. Such a group is not diverse and does not add new viewpoints whose absence may be critical (Surowiecki 2004).

The increasing use of social networks and the large number of contacts in these networks opens the possibility for use of the wisdom of crowds for creating new educational approaches which use the crowd’s insight for teaching-learning purposes. Such approaches open the door for new types of learning processes which are based on collective intelligence (Hatzipanagos and Warburton 2009). Can the wisdom of crowds be combined with expert teachers? Will such a combination threaten teachers’ professionalism or will it add new viewpoints to teaching and improve teaching? The wisdom of crowds is based on an approach to the production of knowledge that some call “anarchistic,” within whose framework the crowd is approached in an attempt to create collective insight from the bottom up. For example, Wikipedia is a self-correcting, bottom-up system (content from the people) of quality, fundamentally independent of authorities from up high. There is increasing recognition that large group of people can solve problems together and do not need formal hierarchies to accomplish this (Brabham 2009; Bechter et al. 2011; Dye 2008; Sapolsky 2011). In contradistinction, creation of knowledge in most educational organizations and institutions is based on experts who determine curricula and personal development programs from the top down. Can these two approaches to the creation of knowledge be combined for teaching-learning purposes?

Teachers share lessons plans on Internet sites they construct. However, no reference is made to the construction of shared lesson plans using collective insight on those Web sites. Collective insight refers to the fact that not only teachers will share their knowledge in order to construct lesson plans, but also people who are not from the field of education, in order to make good and effective use of the wisdom of crowds.

The Potential in Using the Wisdom of Crowds in Teaching

The wisdom of crowds was used for developing lesson plans and teaching units within the framework of an M. Teach program that includes a teaching certificate. One of the tasks the student teachers could choose in investigating their teaching was wisdom of crowds compared to experts’ ideas (mentor teachers, pedagogical instructors and student teachers) for lesson planning. The student teachers had to analyse the ideas suggested by the crowds and make judgments based on their expertise as to which suggestions to accept. They had to explain what made the lesson plan better and why. Several examples of their work are described below.

Example 1: Lesson Plan in Mathematics

One of the difficulties of students in mathematics is solving verbal problems (Harter and Ku 2008; Sahin and Soylu 2011; Mcintosh 1997). A student-teacher turned to the wisdom of crowds in order to find alternative teaching methods for teaching verbal problems. She uploaded a lesson plan on Facebook and also sent it by emails, and consulted the crowd: “What are the ways, in your opinion, of teaching verbal problems?” The student-teacher taught one class according to the lesson plan which she prepared herself, and another class according to a lesson plan which she prepared based on the wisdom of crowds. Fifty responses were received from teachers, counselors, students and people who are not teachers. This group does not fully comply with the characteristics of the diversity of a crowd. It is a mixed group of experts and non-experts. However, other conditions were met, such as that the opinion of people was created independently and aggregation of all the answers turned into a general decision.

Forty recommendations of the crowd were taken into account. For example, the pupils were originally instructed: “Search the Internet for examples of different problems which are suitable for describing the problems.” The change suggested by the crowds: “invent a suitable example.” The wisdom of crowds appeared to contribute to higher order thinking. A significant difference (t (116) =2.458; p < 0.01) was found in the group that learned according to the suggestions of the crowd for giving more explanations on how to solve diverse problems.

Example 2: Learning Unit in Democracy

Another example is the construction of a learning unit on democracy. This is an issue that is on the public agenda, pertains to everyone, is universal, and it is not necessary to be an expert in order to express an opinion on it. A student-teacher used the collective wisdom of crowds through Facebook and email in order to examine how to construct a learning unit on democracy for the junior high school. The participants included students in post-primary schools, parents, academics, politicians, as well as people from different countries (Brazil, Australia, India, Iran, Israel and France). Responses were obtained from 30 people.

The question they were asked was: “How, in your opinion, should the topic of democracy be presented to pupils in school, in what ways should the issue be taught and what is important to teach on this issue?” After collecting the data, the most frequent answers were collected. All four conditions necessary for the wisdom of crowds existed in this case. Suggestions in the field of the didactics, accompanied by quotations, are presented: 1. To add illustrations using diverse methods: “To hold democratic elections: Each candidate will submit his platform, setting up a polling booth and the elections themselves,” “Ask ‘Who would like to play … game’?” “Have them raise their hands and count the number of hands raised of those wishing to play the game. Explain that the majority of the raised hands win.” “Democracy is the only system where everyone has the same power. One way of presenting it is to have small groups with problems (issues) they have to take actions on. They will need to find a way to reach a solution that most can accept. The teacher needs to focus on the WAY rather than on the solutions!” Another way for illustrations that was suggested is by movies, a story, and a play. 2. To hold discussions on this issue. 3. To write a contract: “To prepare a contract which will include the rights and obligations of the pupils/teacher.” 4. To teach in a deductive manner: “The basic concepts of democracy should be presented, and then the students should be asked to give examples from their lives.” 5. To encourage active citizenship: “Participation in demonstrations.” 6. To take the pupils on tours: “The issue of democracy should be taught, but only if they are taken to the parliament to see where it all takes place, and they should preferably be present in some voting process so that they will understand what democracy is.” 7. To organize workshops and lectures by public figures.

In the content field, the important concepts and topics that should be taught, which were repeated by the crowd, were: 1. The principle of the rule by the people: “For me what is important in a democracy is that the pupil realizes that the population gets to vote and the decision is made according to the majority.” 2. The right to vote and to be elected: “The citizens have the right to vote and to be elected and to influence public policy in their country. It is important to preserve civil rights and liberty.” 3. Types of regimes: “Increasing the awareness of the importance of the democratic regime compared to other regimes,” “Explanations on the differences between regimes and the positive and negative aspects of each.” 4. Freedom of expression: “Support of freedom of expression even when it serves the interests of those who oppose you.” 5. Rights of the minority: “Democracy is not only the rule of the majority, but also the rights of the minority to be represented and to voice an opinion.” 6. Human rights: “If all people are born equal then they all have the same rights.”7. The principle of pluralism: “Taking into account the type of population: nationality, religion.”

The student teacher decided which of the suggestions to include in order to prepare a stronger lesson plan. The learning unit using the collective insights was compared to the learning unit the student teacher prepared with the help of experts. In the learning unit prepared with the help of the wisdom of crowds there is greater use of games and activities with participation of the pupils in order to illustrate the material learned in class, such as an activity on democratic elections and the principle of pluralism. A similarity can be seen between the two learning units in the activity on the social contract and class discussions. The learning unit prepared by means of the wisdom of crowds contains more emphasis on the rights of minorities and acceptance of others. The concepts and principles common to both lessons are decisions by the majority, rule by the people, principles of pluralism, and human and civil rights. The student-teacher’s opinion was that the learning unit based on the wisdom of crowds is more enjoyable and experiential.

Example 3: Integrative Learning Unit “Bible and Physics.”

A third example of using the wisdom of crowds is the development of an integrative unit “Bible and physics”. The purpose was to recruit students to learn physics. A student-teacher turned to the “crowds” (educators, religious leaders [Christianity, Judaism, Islam], academics) through electronic media (forum, email, social networks) with the aim of collecting as many insights as possible in order to prepare a learning unit that on the one hand will help create interest for the pupils and on the other hand will not provoke opposition from different sectors, and will be suitable for pupils from different backgrounds. About 40 responses were obtained.

Some of the responses added topics for inquiry. Suggestions, such as, pupils should present opposing views, completely changed the teaching perception of the unit. The pupils had to present at least two opposing attitudes/theories that refer to the issue they chose. In addition pupils were asked to explain each attitude and indicate why they chose it as an attitude that is compatible with their worldview or their understanding of the issue. Learning this unit did not change the decision of students who did not choose to study physics, but reinforced the choice of students who chose physics as their specialization. The most significant reaction was the decision of the school board that all the pupils will learn this unit as part of their curriculum. Here too, the four conditions for the existence of wisdom of crowds were met.

Conclusion

There are gaps between what goes on outside the classroom walls and inside the classroom such as using various technologies, learning that is independent of place and time, and collaboration between teams from different countries. Reduction of these gaps takes a long time and the education system lags behind the world in the implementation of technologies both in the physical structure and in the adaptation of teaching to the learning mode of the Y-generation. The wisdom of crowds has entered many fields in our lives and serves the public every day. It has a potential that has not been realized, also in the field of education and teaching. The use of wisdom of crowds in teaching can be considered as an alternative useful epistemology, similarly to estimation, and be compared and contrasted with authoritative sources.

Combining the wisdom of crowds and the teachers who are experts in their field does not threaten the professionalism of the teachers. Rather, it can add additional viewpoints to their teaching. It also can encourage thinking out of the box and breaking routines. Combining wisdom of crowds with teaching also makes it more relevant to the pupils and suggests another method of identifying ways to present content and determine what content to present. This is, of course, dependent on the inclusion of the wisdom of crowds according to the expert judgment of the teacher.

It can be seen that the judgment of the teacher as to what to use from the wisdom of crowds improved lesson plans and learning units that were developed in different learning subjects. This is an example of the creation of knowledge from two directions, top-down and bottom-up. In most of the examples the wisdom of crowds contributed mainly to the teaching methods and not to content. The main way to exhaust the collective insight appears to be in the case of lesson plans and the development of learning units by a consensus of most of the people on the direction of thinking (teaching).

The wisdom of crowds has, as mentioned, entered many fields of life. This is just the beginning of attempts to test the inclusion of the insight of crowds in teaching. The crowds mostly contributed by improving the pedagogical aspect. The wisdom of crowds can assist teachers, learning program developers and pupils. It can also break routines and introduce fresh thinking into teaching. As a teacher, the collaboration of crowds can be expanded beyond the examples we have seen (writing a lesson plan and development a teaching unit) to choosing topics that are relevant to the curriculum, writing tests, suggesting ideas for different scientific experiments, suggesting ideas for integrating technology into teaching topics that are considered difficult, making issues relevant for pupils, alternative ways of assessment, and suggesting projects for pupils on innovative issues, making presentations, ideas for integrating technology into teaching subjects that are considered difficult, ideas for projects, etc. As a teacher educator, the wisdom of crowds can, for example, help with ideas for dealing with violence in classroom and in social networks, for dealing with racism and prejudice, for imparting values and preferences, for resolving dilemmas and for dealing with current issues.

Aviva Klieger is a member of the Faculty of Education at Beit Berl College, Israel. Please address correspondence regarding this article to the author via email at aviva.klieger@beitberl.ac.il.