In David Perkins' chapter on "The Role of Distributed Intelligence", he discusses the different techniques by which students can be taught using cooperative teaching. He refers to one of them as "person-plus" learning as opposed to "person-solo" learning. "Person-solo" learning is when the student alone has the knowledge and puts forth the effort in learning. "Person-plus" learning occurs when multiple people and resources get together to accomplish a task. Perkins continues his argument about distributed intelligence by citing ways to distribute cognition in the classroom, physically, socially and symbolically. The tools to be used include student journals, computers, pair problem solving, and peer tutoring. The only shortcoming that Perkins discusses is something he calls the "fingertip effect". This deals with opportunism in the human make-up. He questions the ability and desire of people to buy into and build a knowledge base using these techniques.

Perkins makes some very valid and well thought out arguments to clarify the ideas in this chapter. He does not think that the traditional classroom "tolerates" the idea of person-plus learning. Many classrooms are set up to give knowledge to a student from a teacher-based stand point and students are expected to show what they have learned by retrieving information in their heads and putting it on paper. Perkins believes students have a tendency to learn more when a person-plus teaching/learning style is put into place. He feels that knowledge resides not only in our heads, but also in places to which we have access such as books, computers and other people. The idea of distributing cognition is well represented when looking at Perkins arguments.

Perkins is looking at education in ways that are not necessarily unfamiliar, but they are not used to the extent that they could be. Many educators have a tendency to get "stuck in a rut" and continue old teaching practices that do not work well with today's learners. If educators would take a look at some of these concepts and really implement them, I think they may find all students will benefit from distributed cognition and become more self-sufficient learners.