The Power of Collaboration

Great ideas are like fruit juice. You cannot have a glassful of it just from squeezing a single head (at least with oranges and others, except the Pineapple). Innovation, that is authentic creativity, is a product of several minds put together working spontaneously towards a clear and common goal.

We are to come up with a new syllabus for a course, as necessary to meet the existing identified needs of our students. I know I could do it on my own, since I was able to do it previously. Ah! Not really, because what I did was simply extend or add to an existing syllabus. It was not really something new.

Last night, knowing that I will be meeting with other teachers about this syllabus, I started to prepare. I spent hours staring at the blank document on screen and not even finishing anything. One of my colleagues emailed to me what two of them were able to come up with. At the surface reading, I knew it needed some improvement. Since, I will not be teaching the subject this term, I opted to quit in my attempt of coming up with the syllabus for them.

The reason was simple, no juice could be squeezed from my head that time, except for a schema of what the course should be and my recall of experience in developing course syllabi, as well as my perception of the needs of the types of learners we have in that special program. I thought I'd just moderate the brainstorming. That's the point of putting minds together anyway. I know I could do it, but I also know that I don't have the monopoly of knowledge and that I am not the savior of all.


Our meeting started with examining the proposed syllabus, against the previous and with the understood goal for the course. We eliminated three objectives from the previous, and considered the two objectives left which coincides with several of the seven objectives identified from the proposed syllabus. We came up with five objectives, SMART objectives from the existing material that we have, the proposed syllabus which we all agreed to.

From there, we visualized the culminating activities in the midterm and finals in which the students will have to demonstrate the communication competence we desired. Then we went backwards to identify the content of the lesson which would build to help the students acquire knowledge and develop and enhance the skills they would need to complete the final requirement of the course. We missed write down specific lesson objectives for the content, but we were able to discuss them as we rationalize on the significance of each content against the course objectives.

At the end of the meeting we were able to come up with an "eclectic", student-centered, and "competency-based" course syllabus for Basic English that applies a communicative language teaching (CLT) model, through a backward design to pen what we want students to "become". It was a constructive effort deliberate of gaining from collaboration.

I could have not done what five brains could have done. I could not see what they could, nor think as they would, but through collaboration we were able to come up with the course description, course objectives, course content and course requirement. It took us only two hours, which could have taken days for me (alone) to accomplish. Our outcome received immediate consensus, as we worked together for it.

A team is a strategic group, it is formed for a specific task. It can accomplish great things when they can work in sync for a common goal. I know two teachers in that team had had uneasy working relationships, but that did not matter. Personal preoccupations don't matter in a team, the point of being there is that you are to work for the completion of a task, the time and place to build your relationship isn't the team's meeting, unless the conflict arises from that meeting.

A team is temporal, and it doesn't spring like a group mushroom unexpectedly. Its members are put together by a call, and someone takes the call to steer the team in the expected directions, without missing the virtue of working in parity. In teams a leader is tested to guide the team and motivate the team to work purposely in the most efficient way. The team leader is only at his best at the success of the work of the team.

Teams provide multiple perspectives to an issue; various solutions to a single problem. Teams provide checks and balances. Teams allow for extension and refinement of ideas. Teams share the weight of a task and so reduce the stress and pressure at work. Teams enable each one to contribute at his or her best for the good of everyone and  to rest of the organization outside the team. Teams function to extend the power of one in numbers while distributing the power to everyone and for each to succeed. 

What comes next in working with this excellent team is something greater than the course syllabus. I know we can get there, because we have proven that we can create something out of nothing together. That's the power of collaboration. Dream teams work their dreams into realities.