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.

Collaboration and Working Together

There is more to collaboration than merely working together. To work together may be demonstrated by doing things that seem related to and needed to meet a goal. Tag teams are a form of working together. Helping a co-worker finish her work is also working together. But neither of these signifies collaboration.

According to Friend and Cook (2003) in their book Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Professionals, collaboration is a voluntary act of coming together to achieve a mutual goal by sharing of resources, treating partners with parity, sharing responsibility and accountability towards meeting the learning needs of students. At the core of collaboration is personal commitment followed by communication skills. Of both I feel, treacherous to the idea of collaboration.

I guess I have never been good in conspiracy that I did not develop the skills of authentic collaboration. Or, was I stricken by pride that I believed I know what I am doing and I can do it? Well collaboration is voluntary, so it does not require me to conspire nor coerce anyone to cooperate with me. But realizing how it could affect the students' transformation, I am compelled otherwise.

Why don't I collaborate? When I was the lead teacher, I had this assumption in mind, that my partners know what to do, especially if they are seasoned ones. When I was a laboratory teacher, most of my partners didn't really mind of what I do in the laboratory. There must have been mutual understanding and respect between teaching partners, but there is no mutual goal set for us to collaborate with.

So we just work together without collaboration. I am a communicator, so I openly share my ideas to other teachers who sincerely come for advice. I also share my resources, like worksheets and activities that I have for my use. But I got a bad experience from this. My materials spread and get to the hands of students even if they are not in my class. Worst, their teachers removed my name from those handouts that I prepared through some sleepless nights.

Regarding sharing of responsibility and accountability, the only thing I know is that we are guided by the course outline. We may reconfigure the flow of the lesson from any given time, and because of our pregorative guaranteed by academic freedom, we can change the order of the lesson. I am human, I seek rewards and avoid punishment. Normally, I would seek that which are convenient for me, before anyone else. It is inconvenient and way too tasking to be teaching so many different things to be able to satisfy partners' requests.

So am I selfish? No, just a normal human being with some shortcomings. I know who I am to my students, and I know my role. But like anyone else, I can't break my back for my own detriment by acting like a superhero taking all the inconveniences, that should be shared between teaching partners. Then I am not committed to my profession? But, that's another thing.

As a teacher handling a course with lecture and laboratory components, I am guilty of not collaborating. I must have been working well together with other teachers, but not genuinely in collaboration with them. Now that I realize this, the best thing that I should be doing is to -- collaborate!