The quotes below are from Karl Fisch at The Fischbowl. So much is being written about collaboration and the need for young people to acquire a knowledge base and skill set that positions them for success in collaborative environments. The post is about the changes currently in place at Cisco that demand that all employees share and build upon the ideas and work of each other. Fisch then challenges us to think in the words below.
So, if you’re an administrator, what are you doing to foster collaboration among your staff, and especially your teachers? And I’m talking more than just PLC’s, although that’s not a bad start. What are you really doing to fundamentally change the structure of your school(s) from one of isolation (close the door and teach), to one of sharing and collaboration (knock down the walls)? Is it unacceptable to share in your institution?
If you’re a teacher, what are you doing to foster collaboration among your students? And I’m talking more than putting them into groups of four and having the students create a PowerPoint presentation together. What are you really doing to fundamentally change the structure of your classroom from one of isolation (do your own work), to one of collaboration (work with others)? What are you doing to build their skills to succeed in a corporate environment that requires them to collaborate on a global scale?
If you're a student, what are you doing to improve your own collaboration skills - and those of your peers? What are you demanding of your schools, your teachers, your administrators to help prepare you for the collaborative marketplace that is your future?
I know that I believe deeply in the need for collaboration, sharing leadership responsibilities, and valuing diversity. I believe that my behavior is aligned with this belief as it relates to sharing leadership, but I wonder what others perceive as it relates to the importance of collaboration and valuing diversity. Do others see me promoting the need for collaboration with and between administrators, teachers, and students? What would one see and hear from me that would suggest this? Am I doing anything that would suggest that we need to ensure that our young people are prepared for a much more diverse world than the one they encounter in our school system?
Any thoughts?
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True collaboration is messy and takes a lot time (at least at first as teams learn to really work together, not just assign tasks, etc.). I think we often bag the collaborative approach (or at least only give it lip service) because whenever we bring together a group we are very mindful of how busy everyone is, and so we go with the fastest approach, not necessarily the best approach.
It was the same way when I was in the classroom. After getting one or two lessons in to some sort of collaborative project I would often abandon the effort in favor of something less amorphous and more able to be controlled by me. I know it wasn’t for the best, but it was easier and faster, and, at least I felt like we were making progress.
There was one shining example that was successful, however. When I actually put teaching students how to work as part of a group (in this case, as members of their own magazine publishing/editing team) at the forefront of the learning, it worked. In my other life I had been a member of such a team myself, and I knew how it worked. I could teach students the skills, strategies, and tasks I had learned and used.
As I’ve reflected about collaboration over the past year, one thing that has occurred to me is that as a teacher I only rarely ever worked in a truly collaborative way. Sure, I went to meetings, and I was part of committees and groups that wrote lessons, made decisions, etc. but being in a group and collaborating are different things. Working with a group to produce a product or arrive at a solution is hard, messy work and work that most of us were never taught how to do when we were in school. My guess it for most us traditional K-16+ schooling didn’t teaching us much about being an effective and productive member of a group. For instance, one thing teachers dread when students are working in groups is the nearly inevitable student (or in some cases, parent) complaint, “So-and-so isn’t doing her part of the project, so I’m doing most of it because I don’t want a bad grade . . .” What do we normally tell the student? “Well, this is part of working as a group; you’ll need to figure out how to deal with it . . .” OR “Okay, I’ll make sure your grade isn’t impacted by So-and-so’s work . . .” In the first case, we pretend to be teaching collaboration and group dynamics, but the reality is that we haven’t figured out how to deal with the group sloth ourselves! In the second case, we avoid the problem altogether in favor of a solution that doesn’t exist in the “real world.” Let’s face it, if I’m working on a project with Ethan and Ethan isn’t doing his part, I can’t just tell Dawn and hope she’ll keep that in mind when she reviews my work. No, I need to have some strategies for working with Ethan, strategies that I think most of us never learned which is why we don’t have much of an answer for our students when it happens to them. (For the record, Ethan is a great collaborative team member.)
Fortunately, I’m lucky to work in a department that has embraced collaboration. It’s still difficult and messier and slower than we’d like, but I think the products and the decisions are better when we collaborate. I’m also lucky that I get to attend the Leadership trainings that you and Connie do. This is where the skills and strategies for effective collaboration are taught and reinforced. Understanding and making use of SPACE, skillful dialogue, ladders of inference, facilitation skills, etc. are the tools all teachers AND students need to become better collaborative learners, teachers, and workers.
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