Collaboration

What is Collaboration?

Collaboration means working with others to solve an intellectual problem that might not be meaningfully addressed with individual effort. Collaboration goes well beyond what you are used to with in-class groupwork. Collaboration almost always involves group check-ins, the establishment of clear project goals, a system for project management, a manageable division of individual work based on the group members’ individual assets, and a plan for continual assessment. Collaboration is a key skill listed in the desirable characteristics for almost all twenty-first century jobs. Employees need to be able to work with a variety of people across geographic distances in both face-to-face and online teams. You’ve experienced both of these collaborative methods in class already in small doses, including honing a concept for your Google maps and working on the TimelineJS project virtually using Google sheets. Now you’ll need to devise a more sustained method with clear goals and outcomes.

Where to Start

In order for a collaboration to be successful, you need to be open and honest with one another upfront and talk about the following:

• What are the common goals that bring you together?
• What are the assets of each team member?
• How will you assign roles and responsibilities?
• What systems will you use to measure accountability?
• Sometimes compromise will be required. How will you be sure that you are listening to one another? What will a successful compromise look like in your case?
• How will you work to give one another constructive feedback so that the project can evolve effectively?
• What will you do to assess the group’s progress and how often should you assess it?

Strategies for Successful Collaboration

• Make a clear plan for work load.
• Plan what you will do during each group meeting. For example, you may assign each group member a day in which they are in charge of bringing discussion questions and passages for analysis during our discussion weeks for the novels. That way you won’t waste time–you should need all of our in-class time to talk things out if things are going as planned.
• Have each group member keep a log of the work they have done in contribution to the whole and how much time it takes. so that you can assess whether you are all pulling equal weight.
• Develop a routine for team meetings wherein your share work, troubleshoot, and allow time to reflect on what’s going well and what might need recalibration.
• Be honest with one another about the value of your own work and the work of others; learning how to discuss differences with civility is the most uncomfortable, but also the most critical aspect of successful collaboration.