Collaboration - What is it?

An interesting blog post about collaborative teaching. Are we really collaborative?

Collaboration, so much more than parallel play  Greg Carroll (Core Education)

Quotes from the blog post

"Thinkers like Fullan (eg 2011) and Timperley et al all claim that collaboration is central to their understandings around school development and teacher professional learning."

"But what does Collaboration look like? Really ….? How do we know it when we see it … hear it. … experience it?" 

Illustration: Greg Carroll 2015

"In my experience we often see confusion between these three ‘levels’. People often refer to cooperation as collaboration in particular. True collaboration is actually still quite rare I believe.  I have also seen quite a few so called Modern Learning Environments where in fact the teachers are simply cooperating to use the space/s provided. They share the physical spaces and places, and sometimes some of the students, but also are largely ‘the rulers of their own kingdom’ in a series of classrooms without walls in a big open space."

Collaboration, so much more than parallel play