collaboration

I really enjoyed reading Chisholm's article, because it references the daily struggles a teacher goes through when having students collaborate. I feel that collaboration in general is a great experience and one that everyone can learn a lot from; however, we have all gone through bad experiences with this as well. I think that Chisholm does a good job of highlighting the positives and the negatives, and provides teachers with techniques that not only combat the negatives, but also prevent them from happening in the future. There are a lot of things that teachers and students alike can do to improve the experiences they have while collaborating with other people. 

Collaboration to me is the combining of ideas, thoughts, and experiences to create a joint union in which everyone is able to learn something from someone else. With that said, I feel that in order to fully collaborate one must be open with the people they are grouped with in order to get the full experience. I think that collaborating is similar to beginning a relationship. First is the official meeting, or the first date, in which everyone is nervous and hesitant. Next is opening up to one another and see if everyone's opinions mesh, and everyone accepts other peoples ideas even if they don't agree with them. Lastly, if everyone is feeling good they will move on and have an even better second date, in which they can learn more and help each other further. The problem is that some people will not be as open as others, and other people will be stuck on their "exes" or other friends, and won't be fully committed to the group. Therefore, it's good to set up boundaries and explain on the first meeting what the goals are, and what everyone is looking to get out of this experience.