Cooperation, Compromise, or Collaboration? Making the Distinctions

I watched two students doing their algebra homework together:

"You do the odd-numbered problems and I'll do the evens. Then we'll combine them."

This is NOT collaboration. This is cooperation (and cheating!)  Sometimes, of course, cooperation is perfectly legitimate in an academic (homework) setting. Many group projects are divided into bits by the participants, and then reassembled after everyone has done their part. As a participant in such projects, though, I can confidently say that I learned a lot about my little part, and very little about the other bits.

I watched co-workers at a library debate about the best way to introduce patrons (library "customers") to the new self-check-out system. One librarian wanted to approach people as they noticed the self-check station, and explain it to them. The other librarian wanted to hand out flyers to everyone who came in the front door. The decision: We'll make the flyers available at the front desk, and we'll include the statement, "Please feel free to ask a librarian for help."

This is NOT collaboration. This is compromise. Nothing wrong with compromise, but perhaps it's not always the ideal.

In a collaborative, constructivist learning environment, the collaboration is a means of problem-solving, answer-finding, or knowledge-building. The solving/finding/building is (are) done BY THE GROUP.  Everyone solves, everyone finds, everyone builds, together.

This IS collaboration.

Beyond these aspects of collaboration, however, we may consider collaboration as conflict resolution.  Sandy Styer points out:

"Collaboration gets its power because it uses the energy of Assertiveness--ideas and real points of view, championed by people who care--and the energy of Cooperation--a willingness to make things work for all involved. From collaboration comes the best result, the idea or solution which is fashioned from everyone's input and is better than what any one person could have come up with on her or his own."

In a collaborative learning situation, we may consider the "conflict" to be the problem that needs solving, or the answer that needs finding. We may also consider the conflict between the different learning styles represented within the group. Styer says,

"...it starts with conflict, but it doesn't end there. It takes the energy of the conflict--opposing or differing views, needs and goals--and the attitude of collaboration--the willingness to reach the best solution for all concerned--to get somewhere we've never been before, and somewhere we couldn't go alone."

REFERENCE

Styer, S. (2010, April 8). At the Corner of Assertiveness & Cooperation: Collaboration [Web log post #680]. Retrieved from http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/780/At-the-Corner-of-Assertiveness-and-Cooperation-Collaboration