The document discusses developing community and effective collaboration. It covers why collaboration is important, building community, elements of community, stages of group development, what instructors need to do to facilitate collaboration, and keys to successful collaboration. Some benefits of collaboration include promoting deeper knowledge, initiative, creativity, and critical thinking. Building community gives participants a sense of belonging and ownership over the process. Elements of an effective community include shared purpose, information sharing, guidelines, and technology or meeting places to facilitate interaction.

1. Developing Community for Effective Collaboration Spruce Group Jerome Cannon Jeanette Neyman Rachael Price Tracy Staten

6. When Groups Work + As a department, teachers worked together toward a common goal: increasing EOC achievement scores. By dividing the work, collaborating, sharing, and being consistent, the department was able to achieve its goal, and impacted other departments as well.

7. … and Don’t Work - SIT (School Improvement Team): In one school, the SIT team (composed of 20) only has 4 productive members. While there are "common goals," there is no vested interest in any of the participants because there is no assessment of success or failure. Some of them work because it is their inherent nature to do a good job, but most people don't want to be there, but are mandated to join a team, and therefore contribute very little to the experience.