Collaboration

I found this definition of collaboration on wikipedia which must be as generic as you can get.

Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal.^[1] It is a recursive^[2] process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, (this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective^{[by whom?][original research?]}) — for example, an intriguing^{[improper synthesis?]} endeavor^[3][4] that is creative in nature^[5]—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group.^[6] In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.^[7] Collaboration is also present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common case for using the word.
Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication.^[6] These methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving. Forms, rubrics, charts and graphs are useful in these situations to objectively document personal traits with the goal of improving performance in current and future projects.

The words that stand out for me are
Recursive
We normally want to have things done and dusted and not 'revisit' them but true collaboration involves revisiting. we ahve been doing this in our collaboration where we have kept coming back to a few themes and rethinking them. How much chance do students get to revisit, rethink, restate their issues. The assessment emphasis on a single performance militates aginst this.
Identical objective
I don't think collaborations ever start out with an identical objective (and how identical does identical need to be). A lot of the work of a collaboration is about "co-creating intent" - the process whereby we arrive at a better understanding of what our objectives can be by working with others who might see it differently. All too ofetn inteaching we set the objectives with no room for students to show us how we might improve on them. I'd liek to see us three reflect on this matter of setting objectives and what any objective might mean under different circumstances to different people.
Competition
this recognizes that collaboration is about more than 'playing nice'. there are real competitive advantages to be had from collaboration and this may be the only way to catch some people's attention. Many years ago I use an exercise said to come from NASA about solving a survial problem. It was possible to show that one person alone would die but in a team you had a betetr chance of survival. I have to say that most students still didn't believe in the benefits of teamwork even after having done the exercise, so string is the competitive spirit. this applies also to academics who are trained and rewarded for competition. How do we harbness that to collaboration?
Structured methods
Okay what might these be? How do we incorporate structure into our practice and teaching of collaboration without it being reduced to tick-a-box? Engineers always want tools but sometimes tools just hide the fact taht you don't really know how to do it. What are the tools that are really going to help? I want to say committed engagement, sustained conversation and regular reflection but I know that will get the cat's laugh in many quarters. So what message about collaboration do we need to take from our mutual experience?


Enough from me for now