May 2026 Series: The Work Between Us (Entry 1: Redefining Collaboration)

Redefining Collaboration: Beyond Sharing Ideas

May 2026 Series: The Work Between Us 

• By Dr. Morgan Goering and Dr. Amy Pahl  
• (Read about the authors by clicking on their name)
• Estimated read time: ~8-10 minutes

Opening Frame

Collaboration is not shared airtime. It is shared ownership of the work and its impact. Collaboration is one of the most familiar words in education and, frequently, one of the least examined. Leaders prioritize it in school improvement plans, carve out space for it on agendas, and protect it within master schedules. From a distance, the work appears collaborative simply because people are occupying the same room at the same time. Yet many leaders navigate a different underlying reality. The meeting adjourns, a handful of people leave with significantly more to carry, and the actual progress of the initiative remains dependent on informal heroics, unspoken labor, and individual follow-through. 

People have spoken, but ownership has not actually been shared. Collaboration is not the same thing as contact, conversation, or consensus. It is the co-construction of work. This distinction matters because shallow definitions create shallow outcomes. When collaboration is treated as idea-sharing alone, teams may feel connected in the moment but remain structurally unchanged. What looks like teamwork on the surface often masks isolation underneath.

Collaboration in Practice

The research base helps sharpen this distinction. In their systematic review, Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes, and Kyndt (2015) found that teacher collaboration exists on a continuum, ranging from simple story sharing and aid-and-assistance to deeper, integrated joint work. This nuance is critical because not all collaboration produces the same outcomes. Ronfeldt, Farmer, McQueen, and Grissom (2015) demonstrated that higher-quality teacher collaboration is directly linked to stronger student achievement gains in math and reading, as well as greater teacher improvement over time. In other words, collaboration is not powerful simply because it happens; it is powerful when its quality fundamentally changes how people work.

Team-process research strengthens the point. Salas, Sims, and Burke (2005) describe effective teamwork as more than collective goodwill; it depends on the specific mechanisms of mutual monitoring, backup behavior, adaptability, and a shared team orientation. Strong teams are not simply friendly groups; they are interdependent groups. They know what they are trying to accomplish together, how they will notice drift, and how they will respond when the work strains.

When we define collaboration as co-constructed work, we move past the question, "Did everyone have a chance to talk?" and toward more rigorous inquiries:

• Do people know the shared outcome?
• Is responsibility explicit?
• Can the work continue without one person quietly holding the entire structure together?

When we pause to ask these questions, we begin to see where collaboration sits on the spectrum.

Leadership and Facilitation Practice

An internal reflection from a recent implementation cycle offers a useful mirror. A team with deep expertise and strong intentions found themselves hitting a bottleneck. The start of the year moved quickly and the group bypassed the discipline of collaboration—revisiting norms, clarifying buckets of work, and leveraging the specific reasons each person was at the table. Collaboration existed as motion. Information moved and the calendar filled, yet the team had not shifted from reacting together to shaping together. This is often a familiar story.

Leadership changes this story by recognizing that collaboration is an adaptive challenge, not just a technical task. It requires more than a shared calendar; it requires the discipline to:

• Name the shared outcome with precision.
• Distinguish consultation from responsibility.
• Identify what is genuinely collective versus what is role-specific.
• Resist the participation trap: Mistaking universal speaking time for shared accountability.

By asking better questions earlier—What decisions belong to this group? Where are we relying on someone to compensate for a lack of clarity?—leaders move the group beyond technical compliance. These moves reduce the emotional tax of collaboration that looks generous on the surface but feels extractive underneath.

System and Structure Lens

Systems do not become collaborative because people value the concept; they become collaborative because routines, roles, and decision pathways support shared ownership. When roles are vague and communication loops are informal, the burden shifts naturally to the people with the most relational stamina. This is not a character flaw; it is a design issue.

To solve for this, collaboration must be treated as infrastructure. When we view it as a structural requirement rather than a social preference, we can build the specific supports teams need to thrive:

• Repeated ways to revisit and stress-test norms.
• Clear pathways to move from conversation to action.
• Visible structures that show how decisions travel.

Without these conditions, collaboration becomes a place where people merely process the work rather than carrying it together. With them, it becomes a place where responsibility is distributed without being diluted.

At its best, this redefinition protects both people and systems. It protects people by reducing hidden labor and strengthens systems by making collective work more durable than any one individual’s effort. We are not aiming for shared airtime, but for shared lift.

Reflect. Connect. Grow.

With yourself

• Reflect: When have I mistaken polite participation for true shared ownership?
• Connect: Where do I quietly compensate for unclear collaboration rather than naming the gap?
• Grow: What is one way I can make responsibility more explicit in my next team interaction?

For your system

• Reflect: Where does collaboration in our system look strong on paper but feel uneven or exhausting in practice?
• Connect: Which roles or individuals are carrying disproportionate repair work, sense-making or follow-through?
• Grow: What one structural clarification (a role, a deadline, a decision rule) would reduce hidden labor right now?

With your system

• Reflect: If you asked your team today, what would they say collaboration feels like?
• Connect: Where are we talking about the work without actually carrying it together?
• Grow: What shared outcome or decision rule would help this group work with more honesty and less "performance"?

Looking Forward

If collaboration requires more than goodwill, we must ask a structural question: How do we make this work usable over time? In our next entry, we move from definition to design to examine how routines and feedback loops make collaboration more equitable, predictable, and sustainable.

References

Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to improve: How America's schools can get better at getting better. Harvard Education Press.

Ronfeldt, M., Farmer, S. O., McQueen, K., & Grissom, J. A. (2015). Teacher collaboration in instructional teams and student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 52(3), 475-514. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831215585562

Salas, E., Sims, D. E., & Burke, C. S. (2005). Is there a 'Big Five' in teamwork? Small Group Research, 36(5), 555-599. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496405277134 

Schippers, M. C., Edmondson, A. C., & West, M. A. (2015). Team reflexivity as an antidote to team information-processing failures. Small Group Research, 46(6), 731-769. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496414553473

Vangrieken, K., Dochy, F., Raes, E., & Kyndt, E. (2015). Teacher collaboration: A systematic review. Educational Research Review, 15, 17-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.04.002