What can we gain through collaboration

I am actually glad that I waited until the last minute to answer this question because I was lucky enough to attend the NHASCD conference in Concord today (I will also be going tomorrow). Towards the end of the session today, we talked about what it means to be collaborative. Collaboration isn't just working together toward a common goal, it's working interdependently toward a common goal. By working collaboratively with colleagues teachers can see ways to improve instruction, and more importantly improve student achievement. Doing it in the right way is of course important, for instance you shouldn't have a science teacher working with a music teacher, because their goals are going to be different. You should have all the science teachers working together, all the math teachers together, and so on.