FROM the perspective of me as a facilitator, teacher, manager or as a leader of any kind, I may choose collaboration as a way of supporting creativity. I myself have had some extraordinary experiences of collaborative work that has left treasurable memories.

MANY years ago, I attended a 3 day workshop about group work. The facilitators were faboulous and demanding, and the tasks we were asked to complete were very difficult and you were not allowed to rest your brain at any point. We all laughed, and we cried… You had to learn a lot about yourself, you see. On the last hour of the third day, our group happily concluded: ”Come on! Ask us to take down the moon! We will do it for you. Together we can accomplish anything.”

ANOTHER tremendous experience is more recent. At an upper secondary school, I was involved in a team of teachers that aimed at integrating subjects to provide the students with the big picture, and to allow them to understand that everything is connected in some way or another. Our team was responsible for a segment of the Social sciences program and of the three year of education for a class. Eight years means eight classes, and helping them through the struggles of constant group work was very rewarding – and difficult. Both teachers and students worked in collaboration, which meant that you had to come well prepared so there was of course lots of individual work as well. I loved it, and the students evaluations was a great joy to read.

FOR the rest, my experiences of collaboration have been good and not so good. Why the latter?

SOCIAL loafing is a new concept to me, and how interesting that the phenomena is given a label :). It works contradictory to the collaborative idea, but there is not much to be done about it. The person that gets annoyed is only wasting energy as it will not help. The social loafer will always leave the dirty coffee cup in the sink in the workplace kitchen. Somebody else will have to do the dishes, and it is best done with a sigh. However, in group work, it is less possible to just sigh because you are overloaded with your own work. For the team of teachers described above it was a constant challenge to identify the loafers and to pursuade them to contribute. It worked quite good because we saw everyone in our classes, and talked to them and supported them – and therefore the loafers were just part of our attention. The third year, we still would have some that contributed less, but then there was an explanation to be found and shared. Openess is a good thing! Ok, this works for groups that know it each other well. What about short time online collaboration?

VERY interesting is an article by Capdeferro & Romano (2012). They conducted a survey that allowed the participants to explain the frustrations they felt part of collaborative on line work. The most significant result – ”the students’ main source of self-declared frustration is the teammates’ commitment imbalance” – is really problematic. A sigh is certainly not an adequate response. I do not agree with the authors, though, on how to manage the problem. They suggest ”ascertaining beforehand the time, effort, prior knowledge, volume, and quality of work required to carry out online CSCLW”. Of course, the information must be provided, but a social loafer will not pay attention to it, so has to be supplemented with facilitators courage to confront the loafers. Yes, courage. Addressing someones behaviour and character is something that it is enjoyable when you pass on praise, but scarying when it comes to talking about negative behaviour. Therefore, facilitators need support on how to approach individuals in an online community in a respectful manner so that both parties are ok with it. Unless facilitators have the skills to talk to participants, they will not be keen on identifying the social loafers but instead escape from the problem – and contribute to frustration among hard working participants in the groups.

LASTLY, ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand. Hugs!