America Succeeds defines Collaboration as the ability to work effectively with others toward shared goals, demonstrating teamwork, adaptability to diverse perspectives, and constructive contribution to group success. This encompasses navigating different working styles, managing conflict productively, and enabling collective achievement beyond individual capabilities.
A Cedar Falls CAPS student captured the transformation perfectly: “We didn’t know each other very well, but we had to get this task done. So we just jumped right in.” What began as strangers meeting outside school at coffee shops and the library to tackle their client project evolved into something deeper—a team that understood, as another student reflected, “everybody has different ideas and everybody brings a different thing to a group. You just need to find what they bring to the group to be able to use it to the full potential.”
Their journey from isolated achievement to collaborative success reveals how intentional development transforms students from reluctant group members into collaborative professionals. While many schools treat collaboration as dividing tasks or assignments for group projects, innovative programs pursue collaboration with their students as an essential skill that can significantly contribute to their personal and professional future. And in the best of all worlds, they do this by directly and explicitly pointing to and focusing on collaboration as a skill, engaging students in authentic collaboration experiences, and integrating the focus on collaboration. When these practices work in concert rather than as isolated activities, students begin to see and embrace the utility of collaboration, get good at collaboration, and transform from individuals not wanting to collaborate with others to users of collaboration in pursuit of better outcomes.
Cedar Falls CAPS: How Professional Stakes Create Collaborative Necessity
“We didn’t know each other very well, but we had to get this task done. So we just jumped right in.” A Cedar Falls CAPS student captured the program’s approach to collaboration—immediate immersion with real consequences. After just two days in the program, teams receive client challenges with 48-hour deadlines. No gradual warm-up. No practice rounds. Just immediate collaborative intensity where success depends entirely on how well strangers can become a team.
This deliberate pressure reveals CF CAPS’s systematic approach to developing collaboration through three interlocking practices: making collaboration explicit and visible, creating authentic experiences with real stakes, and integrating collaborative development throughout all learning.
“That first five to six weeks is just so crucial,” emphasizes Mark, watching for specific collaborative behaviors as CF CAPS makes collaboration explicit. “I want to see you working collaboratively. I want to see whiteboard work. I want to see everybody focusing on one TV instead of three Chromebooks.” This isn’t about technology preference—it’s about making collaboration observable and coachable. Unlike traditional rubrics buried in syllabi, CF CAPS embeds collaboration into five performance standards students evaluate every six weeks. As Millie noted: “At every evaluation we had at six weeks, 12 weeks, 18 weeks, we saw which skills we thought we mastered… by the next evaluation, you could see the additional boxes we checked off and the growth from that.” Students track specific collaborative behaviors like “facilitate compromise that can lead to group consensus” and “collaborate effectively by sharing information and expertise.”
The Cedar Falls Public Library project exemplifies how CF CAPS creates authentic experiences requiring real collaborative stakes. Multiple teams tackled this challenge, each discovering that success required more than dividing tasks—it required working as an integrated unit. One team learned this painfully: “Unfortunately on my team’s end, we didn’t see an important email, and soon had to switch paths and create something completely different and new.” Rather than individual failure, this became a collaborative learning moment. The team had to “work on having an open mind, and realize that our client is always right.” Before revising their project, they met with clients to understand what they wanted and how they were feeling. “If we did not have our CAPS knowledge about how to effectively communicate, this project would not have gotten to the point where it has.”
This pattern—listen, collaborate, pivot—repeated across teams. Noah and Zoe’s video board project further demonstrated collaborative complexity. Their team had to maximize “the second nicest in the state” for basketball games. Success required each member’s unique contribution: Noah rallying forward momentum, Zoe serving as “the glue” managing logistics, and Kyle bringing insider knowledge of crowd engagement. They coordinated with professional videographer Neil Johnson, learning to integrate external expertise into their collaborative process.
CF CAPS integrates collaborative development throughout all learning through what Mark calls “retros”—retrospective discussions after every client meeting: “The first 10 minutes they come back… it’s ‘Hey, tell me how it went. Tell me what you learned.'” Students write frequent reflections connecting experiences to collaborative competencies embedded in their performance standards.
The transformation shows in their own words. One student evolved from someone who “probably would choose not to speak up” to recognizing “everyone’s thoughts are important… it’s important for others to hear your ideas.” Another concluded: “I learned that collaboration can be much better than working on your own.”
Perhaps most tellingly, a student synthesized what makes CF CAPS collaboration different: “Everybody has different ideas and everybody brings a different thing to a group. You just need to find what they bring to the group to be able to use it to the full potential.” This isn’t about dividing tasks—it’s about multiplying capabilities through team synergy, client responsiveness, and understanding that in professional work, the team’s collaborative capacity determines their success.
Da Vinci Design: Collaboration as Cultural Default
Saya stood before her senior project panel, coordinating with teammates on mental health art workshops for youth—a far cry from the middle schooler who “hated group projects and things, because I thought it would be so much easier if I did everything by myself.” Four years later, heading to UC Davis for mechanical engineering, she reflects on being “forced into especially group POLs [presentations of learning]” where “you have to trust and work together with other people.” Her transformation from viewing collaboration as her “nightmare” to “now it’s just how it is” wasn’t accidental—it was architected through systematic design.
Da Vinci makes collaboration explicit through dual frameworks visible throughout the school. The Habits of Mind framework elevates collaboration as one of only three core competencies alongside quality and accountability. Every Presentation of Learning requires students to reflect on collaborative growth twice yearly. As Kayla explains: “Part of what you’re being graded on is how you work together and how you formulate projects based on all of your ideas.”
The four C’s design process—Care, Conceptualize, Create, and Critique—provides another framework where collaboration is essential throughout all phases. Russell describes students cycling through this process “two times, three times, four times” per project, with collaboration woven through each iteration. Even conflict becomes collaborative learning. Kevin describes: “Even when we’re talking and we’re not agreeing on anything, we have to talk it out first… talk about the problem, talk about what’s going on and why we have this problem before we can even bring it to the teacher.” This requirement makes conflict resolution itself a collaborative competency.
The school creates authentic experiences requiring real collaborative stakes through projects where success demands working as an integrated team. The freshman food truck project—so impactful that educator Jeff notes students still mention it years later when giving tours—exemplifies this approach. Students calculate costs in math, craft persuasive menus in English, engineer functional motors in physics, and design aesthetics in art. As Kevin recalls with enthusiasm: “It was amazing. It was incredible. We had a great time.” The structure makes isolation impossible. Success requires the physics motor to integrate with artistic design, the menu to align with financial calculations, the presentation to synthesize all elements coherently.
Katherine, the architecture teacher, discovered how constraints deepen collaborative necessity. Initially giving students complete creative freedom, she found this didn’t prepare them for professional reality. “When I started putting the constraints, yeah, the students didn’t like it… ‘I’m supposed to have voice and choice and be creative here, and you’re telling me I can’t do that.'” Now she responds: “In the real world, you’re going to have constraints.” Working within budget limitations and building codes forces students to negotiate shared solutions within boundaries, mirroring how architectural teams actually function.
Senior projects represent collaboration’s culmination—all conducted in groups over six weeks with real community impact. Teams teach cooking classes at LA Trade Tech, facilitate mental health workshops, or support Mexican orphanages. These projects require navigating complex coordination with external partners while managing internal team dynamics.
Da Vinci integrates collaborative development throughout all learning through environmental design and cultural norms. Ricardo observes: “It’s really rare to see a classroom where everyone faces the same direction.” Tables face each other, making collaboration natural. This design choice profoundly impacts culture—as Christy notes about students: “They never study on their own. They tend to study as a group.”
Multi-grade advisories create peer mentoring opportunities where older students model collaborative behaviors. Student-run organizations—from leadership teams planning assemblies to ambassador programs—provide additional contexts for collaborative leadership. Even daily announcements become collaborative exercises, with students presenting to advisories rather than teachers delivering information. As Lily describes: “There’s like, a lot of collaboration that we do, together. And I think, like, we really focus on one thing for a long period of time.” This sustained collaboration allows students to experience the full cycle of team development—forming, storming, norming, and performing—that characterizes effective professional teamwork.
The multiplication of these three practices produces remarkable transformation. Making collaboration explicit gives students frameworks to understand quality teamwork. Authentic experiences with genuine stakes motivate growth beyond compliance—when real community organizations await student deliverables, collaboration becomes a necessity. Integration throughout learning provides constant reinforcement, developing versatility impossible through occasional group work.
The Multiplier Effect: Why Systematic Collaboration Transforms
These schools reveal why collaboration flourishes when three practices reinforce each other—and why traditional approaches that treat them separately achieve limited results.
Making collaboration explicit gives students frameworks to understand quality teamwork. CF CAPS’s performance standards and Da Vinci’s Habits of Mind provide vocabulary and criteria. Students can point to specific competencies—not just vague notions of “working well together.” When students see what good collaboration looks like through visible frameworks, tracked progress, and celebrated growth, they can consciously develop these skills rather than hoping they emerge naturally.
Authentic experiences with genuine stakes motivate growth beyond compliance. When Cedar Falls students know hospitals await their recommendations, or Da Vinci students must satisfy real clients, collaboration shifts from academic exercise to professional necessity. Traditional group projects with teacher-only audiences produce task division. Real consequences create team interdependence where individual success becomes impossible without collective achievement.
Integration throughout all learning provides constant reinforcement. When collaboration embeds everywhere—from CF CAPS’s daily three-hour immersion to Da Vinci’s critique culture—students develop versatility across contexts. Isolated team-building exercises or occasional group work can’t achieve this depth. The multiplication happens through progressive complexity: structured partner work evolves into team challenges, then multi-stakeholder projects, finally student-led initiatives.
Your Implementation Guide: Building Collaborative Excellence
Getting Started:
Make Collaboration Visible:
- Display team working agreements and norms on classroom walls and make a part of projects and tasks
- Create collaboration portfolios where students regularly document and reflect on team contributions
- Have teams create ‘strength maps’ where each member identifies their top skills and preferred roles, then discuss how to leverage everyone’s unique contributions
Create Authentic Experiences:
- Partner with local nonprofits for semester-long team projects with real deliverables and deadlines
- Create resource-limited challenges where teams must solve problems with restricted materials, time, or budget to force creative collaboration
- Establish team presentations that foreground collaboration to external audiences—parents, community members, younger students—not just teachers
Integrate Throughout Learning:
- Embed collaborative components in every unit, task, activity and project
- Require team-based exhibitions of learning where groups present collective work and individual growth
- Implement regular “stand-up meetings” where teams must briefly share progress and obstacles not only in their work but in their collaboration
Build From What You Have:
- Transform existing presentations into team challenges requiring integrated solutions
- Add structured peer feedback protocols to current assignments using specific collaboration criteria
- Convert individual tests into team assessments where groups must reach consensus on answers
- Partner with other classrooms for cross-age mentoring and collaborative projects
- Use existing school events as opportunities for student teams to plan and execute real responsibilities
Enhance your strongest practice (group projects, lab work, presentations) by adding missing elements:
- Have collaboration rubrics? Add community partnerships for authentic stakes
- Have real audiences? Add explicit collaboration frameworks students track
- Have occasional teamwork? Spread collaborative learning across every subject daily
Transformation happens by aligning existing practices into a coherent system where visibility, authenticity, and integration multiply collaborative capacity.
The Significance of Collaboration as a Foundation Skill
Collaboration isn’t just another workplace competency—it’s the multiplier skill that amplifies all others. Without collaborative capacity, brilliant students become isolated contributors rather than force multipliers. Those who can’t navigate diverse perspectives miss the innovation that emerges from creative tension. When schools systematically develop collaboration through these three practices, they don’t just prepare students for group projects. They develop young people who understand that complex challenges require collective intelligence. They cultivate leaders who know when to lead and when to follow, innovators who build on others’ ideas, and professionals who transform groups into teams. This conscious development—rather than hoping collaboration emerges from forced group work—prepares students not just for team meetings but for the interconnected world where success depends on our ability to work together.
Next week: Critical Thinking: How schools transform surface-level analysis into deep analytical capacity through systematic development of thinking skills.
Looking for K-12 durable skills resources to engage your students? Join the upcoming FREE PILOT to get early access!
