Collaboration: more than just a word or skill | Burstein & Holzapfel | 4 Min Read

Collaboration: more than just a word or skill | Burstein & Holzapfel | 4 Min Read

June 22, 2023

In a previous article, “Are These the Skills and Values You Are Looking For?”, we introduced the values that the Learning-Educational Agile Framework was built on, explained why we hold them dear, and feel they are critical to improving our education systems. In this article, we dive deeper into one of those values and explore the ”How” and “Why” of educational agility, specifically the pillar of Student Agility, collaboration.

Collaboration is a cornerstone value of agility because it exposes students to opportunities that allow them to practice being open to different ideas and viewpoints, and it encourages them to explore ways of working with a diverse team that is aligned with a common goal and shared outcomes. In this article, we will explore how collaboration helps students to develop these important skills and why they are essential for success in life.

Today’s digital economy thrives through high-functioning teams, which is to say individuals skilled in collaboration. This means collaboration is essential in the modern professional world and in life. With technology and communication making it easier for distributed teams to work together, students need to learn how to work with others effectively. By collaborating with others, students can share their knowledge and ideas, and work together to achieve a common goal. This is important because many challenges in life and at work require a team effort to solve, and students that learn how to collaborate will be better prepared for the challenges they will face in the future. Students who practice agility in the classroom will be far ahead of those that do not learn the new ways of working until after they have joined the workforce. Rarely do most teachers in traditional settings build deep collaboration into their classroom design, depriving students of needed practice in this skill. Some teachers say collaboration is hard to grade. We think our students deserve the opportunity to try new things and incorporate skills like sustained collaboration into current education practice. 

Collaboration also helps students to be open to different ideas and experiences. When students work with others who have different backgrounds and experiences, they can learn about different perspectives and ways of thinking. This helps to broaden their understanding of the world and helps them to be more empathetic and inclusive. It also helps teams introduce more variability and breadth into their problem-solving, a proven hallmark of high-functioning…

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Jeff Burstein

Jeff Burstein is an innovator, founder, consultant, speaker and Enterprise Agile Coach with over 20 years experience in helping companies and government agencies discover a better way of working. The 2020 pandemic precipitated the birth of a new company. IQ4Agile was created to bring solutions to the crisis facing worldwide educational systems. The company directive is to change the education sector from legacy, rigid systems and pivot them to function and succeed at a high level in our “new reality.” Jeff initiated a collaboration of leaders from both the transformation and educational space to develop a new scaling Agile framework called L-EAF.org. It can best be defined as “an emerging open source Agile framework designed around the complexities of Education and the Education sector.” The goal is to meet the unique complexities inherent in educational systems and to switch the conversation to a student-centered focus, creating truly pull based education systems. As an organization, Jeff established L-EAF.org so teachers can, once again, love teaching while students develop their own love of life long learning. It is in this commitment to ensure that these skills and practices are available to every student, regardless of constraints that aligns the work being done by the NativityMiguel Coalition and L-EAF.org Jeff has held many roles as Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Program Manager, Project Manager and SAFe Enterprise Agile Coach in companies such as Florida Power and Light, USAA, Lowes, TransUnion, FedEx and many other organizations. He lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina and when he is not busy coaching-he enjoys coffee, the outdoors and spending time with his family.