Teacher Collaboration Is an Important Catalyst for Learning An important design aspect of the mini-sabbatical was to establish a learning community by having teachers work as a collaborative group and use each other as resources, critics, inspiration, and so on, as they developed their curriculum.
Teachers typically have little time for collaboration and are used to working in isolation.
In addition, their own group work and interaction might give them insights about how to design and support collaborative work for their students. In many respects the group of participating teachers became a collaborative team. In many group situations, teachers openly shared ideas, concerns, and even self-doubts. Teachers formed smaller groups and had long discussions and debates. Teachers from the same school discussed strategies for continuing to work together during the school year and for disseminating lessons from the mini-sabbatical to the remaining teaching staff and school administration.