Collaborative learning requires that all members of the group share the common task of coming up with ideas or solutions to address a problem, or produce or enhance a product, whereby every member can assume different roles in the group so long as every one pools their efforts together regardless of how long the process might take or how frustrating the discussion might turn into.

Chrysa's various assessment methods enabled her students to be mindful of their participation in the group. By having a separate assessment rubric for individual performance apart from that of the group performance, Chrysa tried to ensure that all the individual students in her class should contribute to the group and not allow only the more able ones to dominate in the group. Although measuring individual participation is a little hard to come by if done through rubric assessment. 

The questions she asked her students only served to encourage her students to do better, especially those who belong to the upper age group (10-11 year olds). I doubt, however, if her younger students, the ones aged 6-7, fully understood what it means to perform individually for the purpose of serving the group's tasks. The self-assessment checklist is also better answered by the older group of Chrysa's students.

Peer assessment work well for the older group of students (aged 9 - 11). But for the younger ones (aged 6-8) this may prove a little difficult since those children in those age group category only favour the ones they are close to. They  do not yet exhibit sufficient maturity to assess their peers without being attached to them. Chrysa should probably not have to make the 6- to 8-year olds assess their peers. She could have done the teacher assessment on her own in this case.

The questions asked by Chrysa near the end of the presentation prove valid and something we could ponder on when measuring individual contribution to group efforts in collaborative work.

1. The lesson plan includes learning activities specifically designed to develop students’ collaborative learning skills: For example, at least two of the following criteria are included (see module 2 videos and resources – i.e. the 21CLD rubric and the example learning scenarios for further information and inspiration):

2. The lesson plan incorporates appropriate assessment tools to assess the collaborative learning activities mentioned, preferably including the student in the design of at least one of the tools:For example, one or more of the following are included as assessment tools (see module 3 videos and resources – i.e. the CO-LAB Guidelines for Assessing Collaborative Learning in the Classroom for further information and inspiration):

3. The lesson plan is well aligned with its learning outcomes: activities and assessment clearly link with the defined learning outcomes and allow the teacher to determine by the end of the lesson(s) if the objectives have been achieved.

4. The lesson plan is balanced: there is a good mix of activities with at least four different Teaching Learning Activities used (TLAs in the Learning Designer) and none of the Activities, except in the case of collaboration, taking up more than 35% of the time (see the pie chart for this).

Prof. Buter emphasised that  the school management themselves would have seen the need to push for teacher collaboration. If there would be some form of initiative that the school requires the teachers to collaborate in a specific grade or year level (for a pilot start), then the teachers would really find time to engage in collaboration with their peers on a common theme or learning task. We have tried this at Southville International School when I used to work there. The challenges that accompany teacher collaboration is finding a common timetable for all year level teachers to meet and plan for collaborative lesson. We even went to the extent of putting up a specific whiteboard in the classroom so other teachers would just simply fit their lessons into the theme being studied in one subject. At least there would be two or more teachers in the same year level who can collaborate on a common theme.

I am admittedly eager to collaborate with teachers outside of Indonesia, who can work on a lesson involving either ecology or energy sources. I do hope I could find any of my former colleagues in the Philippines who'd be willing to collaborate with me on these topics. It is hoped that the study of these lessons would somehow be within the standards or curriculum my former colleagues would be teaching in the first six months of 2017.

To be honest, I and my teacher-colleagues in my present school have not yet engaged in any collaborative effort to date. This is rather sad as the school maintains distinct departments working on their own.

It is indeed true that a teacher's knowledge, social and communication skills, personal traits and task management skills have to be factored in when he or she will be part of a collaborative undertaking in school. I think that cultural beliefs can also be considered as another condition for teacher collaboration as people of various cultural background should work together as a team.

I haven't really tried out using technology to collaborate with teachers. Some of us in the science department share resources and these usually are linked to certain websites. But that's the extent to how we used technology when we work with colleagues. The only real 'sending and displaying' exchange we ever have in school is the school's SNAil publication that is run by students and where some teachers in the IT department are able to post videos and pictures with captions to commemorate certain events in school. 
I hope that teachers, other than the Edmodo site where we just simply connect as teachers of the same school, would get to spend time using a platform where we could collaborate on a project for the students. 
The technology that may prove helpful could include Google Drive, Padlet, Wikis and Edmodo. I am interested to learn more of Schoology as an LMS for our school.

It is certainly not easy to find time for teachers to collaborate on single day, let alone just a dedicated time for contact meeting once per week. In my former school, there would be a certain time before the start of the term where teachers could meet and share their lessons in order to look for a common lesson where teachers can collaborate. Then again, time is really an issue. 
I find working with teachers of different discipline quite useful in terms of sharing resources and ideas, but this can only take place during professioal development time held at least once a year before the start of the school year. For collaborative effort among teachers to happen, there should at least be 2 days devoted spent just planning to find a common ground by which at least 2 - 3 teachers can collaborate together for two to three weeks in a term. 
That could just serve as a jump off point for any succeeding collaborative teaching.