Educating for Collaboration: A Virtue Education Approach

ABSTRACT

Given the instrumental value of good collaborations for societal flourishing, educating for good collaborators (viz., agents who have the motivation and ability to collaborate with others) should be one of the fundamental goals of contemporary education. Still, fostering the growth of dispositions needed for successful collaborations is not explicitly considered to be a first-rate pedagogical goal in most contemporary virtue education programs. To remedy this omission, I propose a virtue-based method for developing good collaborators through an education that involves a mixture of three complementary educational techniques: i) collaborative problem-based learning, ii) physical education, and iii) direct teaching. Learning through collaborative problem-based learning educates students on the motivations and abilities needed to be good collaborators in epistemic pursuits, whereas physical education teaches learners how to be good collaborators in non-epistemic endeavors, whilst direct teaching ties everything together by giving learners an explicit understanding of the value of good collaborations.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtue education
• collaboration
• problem-based learning
• physical education
• direct teaching

I. Introductory Remarks

Having a desire to collaborate with others, alongside having the ability to do so effectively on a systematic basis, is crucial for societal flourishing. Imagine, for instance, an individualistic society in which the vast majority of citizens dislike and thus avoid working with one another on even the most trivial tasks (e.g. queuing at the bus stop) and/or lack the necessary skills to do so with some degree of efficiency (e.g. they do not have the necessary self-control to stay in the queue). Now, contrast the above example with that of a society in which people are both willing and able to collaborate with one another – e.g. a group of agents working together to clean up a beach that is full of waste, or a non-profit communal café in which volunteers work together towards creating a safe space for vulnerable people to come and interact. Crucially, in the two latter examples, agents are working together for the betterment of their community, and although this does not necessarily need to be the case (e.g. people might collaborate with others simply to promote their own personal good), there seems to be a connection between collaborative action and the motivation to work together for the pursuit of the common good (see section II for more on how collaborative action is linked to the collective good¹). Therefore, right from the start, it seems fair to uphold the belief that societies are much better off with citizens who are both motivated and skilled at working together. Good collaborations are valuable for both everyday mundane practices (e.g. a couple trying to navigate their way home due to road construction) and more specialized and highly technical endeavors (e.g. coming up with the best practices for safeguarding against the spread of a deadly virus).

Given the instrumental nature of collaborative practices for societal wellbeing, it follows that education should aim at producing citizens who are both motivated and able to collaborate. This argument relates to the goals of the collaborative problem-based learning method which has grown in popularity in educational theory in recent years (see, e.g. Margetson 1993; Hmelo and Ferrari 1997; Hmelo-Silver 2004; Hesse et al. 2015; OECD 2017). According to the principles of collaborative problem-based learning, students learn better when working together in groups. One of the main pedagogical goals of this educational approach is for students to be educated in good collaborative practices (Hmelo and Ferrari 1997; Hmelo-Silver 2004).

In parallel with theories of collaborative learning, virtue education has also experienced a revival in educational theory. Various educational theorists have been arguing for the importance of an educational program that aims specifically at fostering the growth of virtues in students (see, e.g. Carr 1991, 2007; Lickona 1996; Battaly 2006; Winch 2010; Curren 2013, 2014; Kristjánsson 2015, 2016; Baehr 2016; Croce 2020; Kotsonis 2021a) Briefly put, the aim of virtue education is to produce learners who (i) have the intellectual skills necessary for knowledge acquisition and retention, (ii) possess a good moral compass informed by the virtue of practical wisdom, and (iii) are driven by their desire to promote societal goods. In short, virtue education aims at fostering the growth of intellectual, moral, and civic virtues in students.² This revival of virtue education has informed educational programs in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. For instance, Scotland’s Curriculum of Excellence builds on the principles of virtue education by aiming to ‘help our children and young people gain the knowledge, skills and attributes needed for life in the 21st century.’ In addition, England’s Virtue education Framework provides guidance to schools (e.g. Northampton Academy and Smith’s Wood Primary Academy) on virtue education, and there are numerous virtue education programs in existence in the United States today (e.g. Character Development & Leadership and Character Counts!).

Whilst it could be argued that an education into good collaborative practice is already assumed in existing virtue education programs (through the cultivation of certain traits that are important for good collaborations), fostering the growth of the dispositions and/or skills needed for successful collaborations is nevertheless not explicitly considered or stated as a foremost pedagogical goal by the vast majority of these programs. Rather than specifically focusing on collaboration, many such programs emphasize the development of ‘individualistic’ virtues instead. In addition, there seems to be a scarcity of practical methods in contemporary virtue education for explicitly educating students in good collaborative practices.³ Given the above, the aim of this paper is to argue that producing good collaborators should be an explicit and primary goal of virtue education. Moreover, the paper seeks to propose concrete practical pedagogical methods through which to educate students, both by motivating them to collaborate with one another and by helping them develop the necessary skills to collaborate effectively. To achieve these goals, this study proposes a virtue-based method for educating for good collaborators that involves a mixture of three complementary educational techniques: i) collaborative problem-based learning, ii) physical education (through team sports), and iii) direct teaching.

In the next section, I begin by giving an overview of what is entailed in good collaborative practice in terms of character traits, motivation, and abilities. I highlight that good collaborators have both the motivation to collaborate with other agents as well as the ability to do so well. I also argue that virtues such as honesty, intellectual courage, and open-mindedness play an important role in facilitating good collaborations. Following this, in section III, I propose a mixture of i) collaborative problem-based learning, ii) physical education (through team sports), and iii) direct teaching (tailored after the needs and goals of virtue education) for educating for good collaborators in virtue education programs. The combination of these three educational techniques seeks to educate learners on both the motivation and the ability needed to establish and maintain good collaborations on a systematic basis. I conclude with a summary of the key points of the proposed educational method.

II. Collaborations Through a Virtue Perspective

Collaborations involve two or more people working together to achieve a common goal (or set of goals).⁴,⁵ For example, football players work in unison in order for their team to win the match. Still, collaboration is not specific to (and important only for) team sports but is crucial for many aspects of our everyday life. As noted in the introduction, such activities can be trivial or more technical – which is to say, in some instances, collaboration may also require specialized knowledge concerning the matter at hand. When we work alone, humans are limited to the specific abilities that each one of us has, but when working together with others we can pool together our individual strengths and achieve far superior outcomes than we might individually.

Collaboration is one of the defining features of human societies. Agents employed in the production and distribution industry work collaboratively in order for both essential (e.g. food and medicine) and non-essential (e.g. cars and computers) products to be available for purchase and use; agents employed in the health industry work together in order to produce cures and/or vaccines that will help to protect society from deadly viruses; builders collaborate in order to build houses; sailors collaborate with port authorities and their fellow crew members in order to dock the ship safely; parents (hopefully) collaborate with their partner in raising their children – the list goes on. Consequently, it seems safe to argue that collaborations are crucial for civic co-existence since collaborative actions carry with them the promotion of the common good.⁶ However, one might object by asking whether this means, e.g. that the worker who is part of the supply chain of a supermarket could only be driven to act out of their desire to promote the common good. This does appear to be somewhat far-fetched. Nevertheless, whilst a desire to promote the common good is not requisite for a worker to do their job, this point does not undo the fact that their job is part of a collaborative endeavor that adds value to human societies. That is to say, without individuals engaging in such collaborative actions that make it possible for us, e.g. to find food at our local supermarket, our lives as members of society would be significantly worse – and if we were to start to progressively remove every collaborative action that constitutes human societies, then soon there would not be any ‘society’ left. Without social collaboration, every agent would effectively be on their own

Does this mean, then, that every collaborative action aims at promoting the collective good and/or that it actually promotes the collective good? Evidently not. There are many examples of collaborative actions through which agents seek to advance their own personal gain – and such actions bring about negative outcomes for society. Consider, for example, the case of a band of thieves who work collaboratively in order to steal a valuable painting from the Louvre. Whilst the thieves are collaborating, at the same time, their actions cause harm to others by depriving them of the opportunity to enjoy the painting. By contrast, a group of agents may work together with the intention to promote the common good, but their endeavors may be unsuccessful, such as a group of scientists failing to produce a cure for a certain disease despite years of research and funding. Here, their collaborative work does not actually promote the collective good.⁷ Still, my aim has not been to argue that collaborative actions are always for the benefit of societies. Rather, the point is that human societies are not possible as such without engagement in collaborative activities that help us to establish and maintain human communities. This, I believe, shows how important it is for us to educate citizens that are both willing and able to collaborate with others in order to promote the collective good.⁸

Now, from the perspective of virtue theory, in order to educate for citizens who are both motivated and able to work with one another collaboratively (i.e. both in their line of work but also in every other aspect of their civic and personal lives) a certain education which develops the relevant skills/dispositions and motivations is needed. Starting with the latter, motivational training is an integral feature of virtue education. When it comes to good collaborative practice, students need to acquire the motivation to work with others. They need to understand both the theory behind, and experience in practice, the value of collaborative work for societal wellbeing. This combination of theoretical understanding and practical experience will propel them to seek to collaborate with others whenever the opportunity for meaningful collaboration arises. Having the motivation to work with others is the first step in producing good collaborators. Still, this motivational training is not an easy task and requires the combination of numerous pedagogical techniques (see section III).

Having the motivation to collaborate with other agents is a necessary feature of good collaborative practice (Kotsonis 2021b): consider someone who dislikes and avoids collaborating with other agents – even if they do reluctantly collaborate, we would still not think of them as a ‘good collaborator.’ However, motivation alone is not sufficient for one to be a good collaborator. This is evident from the fact that we would also be reluctant to characterize as a good collaborator the agent who, despite being motivated to collaborate with others, is nonetheless rather bad at it. Therefore, we can stipulate that what it means to be a ‘good collaborator’ also entails that the agent in question has the ability to collaborate well (Kotsonis 2021b). And for virtue theorists, good collaborators tend to possess a range of different dispositions and abilities, such as honesty, open-mindedness, and intellectual courage.⁹ Consider the importance of honesty, for example, as in the case of an agent who does not disclose to his collaborators that he lacks some skill necessary to complete a task that was allocated to him. By not being honest with the other collaborators, this agent is putting their collective endeavor into jeopardy. Open-mindedness is also an important trait that agents need to possess for their collaborations to be successful. Imagine, for instance, an agent who lacks the ability to keep an open mind to other people’s beliefs and viewpoints. This would again put the collaborative practice into jeopardy since they might be unwilling to acknowledge, for example, the possibility that other agents could have a better solution to a given problem. Finally, intellectual courage seems to be an integral feature of good collaborative practice too. If an agent lacks the courage to share her opinion with her interlocutors, she might be depriving of the group of valuable information and/or points of view that could foster a better collaboration.,^10,11

Therefore, it seems safe to argue that part of being a good collaborator on a systematic basis, and across a range of different collaborative activities, involves the possession of certain virtues (see also Kotsonis 2021b). However, one could object to this by raising the example of cases wherein one or more of the previously identified character traits are not needed for good collaborative practice. It is not impossible, after all, to conceive of a closed-minded and dishonest person who, despite such traits (and by some strange stroke of luck), nevertheless collaborates well with others in writing a philosophical paper. But whilst such cases are conceivable, they do not undo the fact that, in general, good, consistent collaborators do possess a mixture of good character traits. It might be true that the closed-minded and dishonest philosopher is able to collaborate in this instance, but his lack of qualities such as honesty and open-mindedness are bound, in the long run, to be the reason why most of his collaborative endeavors will fail. Nonetheless, given the above counterexample, it seems more appropriate to make a weaker claim in relating good collaborative practices to its underlying virtues. That is to say, I maintain that agents who possess virtues such as open-mindedness, honesty, and intellectual courage, as well as the motivation to collaborate with others, are much more likely to be better collaborators (in the long run) than agents who lack one or more of these traits and/or the motivation to work with others.

Now, it seems somewhat insufficient to claim that good collaborators are only the product of good motivations and certain valuable traits. For all that someone might be honest, open-minded, and intellectually courageous – and for all they might be motivated to collaborate with others – they could still be bad at actually collaborating. There appear to be further situational factors at play, for example, knowing when to pursue collaborations, knowing what activities are appropriate for collaboration, and knowing with whom one ought to collaborate. There could also be someone who, due to their education and life experiences, has no idea how to work well with others. Therefore, whilst it seems to be the case that virtues such as honesty, open-mindedness and intellectual courage are valuable for good collaborations, they are nonetheless insufficient alone for someone to be a good collaborator. In order to produce good collaborators, educational programs need to explicitly foster in learners the ability to collaborate with others, through both practical experience and theoretical learning.

III. Virtue education for Collaboration

As noted in the introduction, current virtue-based approaches to education seem to lack an explicit focus on educating for good collaborators, in spite of the fact that good collaborations are essential for societal wellbeing. And whilst it could be argued that what we need to do is to educate students in the relevant virtues, at the same time, these character traits are insufficient alone. In what follows, I propose a virtue-based method for educating for good collaborators that involves a mixture of three different, but complementary, educational techniques: i) collaborative problem-based learning, ii) physical education, and iii) direct teaching. Given the value of good collaborations, I maintain that this pedagogical approach to educating for good collaborators should (and could easily) be implemented in every educational program that follows the principles of virtue education.¹²

A) Problem-Based Learning

Collaborative problem-based learning (as exposited in Margetson 1993; Hmelo and Ferrari 1997; Hmelo-Silver 2004; Hesse et al. 2015; OECD 2017) is a first-rate pedagogical method for cultivating in students both the motivation and the ability to collaborate with others (Kotsonis 2022). Facilitating the skills needed for good collaborative practice has been identified as an explicit goal of the problem-based learning (PBL) method (Hmelo and Ferrari 1997; Hmelo-Silver 2004). In collaborative problem-based learning, students work together in small groups on given problems and then reflect (through in-class discussions) on what they have learned. In these reflections, they also evaluate the methods they employed to solve each given problem. More precisely, students learn through engaging with real life ‘problems that do not have a single correct answer’ (Hmelo-Silver 2004, 235). They are presented with a problem and then work together to identify all the relevant facts, generate working hypotheses, and identify knowledge deficiencies. Having thus located the knowledge that will help them to answer the problems, they then move on to acquire it (through self-directed teaching) and apply that knowledge in solving the problem (Hmelo and Ferrari 1997; Hmelo-Silver 2004). The role of the teacher in PBL, then, is to facilitate this process (rather than to provide direct knowledge) and to help students acquire the relevant skills needed for problem-solving, e.g. how to identify facts that are relevant for the problem, how to formulate hypotheses, and so on (Hmelo-Silver 2004).

The PBL method thus follows Kilpatrick’s (1918) and Dewey’s (1938) call for an education that promotes active learning through practical experience. It is a somewhat novel educational approach that goes against the culture of individualistic learning that prevails in most contemporary educational programs. It is also a method which emphasizes the importance of ‘hands-on’ practice and experience in learning, as well as emphasizing the importance of developing collaborative skills in students (Hmelo and Ferrari 1997; Hmelo-Silver 2004). Notably, when educating through the PBL method, one safeguards against producing individuals who lack the motivation and/or ability to work with others in the pursuit of epistemic goods. Learners come to appreciate from experience the value of good collaborations. They realize that there are certain tasks that cannot be completed as efficiently (or even at all) when they are working on their own. However, in spite of the fact that PBL is a method that complements well the goals of virtue education, it is currently implemented in very few virtue-virtue educational programs, if any. Through the PBL method, students do not only acquire the skills needed to work with others in the pursuit of epistemic goods, they also develop important virtues, such as intellectual courage and open-mindedness, that are essential for good collaborative practice. For instance, they learn the importance of keeping an open mind to the ideas and beliefs of one’s collaborators, whilst simultaneously developing the courage to share their beliefs with others as well, in defending their own point of view.

B) Physical Education

Problem-based learning is crucial for achieving the goal of educating students for good collaborations, but it is not sufficient to secure this goal alone. Students need to acquire the ability to work with others not only in the pursuit of epistemic goods but also in non-epistemic endeavors (i.e. activities that do not aim at some kind of epistemic end). Physical education has already been incorporated as an important feature in educational approaches that aim at cultivating valuable character traits, such as discipline and self-control, in students (see, e.g. Arnold 1994, 1999; Jones 2005; Lumpkin 2008; Surprenant 2014; Kotsonis 2021c). Nonetheless, the value of physical education for producing good collaborators – especially physical education that involves some sort of collaboration (e.g. team sports) – has not been explicitly developed in the context of virtue education. Acquiring traits such as discipline and self-control are paramount for good collaborative practice. One cannot be said to be a good collaborator if one does not have discipline and self-control (or, at the very least, the individual will not be as good a collaborator as they would have been had they possessed such traits). To illustrate this, consider the case of an agent who cannot stop talking, or one who can’t restrain himself from yelling at others – such behaviours will obviously have detrimental effects for any (or at least most) collaboration(s).

But as I have already noted, physical education is not only essential for producing good collaborators due to its ability to cultivate certain traits that are valuable for good collaborative practice. Moreover, physical education, and particularly physical education in team sports, involves an education in the ability and motivation needed to collaborate well with others in the pursuit of non-epistemic goods.¹³ Through team sports, students come to experience first-hand the value of working well with others towards the pursuit of a common goal: they come to understand that a good team is comprised of agents working harmoniously and selflessly together in pursuit of a common goal. They come to see that good collaborations are not only valuable in the pursuit of epistemic ends; it is also equally valuable in the pursuit of non-epistemic goods. Hence, virtue education programs should include some physical education in team sports with the explicit goal of educating students in being good collaborators. The goal of this physical education in team sports should not be to teach students that they need to win matches no matter the cost, but rather that there is tremendous value to be found when working together as a group. Through such activities, students will not only recognize the value of teams but they will also acquire the experience of working in a team. They will come to understand what needs to be done in order for a team to work well and learn how to navigate teamwork. When this physical education in team sports is combined with collaborative problem-based learning and direct teaching (see the next subsection) students receive a first-rate education in both acquiring the motivation and the ability to work well with others for the pursuit of epistemic as well as non-epistemic goods.

C) Direct Teaching

Good habits and dispositions are not only caught; they are also taught (Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues 2017) – and given the importance of good collaborations for the wellbeing of human societies, we cannot afford not to employ all the educational methods available for educating for good collaborators. Therefore, to complement collaborative problem-based learning and physical education through team sports (i.e. educational techniques which seek to educate students through practice and habituation), virtue-based approaches to education should also include direct teaching on the value of good collaborations.

Direct teaching ‘provides the rationale, language and tools to use in developing character elsewhere in and out of school’ (Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues 2017, 3). It should be noted that direct teaching is already an established method for fostering the growth of virtues in students. What I am proposing in this section is that part of this method should include direct teaching on the value of good collaborations as well. This could be achieved through in-class discussions of real-life examples that highlight both the importance of collaborations for societal prospering (e.g. road maintenance workers working together to repair the roads, juries working together to render a correct verdict, etc.), scientific progress (e.g. Einstein and Grossman’s work in developing the theories of relativity and gravitation), as well as the fact that certain activities can only be performed collaboratively (e.g. the fact that particle research at the Large Hadron Collider requires 17,500 engineers, physicists, and mathematicians). This information on the value of collaborations will help students to recognize the merits of working well with others, and this will further strengthen their motivation to engage in good collaborative practices themselves (as well as minimize any tendencies they might have to work alone).

Direct teaching is also great opportunity for educators to give some direct instructions to learners on the abilities and traits (e.g. open-mindedness, discipline, and honesty) that are conducive to good collaborations. In addition, direct teaching is also needed for learners to receive some initial guidance on how to approach collaborative problem-based learning (e.g. by explaining what is being asked of them) and physical education through team sports (that they should focus on collaborating well with each other rather than winning). Finally, through direct teaching, educators could also explain to students precisely what each of these three educational techniques seeks to achieve (i.e. to cultivate good character traits as well as the ability and motivation to work well with others) so as to guarantee pedagogical transparency.

IV. Concluding Remarks

Given the importance of collaborating in establishing and maintaining a well-functioning society, educating for good collaborators (viz., agents who have both the motivation and ability to work well with others) should be one of the chief goals of every educational system. My aim in this paper has been to show how this goal should inform and be incorporated into the curricula of virtue-based approaches to education (i.e. educational programs that aim specifically at fostering the growth of virtues in students). Notably, all three proposed pedagogical techniques are of paramount importance for the education of good collaborators, with each one serving a specific purpose. Problem-based learning shows learners the value of good collaboration for the acquisition of epistemic goods and teaches them the abilities necessary for collaborating well with others in their epistemic endeavors. Physical education in team sports educates learners on the value of collaborations for activities aiming at non-epistemic goods (e.g. winning the match) and gives them a first-hand experience in working with others in the pursuit of common (non-epistemic) goals. Finally, direct teaching on the value of good collaborations ties everything together by giving learners an explicit understanding of the value of good collaborations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I use the terms ‘collective good’ and ‘common good’ interchangeably throughout the manuscript.

2. Virtues are commonly defined as enduring and valuable traits of character that involve the motivation as well as the ability to act in a morally (and in the case of intellectual virtues, epistemically) good manner.

3. By ‘explicit’, I mean not simply as a by-product of educational methods that seek to achieve other pedagogical goals – rather, developing collaborative skills should be a goal in itself.

4. It is questionable whether there can be genuine collaboration among agents pursuing different goals. Moreover, even if one were to accept such cases as cases of genuine collaboration, a worry remains as to whether such collaborations can be good (i.e. whether they can be successful and produce desirable outcomes). Thus, for reasons of simplicity, in this paper I focus on collaborations in which agents are pursuing a common goal together – e.g. a team of players working together to win a match. In addition, it is important to note that some collaborators may have secondary goals. For example, a basketball player may collaborate with other members of her team in order to win the match and then request a salary raise for herself. Though such cases are possible, again for reasons of simplicity, I am focusing here on the primary goal (or set of goals) of collaboration.

5. It might be important to distinguish between collaboration and cooperation. One of the main differences between the two terms is that collaboration entails people working together while cooperation simply requires everyone carrying out their part (and does not involve people working together in the strict sense). For more information on cooperation, and its minimal conditions, see Paternotte (2014).

6. Without good collaborations we would not have access, as a society, to basic goods such as medicines, electricity, food, etc. The production and distribution of these goods require good collaborations. And without such goods, our collective wellbeing would be in jeopardy. Consider, for instance, a society in which the majority of people do not have access to medicine to cure infectious diseases such as measles.

7. This raises the question of what the distinguishing feature of good collaboration is. Are good collaborations a matter of good intentions or a matter of good outcomes? I believe that good collaborations involve both good intentions and good outcomes: A good collaborative action aims at promoting the collective good and has beneficial outcomes for society. After all, we would be reluctant to characterize a collaborative action as a good one if it brought good outcomes without intending to do so and/or if it intended to promote the collective good but repeatedly failed to do so. Still, it is important to note that my overall argument does not require that one agrees with me on the nature of good collaborations – i.e. one could have a different conception of what constitutes a good collaboration and still agree with my overall argument that educating for collaboration should be one of the chief goals of every educational system.

8. My view is that the value of good collaboration stems from the agents’ desire and intention to promote the collective good.

9. For more on the virtue of honesty, see Carr (2014) and Miller (2017); for an analysis of the virtue of open-mindedness, see Riggs (2010) and Baehr (2011); and for an overview of the virtue of intellectual courage, see Baehr (2016) and Alfano (2013).

10. One could make a case for the instrumental value of other virtues, such as respect and justice, for good collaborative practice. It seems to be true that respect for one’s collaborators and a just attitude in one’s dealings with them is an important quality of good collaborators. Still, my point in the section above was not to argue for an exhaustive list of all the virtues that may come into play in collaborations, but to highlight, through the use of examples, that some virtues do come into play. This shows the value of good character education for producing good collaborators.

11. Note that I am not making (or defending) the claim that collaboration requires more intellectual courage from the agent than individual work does. Rather, I am arguing that intellectual courage is a valuable trait to possess when it comes to collaborating with others

12. It might be important to note that I develop this approach with a democratic context in mind (without this implying that the proposed approach cannot find application in other contexts as well). There are two main reasons for this. The first reason is that most contemporary virtue-based approaches to education are to be found in democratic societies. The second reason is that most educational systems in democratic societies have an individualistic focus and somewhat disregard the importance of good collaborative endeavors. Notably, in this paper, I am focusing on contemporary virtue-based approaches to education and argue that the proposed approach can be easily implemented in such programs given that such programs already focus on cultivating virtues in students.

13. Some students might not enjoy physical education and/or sports. In such cases, theater or playing music in groups are good substitutes to physical education for educating students for good collaborations.