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.[11] We knew that teachers brought relevant experiences to the mini-sabbatical that were vital to their personal success, and we needed to find ways to reveal this expertise to enhance learning for all. By having teachers establish their own "community of practice," we hoped to provide a model for collaboration that they could take back to their home schools and, ideally, establish as part of their everyday practice. 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. Teachers also got involved in each others' projects, for example, by role-playing a "client" for the advertising campaign or a representative from city government who reviewed the monument bridge. The last day of the mini-sabbatical was orchestrated by the teachers themselves. They held a panel discussion for students, mini-sabbatical staff, and guests in which they discussed their own experiences and asked students to present their work.