Miles:
"J's contention is not true in community colleges, either; where I work, coursework in almost all disciplines from chemistry to communication studies to English comp emphasize group work and peer evaluation. So if it's not true in "elite schools", and it's not true in community colleges--"
Well, I guess times have changed. When I went through school: 1960 - 1987, the only collaborative projects I remember were 1) a biology project in high school and 2) a special chemistry project at UCLA. Everything else was individual. In both cases, the collaborative project was only about 1/3 of the class.
I know that collaboration is more common in the sciences because research projects often require a sizeable team. But of the ones I had any direct experience with, it was not so much a team as it was a senior professor (who got the grants) defining the process and the roles, and everyone else following orders.
Experience with collaborative projects in the humanities was zero; but Chuck's point is well-taken: that in dance, theater, music, and film, collaboration is part of the very nature of those enterprises.
I'm glad to hear that collaboration is now more common.
Joanna