Technical communication incorporates collaborative pedagogy by attempting to bridge real work environments with university classrooms through group assignments.
These theorists include, but are not limited to, Kenneth Bruffee, John Trimbur, Joseph Harris, and Wayne Campbell Peck, Linda Flower, and Lorraine Higgins.
Kenneth A. Bruffee cites thinking out loud and collaborating as natural states of learning, because they mimic the process of earlier stages of development.
Citing Michael Oakeshott, Bruffee argues that "[w]e first experience and learn 'the skill and partnership of conversation', in the external arena of direct social exchange with other people.
Bruffee confronts the overarching fact that "[h]umanistic study, we have been led to believe, is a solitary life, and the vitality of the humanities lies in the talents and endeavors of each of us as individuals.
"[8] However, Bruffee thinks that if composition instructors and scholars believe in writing and learning as a process from which everyone can benefit, then it is important to forge community through collaboration, despite the individualist discourse of the university.
[9] Peck et al. justify the need for their program by positing that, "... beyond cultural appreciation, we believe that the next, more difficult step in community-building is to create an intercultural dialogue that allows people to confront and solve problems across racial and economic boundaries.
[11] Overall, they argue that their program, while often fraught with conflict, helps stakeholders in different positions understand varying perspectives about issues in their local community, and that this learning process is both necessary and beneficial.
He wonders, "If to enter the academic community a student must 'learn to speak our language' [in reference to David Bartholomae's "Inventing the University"], and become accustomed and reconciled to our ways of doing things with words, then how exactly is she to do this?
[4] Robert J. Johnson thinks that writing is inherently collaborative, because technical writers have to acknowledge live audiences to accomplish real and necessary tasks.
Freedman and Adam worry that the classroom creates trained in capacities in students, preventing them from adapting to a work world where authoritative boundaries are blurred and most stakeholders are equal.