The popular model of collaborative learning views classrooms as contexts where nonmembers of "valued" communities become members by mastering accepted knowledge, discourse forms, and methods. Although attractive to educators, this model allows only for changes in individual students, not in "valued" communities. Further, its emphasis on "normal discourse" maintains established knowledge, promotes static definitions of communities, and suppresses the creation of new meaning and the dynamic process of communal redefinition. If educators seek to prepare students for the kinds of communities and organizations they will enter, then current collaborative methods are effective and appropriate. However, if their role is to promote critical thinking and to nurture students' existing power to define their communities and to act within them, then methods that are dialogic and that focus on problem-posing must be explored. As a first step, educators should refuse to confine collaborative methods to classroom "peer groups." They should promote the "abnormal discourse" that occurs when disciplines, departments, and classrooms come together. Redefinition of learning, thinking, and writing must be university-wide and must involve students in the process of critiquing the current educational system. (Author/RS)