Collaboration is beginning to be encouraged as colleges and schools search for ways to transcend the isolated circumstances of the independent scholar and the traditional classroom. Three collaborative projects that can be effective in preservice teacher education classes are: (1) a partnership with single school; (1) a partnership with a group of schools; and (3) a partnership with a distant college. All three projects helped students to transcend the boundaries of the classroom in their rural college, particularly important because their college is one of those "idyllic" colleges created to isolate and sanctify the independent scholar. In a mini-partnership with a single school, English education students responded to writings by students from a suburban senior high school. In a second move into the community, students collaborated with 15 schools throughout New York State to publish a collaborative newsletter, "Book Links," which related to young adult literature. College students contacted teachers whom they knew and, in some cases, visited their classes to request student participation. Last year copies of the newsletter went to 400 eighth graders from 15 schools. The third project enabled students to share common interests about literacy teaching via e-mail with preservice teachers in the distant South. The transition to collaborative-oriented teaching is not a smooth one as many of the students resist it because of ideological devotion to traditional practices. The three projects shifted the boundaries of the classroom and in the process fostered less competitive, more humanistic environments and advanced the learning of the participants. Contains 11 references. (TB)