It makes sense to allow collaboration in some contexts (homework) while forbidding it in other contexts (test taking). This way, students are rewarded for working together yet are still have an incentive to make sure they aren't simply letting their partners do the work at the expense of their own understanding (intentionally or not).

The cheating happened in a testing context. Other parts of the class would have emphasized the collaborative aspect of learning, and I'm sure this contributed to the widespread consensus that sharing answers was OK, despite written instructions to the contrary.

Collaboration only makes sense when people have something to offer one another. It's actually valuable to learn something for yourself so that you can meaningfully contribute to collaborative efforts.

Besides, ethics are important.

> increasing disconnect of the lessons of college with the needs of our modern professional world. Nearly everything meaningful is done as a collaborate effort

what's uniquely modern about collaboration? hasn't collaboration been important for hundreds of years?

Exams are like job interviews, not like typical professional work. Do people typically interview collaboratively? No.

I agree. "Academic integrity" always seemed like a law that was enforced with strange brutality. I've never cheated on a test before, but I don't think working with others is a bad thing. In fact, I wonder if I was trained so much by this to only work on things by myself, which has other negative consequences.

Do you have specific suggestions, aside from not grading on a curve (which is common but certainly not universal)?