Collaborative learning can be efficient in providing first-year students with a real immediate audience for their work; it can also generate new ideas and can translate productively into outside world experiences.
Collaboration can be either hierarchical or egalitarian depending on group dynamics (i.e., whether or not some members have more control than other members of the group or if members have equal say).
The strengths and weaknesses of collaboration reside in the strengths and weaknesses of the collaborators.
Collaborative learning is a process although sometimes disjointed in which as Bruffee says the blind can sometimes end up leading the blind.
We are spokes in a wheel.