Making Our Mark with Collaboration

The next step in The Dot project was focusing on the qualities of a collaborator. We organized all of the qualities and ideas that students had about being a collaborator and four themes emerged. Those themes were: Listen, Compromise, Work Together and Everyone is Included. Students were placed into small groups of two or three students. Their first step as a group was to come up with ideas and norms for their group based on the four themes of qualities of a collaborator. Students came up with great ideas including going around in a circle so everyone had a chance to share their ideas, making sure that at least one idea from each team member was included in the design and making each person in the group responsible for each of the materials being used in the project.

After students agreed on their group norms they designed the first iteration of their art bots. Students sketched out the initial plan for their robots making sure that they listened to their teammates, compromised and that everyone was able to share in the planning of their first prototype of the art bot.

The best part of this portion of the project was observing students reference their group norms and ideas as they collaborated with their classmates to plan for their project. Students were invested in the group norms for collaboration that they created and put them into practice as they began their project. I am excited to see how the rest of the project progresses.

Next step: Testing their designs!