Compassionate Systems Framework

For the past couple of years my school has been involved with a project in collaboration with MIT and the IB, as well as several other IB schools scattered around the world. This is a guest post from our Director of Teaching and Learning, Jacob Martin, who explains the scope of the collaboration far more eloquently than I. It's exciting to be a part of this project and I'm interested in seeing where it goes and what part this framework might play in the enhanced PYP in our context.  

As a leading International Baccalaureate(IB) World School, we are frequently asked to participate in the development of educational practice at IB schools. One of the most exciting recent projects ISZL is taking a leading role in is the development of a new set of classroom practices called "The Compassionate Systems Framework". This is a combination of systems thinking tools often used in the classroom (examples here) and the development of a compassionate mindset in students. We have been truly amazed by the results of some of the works we have done with teachers and students at our school and the project is becoming a global educational project with ISZL leading the way. The project stems from the work of Peter Senge at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Young people throughout different cultures and circumstances are confronted with the complex contradictions of the interconnected, interdependent systems in our world (e.g. climate change, human migration, terrorism, substance use, etc.). An essential question for the future of education is how do we help students to reflect on, deeply understand and respond mindfully and compassionately rather than just feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of these systems. With the growing interest in education in social and emotional learning (SEL) and mindfulness today, we feel it is especially timely to show how these can combine with skills in understanding systems and complexity to establish a cognitive and affective foundation for global citizenship and what we at ISZL call “International Mindedness.”

We are looking to developing the skillsets of a systems thinker with our students, through using a variety of systems thinking tools and practices: seeing deeper systemic structures underlying surface events, and how mental models and “artefacts” shape those structures. But, even for skilful systems thinkers, complex issues can easily be seen as something outside of ourselves, or something we understand intellectually but not emotionally. “Systems sensing” skills help to “sense into” the multiple experienced realities in any complex setting.

Over time, these skills can combine to nurture a compassionate stance. One technique involves understanding the structural sources of problems that go beyond individual people or groups (avoiding a blame based culture). Another lies in staying “next to that other” and feeling with them how they feel yet with less internalisation of the other’s emotional state than can occur with empathy alone (and the consequent feelings of being overwhelmed or “emotionally high-jacked”) and yet also holding an intention for others’ well-being - which is why compassion is seen in many developmental traditions as a cultivated, refined state of being.

In this framework we deliberately cultivate compassion as an essentially attribute of the mind: to cultivate compassion is to be able to appreciate the systemic forces that influence people’s actions. It is the capacity to hold paradoxes - to see and sense the larger system with all its interdependence and interconnectedness and all the unintended consequences of human behaviour - without judgment but with real care for the system and everyone involved in it.

In a world where snap judgements and beliefs are often used to justify actions, where the media bubble we each inhabit is reinforcing stereotypes and beliefs, we are looking to provide our students with a way to see problems more deeply and to understand and find compassionate solutions to them.

Multiple ways of knowing - an inquiry into conflict resolution

I couldn't resist sharing the progression of this inquiry as it unfolds among our grade three students here at BHA. The UOI that our three Grade Three classes are currently exploring falls under the TDTheme of 'Sharing the planet' and the central idea is: Effective communication can resolve conflict. The focus on this post will be on the important role that our single subject teachers have played in this inquiry so far.

The students were prompted to consider the last time, or worst time, they were involved in a conflict with friends or siblings. They were asked to think of this as a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Beginning - what happened to give rise to a conflict situation?

Middle - what happened during the communication process to try and solve the conflict situation?

End - how was the conflict resolved and how did it move into peace?

In small groups they then chose one story to represent in a drawing. The students were given long sheets of paper and asked to think about the kinds of colours, shapes, lines, forms and patterns that would best describe what was happening in the three different parts of the conflict story. The drawings below show the conflict stories and their 3 parts; conflict, communication, resolution/peace. The next step is for the students to add emphasis and further structure to the drawings using collage shapes. They will then transition over to our music teacher and consider similar concepts such as dynamics and rhythm that represent the ideas of conflict and peace. To synthesise everything, the students will cut-out and re-arrange their designs as they compose an original score to reflect their stories.

This process clearly offers a tremendous insight into the students' understanding of the process of conflict resolution. Conflict starts out as a range of different opinions and ideas all jostling for the front position. Sometimes it's messier than what it started out like before it gets better. There's usually a breakout moment that occurs prior to the solution. When you get to a stage of finding common ground it is like the pieces fit together. Peace and love may not always be the outcome - sometime we try to cover up a conflict with a resolution. These are all big ideas that are worthy of inquiry into peace and conflict at any age.

So it teaches us two very important lessons about inquiry. (1) Students of any age are able to think conceptually and (2) Teachers must be open to providing multiple pathways for their students to express their understandings.

It is highly unlikely that the students at our school would have been able to articulate these ideas in written form alone. Yes, the teachers helped to tease out the verbal responses from the students (with translation required for some), but that's their role - to listen, not to tell. The point is that those responses were constructed by the students themselves and they may not have seen the light of day if this opportunity had not be available to them. This is succinctly summarised by any Reggio-inspired educator when they talk about the hundred languages of children.

The other beautiful thing about this connection to the UOI is that it was completely unplanned in terms of collaboration between the homeroom teachers and specialists. The idea started as a conversation between our Music and Visual Art teachers and they thought they'd give it a shot. There was no pressure to ensure that they fit in with what was happening in class* so there was a lot of freedom to test out different approaches. When the connections began to appear as significant and highly relevant for the learning that was also happening in the classroom, a lot of discussion between all teachers followed. Although making a strong connection with the unit of inquiry may not have been the first priority for music and art, creating an authentic learning experience certainly was. This idea grew legs because of the teachers' commitment to genuine learning and the lens of the unit of inquiry provided this without being forced.




* To clarify this, at this stage in our school's journey we ask that subject specialists meaningfully collaborate on at least one UOI with each grade throughout the year. They can certainly contribute to more than that, but one is the minimum requirement.

Collaboration

Yesterday I had the pleasure of catching up with a colleague who is currently on sabbatical as she completes a M.Ed (Music) degree in New York. She was back over this side of the world visiting some family and friends for her break before heading back to continue her studies. It was wonderful to hear about some of the projects she's been working on over there and how they might be put into practice when she returns to BHA next year.

One project that stuck in my mind was that of a game that she was developing as part of one of her courses. The basic idea is that as students play the game they are rewarded for improvisation based on a section of music that they are looking at. The idea here was to diverge from just replicating a set piece of music. Of course there are monsters involved too. In order for my colleague to get her idea off the ground she had to connect with a software developer and a game designer, which she found on campus. Together the three of them developed her idea and are at almost at the stage where they have a piece of software to work with. They're hoping to test it out in schools sometime throughout 2016. Their hope is that their product will be a point of difference as it will be able to be used by teachers with multiple students at a time (i.e. a class) instead of an individual app or game, which appears to be the norm with these sorts of products.

None of this would have been possible if they hadn't have worked together. My colleague isn't a gamer and doesn't know where to start when it comes to designing games. Likewise, the software developer and game designer aren't attuned to what it is like to be working with 20-30 six year olds on a regular basis. Without collaborating, the result would not be what it currently is. This is the sort of collaboration that occurs everyday in the 'real world' - multidisciplinary teams working together to solve ill-defined problems. It is not, however, the sort of collaboration that we always design in our classrooms. In many cases students are told that they have to work together with certain people, or are told that they need to be in groups of two, three or four. This is not preparing students for a life beyond school in the 21st century. Consider the PYP Exhibition - the landmark culmination for the final year of a PYP student's journey. How many times are students grouped together because they have a faint connection to something that they'd like to inquire into. 'Oh, you're interested in researching the migratory patterns of whale sharks? Great, we'll put you in the 'over-fishing' group'. Or, worse still, they're given a choice of things that 'they'd like to explore' and groups are formed that way. Collaboration in the Exhibition, or in any similar process, should be about students inquiring into their passions and, when they inevitably reach a point where they need something that they can't do for themselves, they reach out to someone else and work together with them. If they then go back to their individual work once that part of the job is done then so be it - this is a microcosm of life. Yes, in the real world you don't always get to choose who you work with. I've certainly worked with a range of different people that would not have been my initial first choice. Sometimes there are group members that simply don't contribute to the collective - either by choice or readiness. Sometimes there are learning styles or approaches to work that suit some more than others. Sure, these can happen. But ultimately I find that there is an element of natural selection that occurs with these sort of experiences and things are straightened out. Even if you are required to work with a group that you consider to be low-functioning, you are not bound by it.  There are a variety of avenues to access skills and knowledge in order to build your own understanding along the way.

The dynamic world that we live in means that it isn't feasible to expect one person to be able to manage complex tasks alone. Real collaboration requires every member of the group bringing something to the table that can be used to help the greater good. In terms of assessing this, there are structures that teachers can put in place that allow us to measure how well each person shares their specific information. This is 21st century teaching and learning.

Photo Credit: Marc_Smith via Compfight cc

Reimagining our Early Years program

This year at BHA we have several professional learning communities operating in unison. I'd like to touch on one of those in this post. The team of five teachers in the kindergarten, plus any other teachers interested in learning about the early years, are currently in the beginning stages of redeveloping their approach to teaching and learning. They're working through the valuable and collaborative process of developing a shared image of child. I was lucky enough to be able to be part of a group that went through a similar process in my previous school and found the conversations both challenging and rewarding.

So far this group has examined their own personal opinions and ideas about children. They were asked to share what they thought a child was and these responses were collated and discussed. Teachers were given the opportunity to highlight which elements of everyone's statements they agreed with and which parts they still had questions or other wonderings about. This required further discussion to unpack and will be useful to re-visit later in the year once everyone has had the opportunity to reflect on their own and others' ideas.

This graphic was created to help make visible the key words about image of child that the group valued as a collective.

The session today was spent looking at these words and talking about what they meant. There were some comments about similarities between words, about which words were by-products of our images, and which words were useful to help support the creation of our image.

The next steps for this group will be to narrow down the words to a smaller selection - we're thinking between 5 and 10 - that truly sum up our thoughts about our image of child. From this list they will map out what it is that they believe they should be doing in order to foster the growth of this image of child in their classrooms (and across the school).

It promises to be an exciting year for this group of teachers (along with the rest of the faculty of course!). We're lucky to be hosting a regional IB conference in November and all of these teachers will have the opportunity to attend workshops that will help grow their understanding of a play-based curriculum. We'll also be looking to connect with like-minded schools in order to share ideas, practices and strategies. I'm very much looking forward to being part of this process.

Developing Essential Agreements

At the beginning of the year many classrooms create Essential Agreements - a class consenus that will guide the behavioural expectations throughout the year. At best these are student centered (and led) notions that are meaningful and real. At worst they are a hastily put together list of rules that a teacher expects students to abide by.

These can be an important product for a classroom. They make a statement about the sort of culture that everyone feels should be developed throughout the year. My teaching partner this year in Grade Five (along with others from previous years and schools also), and I felt that this was important enough to spend at least a week on in class. Below is the outline of what we tried this year. So far it has worked, but we might change some things for next year.

Provocation:

This is a popular video that I'm sure has been shown many times in many different classrooms, workshops and offices. Nonetheless, it contains many underlying themes and messages that can be very useful to tune into. Below are some of the answers that our students came up with (although there are many more that could also be raised).






It hooked the students into thinking about the types of behaviours that the PYP and inquiry based classrooms encourage.

The Dot Game: This is a game that I played at a workshop about Group Dynamics. Everyone pulls a piece of paper out of a hat that is either blank or has a dot on it. There are less dots than non-dots. The game has a few simple rules: Non dots must tell the truth. Dots can choose whether to tell the truth or lie. The aim of the game is to form the biggest group of non-dots possible before the time is up. If a group has just one person in there that is a dot then the entire group is out of the game. Once the time runs out, each group reveals how many members they have and any dots can reveal themselves and see how many groups they managed to knock out.

The game reveals many different social lessons:  establishing the truth can be difficult, whether reputations count, trust, faith, should you always believe the people that you’re working with? Are there hidden agendas? Alliances/cliques, the importance of listening to other ideas, irrational exclusion, the difficulty of making decisions without the facts or data to back it up, the importance of a sense of belonging. This game is also a good platform from which to raise the important beliefs about how we should treat each other. 

Freyer Model: Another task we ask the students to complete is using a Freyer Model to help define each element of the Learner Profile in order to come up with a definition that is meaningful for the students. Although its difficult to read, I've included an example from the 'Inquirer group' for this year. I've also used this organiser with Grade Three classes but haven't tried with any students younger than that. I've found that it helps the students to make stronger connections with what we're asking them to model. If students don't know what it is they're aiming for then there's little chance of them achieving it. That's also a metaphor for teaching in general, I believe.

So, below are our Essential Agreements for this year. They took just over a week to develop and I think the students have a solid grounding in what they stand for, and will continue to build meaning throughout the year.

The Seeds of Growth

This is an article that I recently contributed to our school newsletter:

The Seeds of Growth: Why creativity is essential in education.

We live in a world that is changing faster than ever before and facing challenges that are unprecedented. These sorts of challenges require innovative ideas and approaches. As such, many governments, companies and people are interested in innovation. The difficulty with innovation is that it cannot be just turned on like a switch. Innovation is a process that involves three parts:

• Imagination - The power to bring to mind the things that aren’t here in the present.
• Creativity - Applied imagination. The process of putting your imagination to work and having original ideas that have value.
• Innovation - Putting original ideas into practice. [1] [8] 

Education, in a nutshell, has three main roles: 

Economic: To provide the skills required to earn a living and be economically productive; 

Cultural: To deepen understanding of the world; 

Individual: To develop individual talents and sensibilities. [8] 

If these roles are examined through the lens of creativity then it becomes difficult to separate them.

Economic - Business leaders constantly promote the desire to hire creative, innovate employees who can work in teams and communicate well. In 2008, and again in 2012, IBM conducted a survey of over 1000 CEOs around the world, asking them what were the keys to their future and prolonged success.  A summary of their answers shows that top performers: 

1. Hunger for and embrace change, rather than react to it.
2. Innovate beyond customer imagination to reach the technologically sophisticated.
3. Seek new ways to organise globally to tap worldwide talent. [5] [6] [10]

The economy is asking for graduates of education who are competent in these things. In a world where over-qualification is becoming more of an issue, businesses aim to recruit the best staff possible and they look closely for these attributes. Educating the population through an out-dated, industrialised model will not achieve the economic goals it sets out to. So, instead of educating our students with the same model as the past 100 years, we must approach it in new ways. This means that some of the things you see happening at school will look different to what parents may remember them to be like when they were younger [1] [8].

Cultural - The world is becoming more connected, complicated and challenging.  Finding ways to live together is becoming more interdependent and dynamic. As the world becomes smaller, the ability to collaborate and understand how others feel becomes more and more important. A major part of innovation and creative thinking is the aspect of collaboration and working in teams. This is not to say that new ideas are thought of exclusively with other people, but generally ideas and innovations are created and improved on through the critical feedback of others. Focussing on creativity in education means that students have opportunities to develop the key skills of collaboration. Without these skills, cultural education becomes more difficult to achieve [1] [8].

Individual - Education is also about helping people find their own course in life. It is about helping them find what has value and meaning for them. It is of course important to have some commonalities across all schooling systems - everyone needs to be able to read, write and add. However, it is also important to encourage human capacity amongst all of the students we teach. This means we need to breakdown the traditional ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’ dichotomy and value the passions and expertise of all. Everyone has talents, inspirations and skills and education should allow these to flourish [3] [4] [7] [8] [11]. 

It was stated earlier that education must be approached in new ways. In PYP schools (and other similar programs) we follow a curriculum framework and philosophy of learning that actively encourages the development of essential attitudes, one of which is creativity. We allow elements of choice for our students in their learning. We assess them individually and as teams. We give them opportunities to play, explore and pursue personal inquiries. Creativity is about making connections and developing relationships. In PYP schools we have a transdisciplinary curriculum where students are encouraged to seek connections between what they are learning and how it relates to the world, themselves and to others [2]. We utilise new technologies that present fresh possibilities for creative work. We strive to create environments that encourage risk-taking.

As human beings we have an extraordinary power - the ability to imagine things outside of our current experiences and to express them in forms that other people can engage with and grasp. No other species on Earth has this ability. If you’re pursuing original thinking then there are a lot of wrong turns. Failure is not the right way to describe this - it is experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. If you live in a culture where you’re frightened of failing then innovation and creativity starts to be inhibited. If fresh thinking and new ideas have less emphasis, and the focus shifts to ‘getting the right answer’, then people become frightened of making mistakes and being wrong. If you’re afraid to try something new then you’ll never come up with anything original. [1] [7] [8] [9]

As teachers, we endeavour to create conditions that provide our students with the freedom to be creative. Our aim is to give children the opportunity to allow their skills, knowledge and capabilities to shine.

REFERENCES:

[1] All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (1999). National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education. 

[2] Boyer, EL. (1995). The Basic School: A Community of Learning. San Francisco, USA. The Carnegie Foundation for

the Advancement of Teaching.

[3] Edwards, C, Gandini, L and Forman, G. (1998). The Hundred Languages of Children. Greenwich, Connecticut,

USA. Ablex Publishing Corporation.

[4] Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York, USA. Basic Books.

[5] IBM CEO Case study compendium. Published by IBM Corporation. Available for download at:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03535usen/GBE03535USEN.PDF

[6] Leading Through Connections: Highlights of the Global Chief Executive Officer Study. (2012). Published by IBM Corporation. Available for download at: http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/gbe03486usen/GBE03486USEN.PDF

[7] McGrath, J. & Davies, D. (2012) The Future Will Not Be Multiple Choice. Published by Mind Shift. Available for download at: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/video-the-future-will-not-be-multiple-choice/

[8] Robinson, K. (2001) Out of Our Minds: Learning to be creative. Capstone Publishing, Chichester, West Sussex, UK.

[9] Stanford Breakfast Briefings - The Enterprise of the Future. Available for download at:

https://breakfastbriefings.stanford.edu/briefings/enterprise-future

[10] The Enterprise of the Future: Life Sciences Industry Edition (2008). Published by IBM corporation. Available for download at:

https://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/pdf/gbe03080-usen-ceo-ls.pdf

[11] Vygotsky, L. (1999). Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The MIT Press.

Photo credit

Every week, day and hour.

Over the past week I've had several discussions about collaboration with my colleagues. On one occasion this was at a workshop about documentation, lead by our Early Years Vice-Principal. I attended this workshop in the hope that it would give me some fresh ideas about how to collect and evaluate data in my own classroom. We talked about the processes that the Early Years teachers go through and engaged in some nice discussions about the mechanics of their documentation.

One of the key elements of documentation in Reggio-inspired approaches is the need for follow up discussion about the evidence that has been collected. This enables educators to flesh out their ideas and helps to create clearer understandings about what has been observed. Of course, this isn't only evident in Early Years teaching. Any teacher worth their salt collects evidence through observations, individual and group discussion, work samples and any other effective means. One of the big differences, though, is that there are less ways to collect evidence from students who cannot write competently yet, or perhaps speak fluently in the language of instruction. As this occurs more frequently in the Early Years, observing the students is a popular way to document development and perceived understandings. Advocates for this approach to education, such as our VP, do their best, then, to ensure that specific structures are in place to allow this to happen. Extended blocks of inquiry time are common and more than one adult per group of children is a frequent sight. Unfortunately, for several complicated reasons, this doesn't translate to the Gr. 1-5 classes at my school. So we've been looking for ways to enhance our ability to collaborate. 

As a Team Leader, I try my very best to ensure that our meeting times are focussed on student learning and not the other 'stuff' that fills up our day. One thing I try to do at the start of our meetings is engage in different protocols that allow us to freely discuss what's been happening in our classes - both successes and failures. A second point to consider is the focus of discussions that the team engages in. While our discussions might be about student learning, it is important to guide team members to discuss the right sorts of things. This is a skill I'm still developing. In their article about collaboration, So they can fly - Building a community of inquirers (2007), Linda Gibson-Langford and Di Laycock refer to a term called coblaboration, which was first coined by David Perkins in his book - King Arthur's Round Table - How collaborative conversations create smart organisations. Coblaboration is characterised by chaotic conversation patterns, repetition, group think and dialogue with no action. How many 'collaborative' meetings have you been a part of where these arise? I know I've been in plenty. So keeping precious meeting time focussed is essential.

Another point raised by one of my colleagues is that we need to question our mindset about collaboration. She said that most of the time when we meet to collaborate we come with the idea that we're going to talk about things that are going to happen. This is great, but we also need to consider the value in collaborating about things that have already happened. This doesn't just mean in UOI reflections every 6 or so weeks either, it means discussing and debating ideas based on what's happened with your class that week or day or hour. I think there's a lot of merit in that.

Everyone always talks about collaboration and how great it would be to collaborate more. However, a lot of the time we get caught up in other things that require our immediate attention, but may not be all that important. Last year, when I was in Gr. 4, I tried to encourage the practice of getting into each other's classrooms more often. We discussed this - how we felt about it, what we thought the benefits were, what we thought the barriers were. We also talked about our feelings when someone was in our room - some people shared feelings about this being like an appraisal, but that's another discussion. We agreed on a goal that we would try to engage in one collaborative teaching experience per fortnight. We reflected on this in our meetings and although everyone said they valued the process, finding the time to meet with people in order to discuss and plan lessons was another 'thing' to do in our already packed day. I haven't yet been able to get over to Gr. 4 and see if they're carrying on with the process this year.

This year I've moved to Gr. 3 and our classrooms are set up a little differently. In Gr. 4 we worked in portable classes that, while being roomy, were essentially boxes and to get to another class you had to go right out of your room. In Gr. 3 the classes are alongside each other and have doors that connect each room. One of the first things my neighbour and I did this year was contact the custodians and get them to remove the door. Having an open passageway through the two classrooms forces us to collaborate more - although I must say that I'm lucky that I work next to a teacher that doesn't need too much encouragement with this. We also sat down and looked at the times during the week where we have opportunities for more collaborative learning between the classes. This also involves our Learning Support and EAL teachers. For this to work effectively we'll need to talk over things (that have happened and will happen) in order to plan appropriately. If everything aligns, hopefully it will extend to include all of the 5 classes in Gr. 3.

Photo credit: Shunting

Performance based pay

I was recently reading an article about teachers in Australia being paid extra if they comply to certain standards that classify them as a 'highly accomplished teacher'. This relates in some way to the school that I currently work at as they are considering bringing in a type of performance based pay scheme.

I'm not sure how I feel about it all, to be honest. As with most things, the extent to which it will work will depend on how it is managed. A lot of the staff seem concerned that they are being backed into a corner and won't be able to enjoy the yearly pay rise that is currently offered. I'm sure that's probably part of the plan too! I'm not too worried about having to 'prove my worth'. I can understand that people may be concerned, but if you're a hard worker who constantly looks for ways to improve your performance then I can't see there being too much of an issue.

One of the key elements that needs to be well-handled is that of trust. If the staff can't trust that the system will reward teachers who achieve high standards then it simply won't work. The process has to be clear and achievable. As the article states, it's no small task to appraise and evaluate a staff body and if there are questions of rigour then suspicions will be aroused. Also, if the staff are forced into an environment of competition, then the collaborative nature that is so important in our daily practice will suffer.

One of the potential benefits of a well managed performance analysis system is that good teachers will be more likely to remain in the classroom. This will serve to raise standards, which surely has to be the key focus of any such system.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this topic once a decision has been made as to whether our school will employ a system of this type. Watch this space!

Connection vs Protection

I recently watched a TED talk by Steven Johnson about where great ideas come from. His discussion centered around the position that great ideas generally come from hunches - and that two or more hunches that join together develop into a great idea.

He argues that collaboration is the key for the development of great ideas and that we must create systems that allow those hunches to come together and turn into great ideas. Coffee houses during the Enlightenment, Parisian Salons of Modernism were such vehicles. What is it for the 21st century?

Technology is the obvious answer. The opportunity to reach out and connect your hunches with other people's. One of our jobs as educators - and I classify teachers, parents and peers under that umbrella - is to teach each other how to use these tools effectively in order to avoid the inevitable distractions that can result from it's exponential growth. There is much to be gained from the effective and appropriate use of technology.

One of the other points Johnson raises is that intellectual property is regularly patented, copyrighted and trademarked. In order for effective collaboration to occur, we must consider less protection of our ideas and allow for more connection. My students' summative task for their current Unit of Inquiry involves them creating a machine that will solve a task that is identified in a scenario. There were four scenarios they could choose from, each asking them to use their understanding of the principles of force and motion to help design and build a machine. I first asked the students to choose the scenario that most appealed to them and they drafted their own ideas. The next day I grouped them with other people who had chosen the same scenario and gave them the opportunity to join up their ideas with their peers or continue to work on their own. Every student decided to collaborate with someone else and the enthusiasm they have shown to share and develop their ideas has been amazing. I hope this will be a valuable lesson in the power of collaboration for them as they head into next year.