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Inventors develop ideas through collaboration, feedback, and exchange in diverse communities.

Inventors develop ideas through collaboration, feedback, and exchange in diverse communities.
When everyone’s ideas come together, collaboration tries to work its way through the cracks to make something new.McCune, age 10

Children participate in and contribute to learning with others when adults…

  • invite children to develop a shared language of collaboration
  • foster children’s ability to give and receive feedback
  • are intentional about the choreography of individual and group learning
  • use whole group meetings to make experiences and ideas visible and connect them to each other

Teachers participate in and contribute to learning with others when they…

  • see their work as a valuable part of a professional learning community in which their ideas and experiences matter
  • ask pedagogical questions and seek answers through direct experience in the classroom alongside colleagues who are pursuing similar questions
  • collectively examine artifacts from learning experiences through the lens of the Inspiring Inventiveness Principles and Practices
  • use thinking routines or discussion protocols to support collaborative understanding of student learning

Related Tools

Snapping Ideas Together

Use this tool to help children problem-solve on their own with little or no adult guidance.

View PDF

Gallery Walk

Use this tool to help children contribute to and learn from the work of their peers.

View PDF

Windows into Practice

Constructive Criticism

5th grade children reflect on the challenging process of giving and receiving feedback in math.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

4th- and 5th-graders explore the process of feedback and the role it plays while working on observational drawings.
Classroom Video

This Practice is guided by Principles