I have been working closely with the literacy support teacher at my school recently. She and I have been co-teaching a Grade 8 Social Studies class and today I'd like to share an activity that she introduced me to: Collaborative Place Mats. This technique is especially helpful at the beginning of a project or inquiry to help groups start to brainstorm about their big idea, topic, or question. Before we began the activity, we talked as a class about what behaviours we wanted to follow as we worked in groups. Students offered ideas, and they were recorded on chart paper. From their criteria, I created a self-assessment checklist for the students to use as a reflection after the activity. Once we had established the guidelines, we explained the place mat activity. Here's how it works: Each table received a piece of chart paper with our project question in the middle. In this case, the question was "How would you provide for people in a comm...