Today, students in 9th grade biology seemed to have difficulty offering up their findings for others who were going around the room for ideas. One group in particular seemed to be fighting to hide their work. After the activity, we discussed how to share and why to share. I offered the suggestion of trading ideas, or offering something you had found in exchange for what others had found. I also stressed that ideas that were found on the internet could not justifiably be claimed as a group's own--in fact, that somewhat violates the whole concept of the internet, which is a marketplace of ideas shared.
This was our second try at SOLE, and students have learned a great deal about being in a group, compromising, and sharing. It's very interesting to continue to see the experiment evolve. Already, students seemed to have less reservation and seemed to want to take advantage of some of he freedom of the rules. Today, for the first time, students swapped groups. Almost all groups sent people around to see what other groups were doing. And several students chose groups that were different from their original ones because they didn't feel like their groups worked well the first time around. In fact, some students who would consider themselves close friends with others chose to be in groups away from their friends.