Doughnut Strategy for Student Collaboration

I was able to facilitate some workshops for the NCTM Winter Institute and learned about a fun strategy for collaboration from another facilitator, Alyssa Hoslar. A group of students has a problem or question that they have been working on or thinking about (possibly from homework or something else). The each write their answer on a post it note. Then they draw a circle or doughnut in the center of a piece of paper and have four line segments sticking out from the circumference of the circle or doughnut. Each student puts their post it note at the end of one of the line segments. Then students rotate the circle or doughnut so that they can all see each other’s answers and discuss and ask each other about the thinking behind each one. After students agree on one answer they write it in the circle or doughnut.