Every student has ideas worth building: Help your students design the next great app in Figma.

Join Figma’s free webinar series for middle and high school design, computer science, and technology educators. Catch up with session recordings, then join us for three more live sessions exploring how students can:

You’ll leave with practical teaching strategies, ready-to-use resources, and ideas from educators already using Figma in their classrooms. 

Register once to access the recordings and all remaining sessions.

Figma is free for education, and no prior experience is required.

Looking for another way to get to know your students? This About Me Trading Card activity is a quick, visual way to help students share who they are and how they actually learn best. Have students create a personal "trading card" that gives you immediate insight into their personalities, learning styles, and ideal work environments.

Name & Avatar: First name/nickname paired with a selfie, Bitmoji, Memoji, AI avatar, or cartoon sketch.

Superpower / Catchphrase: A punchy 3–5 word slogan or "special skill" (like "Master of Mario Kart" or "Always Has Extra Snacks"). Note you can make these more academic if you’d like such as “Math Master” or “Proud Bibliophile” or one of each.

Passions & Obsessions: A quick snapshot of free-time hobbies and whatever song, show, or game they are currently hooked on.

Classroom Vibe (1–5 Scale): Students set their work preferences using the dot ratings:

Here is an example of what it might look like:

Add their ideas: Have students double-click the text boxes to type their info and use the insert image tool to pop in their photo or avatar.

Color the dots: To rate their Classroom Vibe, students simply click on a dot, hit the Paint Can (Fill Color) icon on the Google Slides/Drawings toolbar, and pick a color to light up their rating.

It’s fast, highly visual, and gives you actionable data on how to design learning experiences that fit your actual students from day one. Plus they look really cool! 😎

When I first got into teaching, I was a copycat of the teachers that I had before.

As I thought about the things that I did when I was a student in class, I remembered something …

Group work. Yeah, let’s try that.

So I let students get into groups. Told them “discuss what we were just talking about.” Then … they sat there. Looked at each other as if to say, “OK, now what are we supposed to do?” Then started chatting with each other.

I was frustrated. This wasn’t working.

Another day, I thought that maybe if students paired up to work on an assignment, that might work differently. So they paired with the classmate sitting next to them to do the same assignment they were supposed to do individually.

And (unsurprisingly … at least to me now), it wasn’t better. They didn’t know why they were put together. (Honestly, I didn’t know why either.) So they worked individually … or one person ended up doing all the work.

It might have been OK for some of them, but afterward, I kept thinking …

“Why am I even trying to do group work in the first place?”

Hopefully, you haven’t been as bad at this as I was as a beginning teacher. But maybe this story resonates for you …

I think what I was trying to do was “group work” when I should have been trying to design “collaborative learning.” It seems like there’s a difference …

Group work is when students do some kind of work together.

Collaborative learning is when students work intentionally, with each person contributing to and building on the thinking of others.

Big difference, right?

Here’s the bummer … the second one takes a lot more planning and skill than the first one.

But the good news? when it goes well, it’s WAAAAAYYYYYY more effective.)

If you’ve ever thought “wow, this would be SO much easier if I just did it myself” … you’re not alone. And you see one of the main frustrations in collaborating.

Working with other people has a cost.

Explaining. Waiting. Coordinating. Negotiating. Figuring out what someone REALLY means.

Disagreeing — and then having to work through that disagreement.

It can be frustrating and futile … or it can be rewarding and fruitful … depending on the work.

Which begs the question …

What kind of work is made better through all of that extra effort?

Let’s look at an example: a fifth grade class learning about fractions.

Another example: reading and studying a novel.

Here’s a part that I wish someone would have told me as a beginning teacher.

Sometimes, that “group work” (ahem … collaborative learning) can be made even better if you let students think alone — all by themselves — before they meet up.

Just think about it. We want students to come to the table with something, right? If they’re going to discuss something, brainstorm, solve a problem, etc., they should have some ideas, right?

Here’s the other issue. When you’re collaborating and you’re listening to someone else, you can’t fully think and consider your position and what you want to add to the group. Brainstorming researchers call this “production blocking.”

A little time to think before turning them loose? It’s time worth spending.

Now about the moment when you “turn them loose” …

I got caught in this trap, too. “OK, now go discuss.”

I think, sometimes, we just assume that they’re going to see what’s interesting … what the problem is to solve … what the key is to the solution.

There are some … but they’re the rare, rare few. Most of them don’t know what to do.

If we can give them some guidance, it’ll go a long way. It doesn’t mean we’re telling them what to think or giving them the answers. We’re just sharing the structures that work in collaborative learning that they can use.

As many of us have learned in adulthood, thinking with other people is complex! If you have some strategies, it can help.

We asked the DTT online community how they navigated collaboration in the classroom. You can see that thread (and join the community!) here.

Here’s what they said …

I use random and self-selected groups. This allows students some autonomy with group members but by throwing in an occassional random grouping, students work with others in the class. — Susan McCandless

I have also used playing cards, by shuffling and handing out randomly. You can make partners (both red eights), groups of 4 (all the eights), or even larger groups (evens or odds, black or red, face or number, etc.) You do need to do a little bit of finessing of the cards beforehand to make sure the numbers work out correctly for the amount of kids you have in front of you. — Marla Aehlert

I have student groups complete a group contract, listing the times that work best for them, the remediation plan if someone doesn’t hold up to their end of the group work, the roles each of them will take in the project. — Dawn Mericle

What else? Share your ideas, tips, and tricks for great collaborative group work in this discussion thread.

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education: