Placemat
Placemat is a cooperative learning strategy that lets students brainstorm individually to bring all of their ideas together into small groups to then expand those ideas into one common main idea. Students create a placemat by drawing a circle in the center of a large rectangular sheet of chart paper that then is divided into four equal sections around the circle. Each group member gets one section. What is fun about this strategy is that each group member starts at the same time to write down their personal thoughts about the topic or question in his or her own section of the placemat. The students rotate the placemat until all group members have read and responded to each section of the placemat. The common ideas is elaborated by all members of the group to agree on a topic that that could go in the middle of the placemat as a genaral theme for the ideas around the placemat.