For six weeks my students were engaged in a physics unit. The culminating project was to design a ship that will get astronauts safely to Mars. They worked on it in bits and pieces since the unit began, completing one task at a time. Part of the project has been to engage in peer review. Today, after sharing his work with a peer, one student said to me "Ms. Cimini, the peer review so useful". Um, yeah. That's why we do it! He is starting to see the power of the hive mind. For many years I planned on an island. I was the sole teacher of my subject in my school. We were all the sole teachers of our subjects. We retreated to our rooms, planned and executed our lessons and that was that. We never planned together. We rarely exchanged ideas. If you were friends with another teacher you might share ideas with her but that was the extent of it. Now I am at a school where department meetings are a regular thing. We regularly share ideas and I LOVE it! Five heads are so much ...