While all of the students were expected to develop an understanding of the core concepts we were studying (e.g., contested places, iterative design, etc.), not all of them were expected to develop the same knowledge or progress at the same rate. Instead, we cultivated islands of expertise (Crowley & Jacobs, 2002) where individual students developed expertise around a particular concept or skill as the need arose. This helped cultivate a collaborative learning environment, where students not only helped teach each other, but also became
dependent on one another for the success of their individual and collective designs (Squire, DeVane, & Durga, 2008). It also opened up space for students to follow their own interests and design their own learning trajectories.