Independent and alone vs Social Painting

If I were to paint a classroom, I would use a paintbrush to do all the edges, then use a roller.  I would start in one corner and work in a systematic way around the room.  If there were many workers, I would have the people who were painting the edges start first.  They would go around the room and the people with the rollers would follow them.  Edging is faster than painting a full wall.  Once the edging was done, I'd have them change their paintbrushes to rollers and start at the opposite end of the room working their way around the room in the opposite direction in a systematic way to meet in the middle with the other rollers.

 

My students tend to start working in a systematic way but then will skip large sections of the wall to follow their friends.  If their friend is painting the edges, then they will paint the wall near their friend then move to the next area where their friend is edging.  Once their friend is finished edging they will just start to repaint the walls near their friends who are resting.  There were huge areas of wall that hadn't been painted yet because they skipped sections to catch up with their friends who were edging.  The students weren't aware of it preferring to stay close to their friends and just repaint the wet painted wall. 

 

If I had realized this earlier I would have placed the resting friends along the parts of the wall that hadn't been painted yet.  I unwisely asked students to paint the part of the wall that hadn't been painted; however, they'd start but somehow migrate back towards their friends without ever finishing the unpainted section of wall.