A mental model is a way someone perceives something that may or may not be accurate, but it's how the person sees it.  For example, one's mental model of a house may be a a two-dimensional rectangle with two windows, a door, and a roof; of course, houses in "real life" hardly look anything like that.

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To analyze mental models, our class did an activity where we sorted pictures in a circle.  At first, we had no idea what the set of pictures was supposed to mean, but through teamwork, we realized that they were a set of numbers. Still, we had no idea how to organize them.  After a few minutes, our group began to realize that some pictures went with others and that the pictures were numbers in ascending order 1-28.

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Overall, I realized that mental models can hinder me in many ways and that teamwork is one way that we can avoid the trap of mental models.  When we work together, we get different perspectives and can combine the singular mental model of the individuals to create a cohesive model that more accurately reflects the true picture.