Jigsaw

For Jigsaw as a collaborative/cooperative instructional strategy, each student of a "home" group will specialise in one aspect of a topic. Students who are assigned the same aspect will form “experts” groups. In their “experts” groups, students will acquire knowledge and master the material, after which they return to the "home" group, teach the material to their group members and together work towards achieving the “home” groups’ goals.

With this strategy, each student in the "home" group represents a piece of the topic's puzzle and when they work together as a whole, they create the complete jigsaw puzzle.

Jigsaw is helpful in motivating students to accept responsibility for learning something well enough to teach it to their peers. It also gives each student a chance to be in the spotlight. When students assume the role of teacher, they lead the discussion, so even students who are reticent to speak in class must take on leadership roles.

1. Students are directly engaged with the material as opposed to having material presented to them and peer teaching requires them to understand the material at a deeper level.
2. The group task that follows individual peer teaching promotes 21^st century competencies such as:
   • critical thinking,
   • communication & collaboration,
   • problem-solving and
   • ICT literacy.
3. Overall, the jigsaw instructional strategy encourages cooperation/collaboration and active learning.

1. The teacher presents the topic for students to acquire knowledge on and provides guidelines on the collaborative task’s desired outcomes.
2. Students are assigned to “home” groups of 3-5 students either through teacher assignment, students’ preferences or random allocation.
3. The teacher presents a list of possible sub-topics for developing expertise and assigns one sub-topic to each student in a “home” group.
4. The teacher creates "experts” groups that consist of students across "home” groups who will work on the same sub-topic.
5. The teacher provides 3-5 key questions to help the “experts” groups gather information in their assigned sub-topic.
6. The teacher presents the time allocated for tasks that they work on in the “experts” and “home” groups and the rules for returning to their "home” groups.
7. Students work in these expert groups to master the sub-topic. They find relevant information, discuss and negotiate in their groups in order to reach consensus.
8. The teacher monitors interactions and intervenes or provides scaffolds when necessary.
9. Students move from their “experts” groups to “home” groups in which each student serves as the only expert on a specific topic. In these groups, the experts would teach the material and lead the discussion on their particular topic.
10. The teacher may prepare a template as a guide for each "home” group to organise the information and present their learning at the end of the lesson. The teacher may choose to use technology for this purpose.
11. Students then put together all the information from all the “experts” using the template provided by the teacher.
12. The teacher facilitates students’ reflections on the group discoveries in a closure activity.

• Collaborative Docs | Google Docs
• Wikis | Google Sites