Jigsaw
Table of Contents
Bloom's Level
Use
Setting
Activity
Technology
Related Strategies
Description
Jigsaw is a student-centered cooperative learning strategy that requires students to become experts on content that they will then teach to other students. Like a jigsaw puzzle, a topic is broken up into pieces or subtopics. Each student is responsible for becoming an expert on a particular subtopic before joining a group of students with different subtopics to share. Learning is interdependent, as each student contributes vital information so that everyone in the group has a complete understanding of each part of the topic. During a jigsaw, the teacher’s role is a facilitator who circulates and supports students as needed.
When To Use It
As a learning strategy, use jigsaw when you want students to:
- explore material on their own such as readings, videos, or images.
- practice reading and comprehension skills.
- review or practice previously learned content or skills.
- practice presentation and communication skills within a small group.
As an instructional strategy, use jigsaw when you want to:
- introduce content that provides background for a larger unit of study or further exploration.
- build community among students as well as accountability for learning.
- ensure that all students have an equally important role in cooperative learning.
- build comprehension through peer teaching and collaboration.
How To Use It
Advance Prep
- Identify a topic and divide the topic into specific areas of focus. For example, a topic about social media platforms might be divided into subtopics: Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Tiktok.
- Prepare or gather learning materials for students to explore about each area of focus or subtopic. For example, identify websites, articles, or passages for students to read on each of the subtopics. Note: Do not use material that is cumulative in nature, such as assigning chapters from a novel.
- Create instructions and guidelines for students to follow to give them a clear purpose for exploring the materials (e.g., questions to answer, tasks to complete, problems to solve, etc.)
- Consider the strengths and needs of your students and use that information to identify heterogeneous groups. Create “jigsaw” groups of 3-5 students each. Jigsaw groups are made up of students who each have a different piece of content to learn and share.
- Create expert groups by assigning each student a specific area of focus considering the strengths and needs of your students. Expert groups are comprised of students who share the same area of focus and who work together to create a presentation to teach their jigsaw group. For example, all students focusing on Tiktok will be in the same expert group and later return to their jigsaw groups to teach everyone about Tiktok.
Implementation
- Divide students into their jigsaw groups and share the instructions for the activity.
- Assign students their areas of focus. Note: If you do wish to pre-assign areas of focus, you may have students count off 1,2,3,4 and assign corresponding materials.
- Have students independently review their assigned material before moving into “expert groups.”
- After students have reviewed the materials, have them move into their expert groups. Within the expert groups, students should discuss the material, ensure that each group member understands the material based on the guidelines, and plan how they will present the material to their jigsaw groups.
- After everyone in the expert group feels confident and ready to share their learning, have students transition back to their jigsaw groups.
- Have each student take turns presenting their material while other students in their jigsaw group listen and take notes on information.
- An assessment may follow the activity to check for understanding and to provide accountability for learning.
Pros
- Promotes positive social relationships, empathy, and cooperative learning
- Encourages active learning and listening skills
- Promotes self-confidence and reduces anxiety
- Makes teaching and learning new material efficient
- Promotes accountability for learning
- Supports diverse learners when groups are heterogeneous
- Builds comprehension and communication skills
- Reduces competition among students during the learning process
Cons
- Requires careful preparation by the teacher to appropriately chunk material, structure the process, and organize diverse groups (if desired).
- Requires the teacher to model and practice the strategy with students before they become fully independent
- Can cause anxiety for students who have difficulty reading or feel pressured by the responsibility to teach others what they have learned
- Students rely on the “expertise” of their group members to learn content and may miss on important knowledge if the “expert” in their groups falls short
Culturally Responsive Application
The Jigsaw strategy was developed in 1971 by social psychologist, Elliot Aronson, to address racial tensions among learners in recently desegregated schools in Austin,Texas. By requiring students to learn from each other, they had to learn to cooperate and trust each other across differences in order to succeed. This strategy challenged inequities and social politics by giving all students an equally important and interdependent role in the learning process.
As a cooperative and peer learning strategy, the jigsaw allows students to take ownership of the learning process and express and share their learning using their authentic voice. It aligns with the oral and communal traditions of many students who come from diverse backgrounds, providing a social and culturally familiar mode of engaging in the learning process. It also provides an opportunity for teachers to use culturally relevant material and to strategically group students based on learning needs and preferences.
Emerging English Language Support
Provide clear guidance on expectation for the jigsaw activity ahead of time. Allow students time to prepare ahead of class and encourage notes. Encourage the use of multimedia to allow for freedom of learning expression.
Students with Disabilities Support
Jigsaw may be modified to focus on smaller elements and allow a mode to document learning from each piece before proceeding to the next segment
Subjects
All
Why It Works
When engaging in jigsaw, students have to teach peers a component of the topic which requires them to master said component using methods of self-explanations (REF), retrieval practice (REF), and elaborations, including asking peers clarifying questions prior to sharing with the larger group (REF). Research studies on the use of jigsaw activity suggest that jigsaw can help with deep review and synthesis so as to piece together the bird’s eye view of relationships between concepts with the use of pre-session and guided jigsaw groups (REF, REF1), language learning through the peer discussion element (REF2) and when used regularly for a computer programming course, found improved student attitude, self-efficacy, and coding performance (REF3). Some other studies raise a few points of caution: (1) students tended to retain the content they taught significantly better than the content they learned from peers immediately after the activity and a week later and tended to attribute their lack of learning to their peers (REF4) and (2) task difficulty during the jigsaw can also influence learning outcome and perception (REF5).