Jigsaw
Learn more
- The Jigsaw Classroom: A Cooperative Learning Technique The official jigsaw website includes the history of the strategy, tips for implementation, and links to relevant literature.
- Black American Leaders as Responsible Citizens: Their Roles, Their Contributions, Their Diversity The focus of this lesson will be to help third grade students to clearly identify the need for having leaders arise from the citizenry of a given community. Students will review factual information to guide them in distinguishing the positive and negative qualities of leaders. Techniques will include guided reading of factual historical text during a Jigsaw, student note taking, student development of open-ended questions, and student engagement in a Socratic seminar.
- Comparing creation stories In this activity, students compare creation stories from three peoples -- Cherokee, European, and West African -- that met in colonial North Carolina.
Related pages
- Cooperative learning: Cooperative learning is an instructional method in which students work together in small, heterogeneous...
- Exploring the church in the southern black community: Students explore the Documenting the American South Collection titled, the “Church in the Southern Black Community.” Beginning with a historian's interpretation of the primary sources that make up the collection, students search the collection for evidence to describe the experiences of African Americans living in the south during the Antebellum through the Reconstruction Period centering on their community churches. The activity culminates in student presentations of a digital scrap book.
- Does it float? Exploring density: Density is a property of matter that requires abstract understanding from your students. This lesson plan is a hands-on lab for exploring the concepts of mass, volume, density, and their relationship. This lab achieves several 8th grade science objectives and incorporates mathematical objectives as well. The lab can easily be used as an introductory lab for the year, thus covering not only the content objectives, but also procedures for completing labs throughout the course of the year.
Related topics
- Learn more about Jigsaw, cooperative learning, and instructional strategies.
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Jigsaw is a cooperative learning technique that was created with the goals of reducing conflict and enhancing positive educational outcomes. The jigsaw technique helps students realize they are essential components of a whole and encourages cooperation in a learning environment.
History of jigsaw learning
Jigsaw was developed by Elliot Aronson and his graduate students at the University of Texas and the University of California in the 1970s. According to Aronson, the technique was invented when he and his students were trying to establish ways to “defuse an explosive situation.”1 The schools in Austin, Texas had just become integrated, and there was increasing racial tension among the White, African American, and Hispanic students who were now in the same classes. After Aronson and his students observed classrooms where competitiveness caused hostility and a sense of rivalry, they realized that there was a need for a strategy to “shift the emphasis from a relentlessly competitive atmosphere to a more cooperative one.”2
In order to create a more cooperative environment, Aronson and the teachers divided students into small groups that were diversified based on ability, ethnicity, and gender. This structure required students to take responsibility for their personal assignment in class and to work out any personal issues they had with one another.
After eight weeks of using the jigsaw strategy, Aronson reports that students expressed less prejudice and negative stereotyping, displayed more self-confidence, and showed more positive attitudes to school than did their peers in traditional classes. Academically, students who participated in the jigsaw learning technique showed greater academic improvement than their peers.
Jigsaw in the classroom
Aronson recommends using a 10-step approach to implementing the jigsaw technique into classroom practice.
First, teachers create small heterogeneous groups with students representing multiple ability levels. Then, the teacher appoints a group leader to be in charge of the group’s tasks. Next the teacher assigns the group several tasks, depending on the number of students in each group. Each student is in charge of completing a separate task. The teacher allots a certain amount of time for students to complete their tasks or become familiar with material. Then, students from different groups who have the same tasks work together temporarily to become “experts” on their topic and fill in any gaps in their information. Original group members come back together and each member presents his/her own information and provides an opportunity for rest of group to ask questions. While students are teaching each other about the topic, the teacher moves around the room monitoring progress and answering any questions that students have about the topics. Finally, students are assessed on the material they have all learned through their cooperative learning.
Research suggests that jigsaw is used across all grade levels from K-16 to graduate and professional courses in various content areas. Since the creation of jigsaw, several modifications have been introduced to account for concerns of both teachers and students who have participated in the classroom technique.
In Jigsaw II, students all research specific topics as opposed to parts of one larger reading.3 This variation of the original technique also requires that students complete “expert sheets” that provide notes for introducing the topic back to base group and are given individual assessments as opposed to a group evaluation.4 Jigsaw III allows for a review process prior to assessment. Jigsaw IV has several additional features: teacher introduction of material; expert group quizzes; review process prior to individual assessment; and re-teaching of any material that wasn’t adequately explored in the collaborative group work.5
Trouble shooting with jigsaw
Sometimes teachers find that more talkative students tend to dominate discussions in the jigsaw groups. One strategy Aronson suggests to curtail this dominance is for the teacher to assign discussion leaders in each group on a rotating basis. The leader calls on students in a “fair” manner and tries to keep the discussion moving around the assigned topics and tasks.
Aronson also suggests that engaging students in expert groups keeps slower students on pace with the rest of the class. When working in expert groups, students who typically lag behind on whole class assignments have the opportunity to discuss their material and modify it accordingly.
According to the research conducted in jigsaw classes, students generally demonstrate less boredom and report liking school better. Furthermore, the students who work at a faster pace are not bored because they are engaging other students in discussion.
Aronson acknowledges that some students who have never experienced jigsaw and who are more accustomed to the competitive model of traditional schooling might be skeptical of this model. However, if the teacher explains the method effectively and familiarizes students with the benefits of cooperative learning, students may be more accepting.
Teacher’s role in jigsaw
The primary role of the educator is to choose learning material, structure the groups, explain the cooperative nature of group work, provide an environment conducive for this type of work, monitor group work, and assist students in summarizing, synthesizing, and integrating material.6 It is also essential that the teacher effectively model and explain jigsaw prior to involving students in this type of teaching method.
