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The jigsaw learning technique is a method for organizing classroom activity that makes students dependent on each other to succeed. It breaks classes into groups and divides assignments into pieces that the class assembles to complete the puzzle (jigsaw).

This method allows for students to be  independent and dependent, taking on the roles of both student and teacher. The process helps students to solidify and deepen their understanding and allows for developing a new perspective as they experience the responsibility of teaching their peers.

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OVERVIEW

The jigsaw classroom is a research-based cooperative learning technique invented and developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California. Since 1971, thousands of classrooms have used jigsaw with great success.

The jigsaw classroom has a four-decade track record of successfully reducing racial conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes such as improved test performance, reduced absenteeism, and greater liking for school.

Just as in a jigsaw puzzle, each piece - each student's part - is essential for the completion and full understanding of the final product.

If each student's part is essential, then each student is essential; and that is precisely what makes this strategy so effective.

JIGSAW IN 10 EASY STEPS

The jigsaw classroom is very simple to use. If you're a teacher, just follow these steps:

STEP SEVEN

Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.

STEP EIGHT

Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group.

Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.

STEP NINE

Float from group to group, observing the process.

If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.

STEP TEN

At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material.

Students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.

ABOUT ELLIOT ARONSON

Elliot Aronson is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He has long-standing research interests in social influence and attitude change, cognitive dissonance, research methodology, and interpersonal attraction. Professor Aronson's experiments are aimed both at testing theory and at improving the human condition by influencing people to change dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors.

Professor Aronson received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1954, his M.A. from Wesleyan University in 1956, and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1959. He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the University of California. In 1999, he won the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, making him the only psychologist to have won APA's highest awards in all three major academic categories: distinguished writing (1973), distinguished teaching (1980), and distinguished research (1999).

MORE ABOUT
ELLIOT ARONSON

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The jigsaw technique is a cooperative learning approach that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience.

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How Constructivism is used in Secondary English Education...

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How Constructivism is used in Secondary English Education...

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Constructivism can help build greater analytical and critical thinking skills as well as developing a deeper understanding of topics or ideas. As teachers, we can help students construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world by providing difference experiences and allowing reflections to promote cognitive development. By encountering new situations, students will be inclined to assimilate their previous ideas and experiences, potentially changing and altering their beliefs or strengthening them. As educators, we are tasked to present such experiences and ideas that students may question, explore, and assess.

By encouraging real-world problem solving and experimentation, students will be able to create their own knowledge bank and then talk about what they are doing, how their understanding has changed, and what they will do with that information. It is our job as teachers to guide the activities and allow students to learn during the process. Allowing students to question the world and their surroundings opens doors to exploration and new thought analyses, most importantly teaching them how to learn.

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The flipped classroom is a model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed.

One advantage to implementing this model is that there are a variety of working models to choose from for the flipped classroom—"the term is widely used to describe almost any class structure that provides prerecorded lectures followed by in-class exercises"
Today's educators, and educational institutes,  increasingly use the flipped classroom model.

This model of instruction is a significant pedagogical approach which enables teachers to dedicate valuable class time to allow student-driven practice applying course concepts. Additionally, this model affords instructors valuable insight into student thinking revealing possible gaps in understanding

One caution for this model an effective flip requires careful preparation

Finally, the flipped model holds students responsible for their own learning and, at the same time, allows students to experiment and work towards mastery (rather than coverage of content).

This model would be a benefit in teaching a period of literary history (i.e. Romanticism). One way we would implementing this model is through group author study of the literary era. Groups would research the author background, literary works, important events in their life and create a web-based video presenting the information that can be viewed in class.

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This learning strategy helps students learn about and discuss issues from multiple perspectives. It helps students engage in appropriate discourse and guides them in seeking a mutual consensus. Students will learn about view or opinion of other people and attempt to convey ideas in a polite and civil manner.

By studying literature, we are presented with many different ideas and topics. It is up to us, as readers, to develop our own stance on a situation. This model would be ideal for those situations. For example, in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby,  students can reflect on whether they believe Jay Gatsby deserved his fate. By finding textual and scholarly evidence to support their opinion, each side would defend their stance. Then the second group will present their finding on the opposite viewpoint. Then students will unexpectedly be asked to defend the opposing viewpoint. This allows for more analytical thinking and forces students to think outside the norm and explore all options before coming to a hasty conclusion of judgement.

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Reciprocal Teaching is a form of instruction that takes place as dialogue between students and teachers regarding texts and their purpose and meaning. It can help students by increasing reading comprehension and contains four main points: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. In an English class, improving reading comprehension is a significant concern and incorporating activities to promote that growth is essential for metacognition and a growth mindset.

When teaching a Literary Unit, such as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, reciprocal teaching would be an ideal approach. Students could predict events in the novel based on the cover of the novel, information in the first few pages, or based on their preconceived notions, and thinking about background information. Then students could clarify character traits and specific details in the text to either support or debunk their prediction. This would be followed by questioning, an essential element in this model. It allows students to participate in cognitive thinking and realize their beliefs can change and alter and that it is okay for them to do so, as they search for understanding. Lastly, students will summarize the events and different plots and themes addressed in the text and then apply that information and finding to support or restate their original prediction. Where did their prediction truly originate from? If it was drastically far from reality, why do you think you were led in the opposite direction? What elements helped you in making an accurate prediction?

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Here is a lesson plan that uses the Jigsaw model when teaching the importance of Role, Audience, and Purpose in writing.

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This learning theory is used to question problems and scenarios instead of simply presenting facts on a subject. The discussion is lead by the students and facilitated by the teacher and is closely related to the development and practice of thinking skills.

This model leads students to create questions, obtain supporting evidence, explain their reasoning, connect their ideas to those presented in the text, and to create arguments and justifications through that process.

This learning theory is ideal in literary studies as it promotes the essential analytical skills that are required for college and career readiness. Students can make text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world connections easily through this process as they progress in developing Piaget's formal operational stage and Kohlberg's post-conventional stage of reasoning.

Even though this is a student-centered model of instruction, the teacher should over-prepare specific passages from the text and questions to direct students' inquiry and inspire higher order thinking, as described in the attached video.

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Inquiry-Based Teaching: Discussing Fiction Texts

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Inquiry based teaching strategies lead to rich discussions amongst students and the teacher. Watch a high school literature lesson uses the inquiry based teaching method, and hear what both students and the teacher think about it.

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This model allows students to learn through working on a project that investigates a problem, challenge, or concept. Project-based learning emphasizes activities and are student-centered. Students are responsible for organizing their own work and managing their own time.

Project-based instruction emphasizes student collaboration or individual work to represent a topic or concept. Students have the opportunity to explore problems and challenges that have real-world applications, increasing the possibility of long-term retention of skills and concepts.

This model would be very beneficial for student autonomy, allowing them to choose the direction of the final submission. As a teacher, this can be applied when relating a literary text or thematic element to the students or the world.