"Jigsaw Strategy"

Today's post piggybacks a previous post, "Moving from Small Groups to Pairs."  The Jigsaw srategy is a perfect strategy for engaging learners in collaborative dialogue.  I've tried to capture the purpose and process below.  I invite any of you who have utilized the strategy to share examples of usage with content.

Purpose:

• To engage students in collaborative dialogue around critical learning based on key standards, concepts and understandings.
• To facilitate collaborative discussion targeted around higher levels of thinking and text comprehension
• To promote efficiency in text reading
• To more expeditiously facilitate in mastery of greater amounts of content

Process:

The Jigsaw process begins with students engaged in small groups (3 to 4 students per group is ideal) where all students within the group are focused on “building expertise” about the same topic, and where different student groups are focused on different pieces of text or topics. Topics can be addressed through a variety of modes:  reading, responding to guiding questions, group discussion, viewing print, video, or images.

Jigsaw Steps:

1.     Assign content/concept/topic for students to explore

2.     Develop a set of focused materials/resources to support research

3.     Divide text assignments equally in to four parts

4.     Assign a different subtopic to each member of the jigsaw group

5.     Prepare questions and/or “keeping track” organizers for students to record significant information

6.     Rearrange students in different ”expert groups” (groups with like text) to read, study, discuss and synthesize relevant information/ideas to share

7.     After a predetermined length of time, have students return to their original jigsaw group to teach their subtopics

8.     Design an activity or organizer which synthesizes all four texts or subtopics within a group  (optional)

9.     Engage in full class discussion around important concepts and ideas

10.  Assess mastery of all material both formally and informally. *

Questioning Tips and Strategies

Most think about issues pertaining to questioning as moving teachers up the ladder of Bloom’s from recall to higher levels of thinking.  This is certainly critical; however, observation of questioning patterns in the classroom also gives us significant evidence of the culture with respect to expectations for all students, whether they are intentional or unintentional.  Let me give a couple examples: (1) If I ask a student a question and the student gives me a response I deem incorrect, I move on to another student without probing further. (2) If I ask a student a question and the student gives me a response I deem incorrect, I ask, “Can someone help him/her out?” Again, I have not probed or attempted to understand the thinking behind the original response. (3) If I ask a student a question and the student says, “I don’t know,” and I accept the response without probing further.  In all three examples I have not held the student accountable for thinking; nor have I probed or followed-up with questioning that might assist the student’s ability to problem solve with dignity.  (Think about what “help” implies.)

Our goal is to build an environment of high expectations for inquiry and problem solving for all students! 

Below are my tips for questioning.  They have been revised multiple times.  I thank my colleagues who have influenced them!  

• Don't answer your own questions! 

• Do not allow call-outs, which means several students answer in a choral response manner.

• Remember to utilize “wait time.”  Allow at least three (3) seconds of thinking time after question, as well as after a response.

• When the teacher calls on a student, all other students put their hands down.  This promotes active listening and opens the door for extension of the “thinking on the floor.” Students either know they understand or they have an opportunity for possible questioning and clarification (reciprocal teaching.)

• Call on students randomly.  Avoid the pattern of only calling on those students with raised hands. 

• Mix it up!

• Ask more open questions.  In other words, there is not a single correct answer for the question. Design questions that have multiple appropriate and alternative responses or solutions. 

• Whenever a “What’ question starts to come out of your mouth, try to replace it with “How” or “Why!”

• Ask “follow-up” questions:  Prove it.  Tell me more.  Why?  Can you give an example? Do you agree?  Why?  Why not?  Can you elaborate?  Require students to justify their thinking and defend their reasoning against different points of view.

• Survey the class using signals or cues.  Thumbs up indicates a YES response or agreement to any question.  Thumbs down indicates NO or disagreement.  (Another example:  “If you agree with the author’s point of view, give me a thumbs up.”  “If not, thumbs down.”) *Used best in short term settings

• Students use color-coded cards, sticks, or white board paddles to cue the teacher.  *Long term use.

• Allow for students to call on one another.  “John, will you please call on someone else to respond?”  “John, would you like to phone a friend?”  “ John, would you like a life line?”

• Ask for summary to promote active listening.  “Could you please summarize Mary’s response or answer?”  This can be whole group or a “turn to your neighbor.”  It is also critical for follow-up after “phoning a friend” or requesting a “life line.”

• Model your thinking and ask students to model their thinking.  For example:  “Describe how you arrived at your answer.”  OR  “How did you know that?”  (Think Aloud)

• Encourage student questioning.  Let the students develop their own questions.  Students can design questions alone, in pairs or small groups.

• Utilize think-pair-share opportunities.   Allow individual thinking time, discussion with a partner; then open up the question for the class discussion

• Rephrase the question or pose the question in a different manner.  “Does someone need me to say that in a different way?”

•  Withhold judgment.  Respond to student answers in a non-judgmental fashion.

Moving from Pair Share to Small Groups

I've tried to capture below the Mary Anne version of steps for initiating the pair share process; then moving from two to a small group of four.  Remember, there's flexibility in every strategy.  Hope you find this helpful!

Process:

1. The teacher poses a problem, presents a piece of text or asks an open-ended question to which there may be a variety of answers.
2. The teacher gives the students ‘think time’ and directs them to think about the question, or the teacher gives students time to read and think about the assigned text.
3. Following the ‘think time’ students turn to face their partner and work together to sharing ideas and information (discussing, summarizing, clarifying information.) 
4. The pairs then share their ideas with another pair. It is important that students be able to share their partner’s ideas as well as their own.
5. The teacher monitors pairs and small groups and becomes a filter to determine which ideas will be shared with the whole class.

A Few Tips for Mastering the Strategy:

·      There is no magic amount of think time and pair time.  In general, depending on the complexity of the task, you want to give students just enough time to think and to generate some ideas with their partner, but not enough time to get off-task.

·      Give a specific task when asking the students to pair.  For example, say “Take ten seconds to talk with your partner and come up with one answer to the question” or “Talk with your partner for thirty seconds and see if you can come up with two solutions to the problem.” 

·      When reading a piece of text you’ll need to allow more time for partner sharing depending on the length and complexity of the text.  Set the time for text reading; then give instructions for pair sharing.  A simple, “Each of you has thirty seconds to share the key ideas from your text with your partner” is fine.  With younger students, thirty seconds is a long time to summarize key points of a text.  For older students, two minutes is a reasonable goal to eventually attain.  Start with shorter amounts of time and build up!

·      When it comes time for the students to share their responses (in partners, in groups, or as a class), anything doesn’t go!  The students need to provide accurate, well-organized, clearly justified responses.  Question and probe students or groups throughout to continually develop more sophisticated vocabulary and responses.   Model the elements that make a response more sophisticated: using appropriate vocabulary, supporting answers with evidence, citing multiple examples, etc.

·      If you want students to share with the class, do not feel as though you must call on a representative from every pair or group.  After calling on one or two pairs or groups, ask others to give a thumbs up if they had similar answers.

·      Listen to partner and small group discussions to observe responses the students are giving. This can provide valuable clues about how well students work together, how well they grasp the concepts, and what strategies they use to master concepts.  This is a valuable formative assessment, and will prove useful in planning for future learning.