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. *
