Cooperative Learning Strategies
Module Four

In this module you will learn how to use the cooperative structure called Jigsaw with your students. It is a powerful learning activity to use when introducing new material, refining and extending recently learned content, or when reviewing for an exam. Many teachers, especially those who primarily teach by being a "sage on the stage", believe in the myth, If I don't tell them everything they need to know, then they won't learn it. Yes, this is indeed a myth, proven so by the research done on cooperative learning over the past two decades. Jigsaw, when used properly, is an activity that transfers the responsibility for learning to the students themselves. Used often, it helps students become independent learners, one of the most important goals all teachers should strive to reach.

Before you proceed with this lesson, please take time to reflect on your experience with last module's activity and email Jerry Peters at gpeters@twcny.rr.com with a brief description of the activity you did with your students, how it went, and any questions you need answered. You might want to attach an electronic copy of the activity to the email.

The basic operation of a Jigsaw activity has students working in "expert" groups to study and learn a designated topic. Once the "experts" are competent in their topics, they reassemble into "home" groups where each student teaches the other students in his/her home group what was learned in the expert group.

The individual steps in Jigsaw and Jigsaw II are as follows:

1. Task Division: The content to be learned is divided into several component parts or topics.

2. Home Groups: Each group member chooses or is assigned a topic on which to become an expert. The number of students in each home group should equal the number of content topics.

3. Expert Groups: Students with the same topic meet together in expert groups to discuss their topic, master it, and plan how to teach it to the others in their home groups.

4. Home Groups: Students return to their home groups and carry out their plans to teach what they have learned to their group members.

5. Assessment: A quiz or other form of assessment is administered individually.

6. Team Recognition: (an optional step) Individual scores from the assessment are combined for teach Home Team using an improvement score system. Teams that meet previously set criteria are recognized publicly (class newsletter or display) and/or given another form of extrinsic reward.

When steps 5 and 6 are used, the method is known as Jigsaw II. If the number of content topics does not match the number of students in every home group, then you may have to make some creative adjustments to make the jigsaw work. Try different ways to solve the " little glitches".

The power of this activity for high level learning lies in the learning activities used by the experts and the teaching done by the experts in the home groups. Each student will have very good retention of the topic that he/she learned and taught to others. However, each student's learning and retention of the other topics will be dependent upon the teaching methods that are used in the home groups by each "expert". If the teaching in the home groups was simply to tell or show what was learned by the expert, then the learning of the topics other than the one they taught will be shallow at best. Additional learning activities (collaborative activities are strongly recommended) need to be used to insure that all students acquire and retain adequate knowledge about each of the topics that were part of the jigsaw activity. If, however, the experts engage their peers in creating graphic organizers or processing the new knowledge in collaborative pairs (see Module 1), then the depth of learning and the retention will be greater.

The teacher's role in the design of the activity is critical to the success of the activity. The division of the content into the topics for the expert groups is usually easy if not obvious. The next step, the preparation of the materials for each expert group, needs to be done carefully so students have immediate access to everything they need to accomplish their task. Graphic organizer templates and a written set of directions detailing how you feel the group should proceed would be helpful the first few times your class uses a Jigsaw activity. Try to specify one or two collaborative pair activities for the home groups to use in processing the new knowledge. These can take place while the experts are teaching their topic or following that part of the jigsaw. If you use a jigsaw frequently, your students will soon get to know how to proceed on their own. This is the evidence that you are helping them to become independent learners.

While students are working in their expert groups, the teacher should be carefully monitoring what each group is doing and saying to keep them on task and shape the content that you want them know. One of the most valuable benefits of any collaborative activity is the ability of the teacher to observe who is actively engaged in the task and just what is being discussed and learned. During direct teaching, even with proper questioning techniques, it is difficult to tell who is mentally engaged in the learning activity and who is not. When the students are working collaboratively, it is obvious who is on task and who is not. The teacher has a better opportunity to take action to keep everyone possible on task.

Activity

Design and use a jigsaw activity with your students including the activities the "experts" will do with their "home" groups. You might select content that is not too difficult the first time so you and your students can focus more on learning the jigsaw process.

By now you should have made a decision about what you will do for your final product. Once you have a good idea of what your final product will be, please email Jerry Peters a description of it. Also, keep collecting student work samples in case you want to include them.