Jigsaw
Overview
As students work with and process information by discussing, organizing, and sharing it together, they deepen their understanding. When learners dive into understanding a concept or text with a small group and then share their understanding with different students, everyone actively practices their reading skills.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch in this Reading Rockets video as this teacher sets up the structures for a successful jigsaw in an elementary classroom. Each student in the home group has time to prepare an idea to share and, working together, all become experts and can share their learning with other students.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Starting at 1:16, learn how Popplet allows students to collaboratively create shareable presentations. These presentations can be created in the first jigsaw group and support students when sharing their expertise in the second group.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Cooperative Learning Strategies
When peers work cooperatively to practice writing letters, words, and eventually longer sentences, their Foundational Writing Skills, including spelling and writing quality, improve.
Flexible grouping is a classroom practice that temporarily places students together in given groups to work together, with the purpose of achieving a given learning goal or activity.
As students walk through stations working in small groups, the social and physical nature of the learning supports deeper understanding.
To promote acceptance of learning diversity, students explore learning tools and strategies to see how they work and why they and others might use them.
When students explain to others, they deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning.
Respectful redirection, or error correction, outlines a clear and concise way that educators can provide feedback on behaviors that need immediate correction, in a positive manner.
Students develop reading skills by listening to and speaking with others in informal ways.
