Reference:
Instructional strategies online - jigsaw. (n.d.). Online learning centre. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/pd/instr/strats
Jigsaw is a cooperative learning tool that can be used to help students become experts on a particular part of a lesson when in their “expert” groups and then return to their “home” groups and teach the section of the lesson they collaborated and became experts at to remainder of the group. For example, the class should be divided into groups of four, this is the student’s
“home” group. Each student is assigned a number (1-4). These numbers represent the part of the lesson that student will be responsible for becoming an expert about. Then students regroup into “expert” groups (all 1s are together, all 2s are together, and so on). The students in their “expert” groups learn about their section of the lesson. Then each “expert” regroups with their “home” group and each student teaches the rest of the group about their area of expertise. This is a way to make students accountable for learning the material they are responsible to learn and then reteach the information, which is a great way to ensure they know it. One great way to use this strategy is to supplement the collaboration with a study guide that all students are expected to complete. The students in “expert” groups would fill in their area of the study guide and then the students in the “home” groups will complete the other areas of the study guide upon learning about the different areas after the members in their “home” group teach them.