The Jigsaw Approach

The Jigsaw method is a great way to involve students more actively in the learning process by having them teach one another. Students are divided into groups responsible for learning a particular topic. Then new groups are formed with a representative of each topic. In this way, students are more active participators in the learning process, as they must teach what they've learned to their peers.

Here's an example of how I could use the jigsaw approach in a classroom with only five computers. Let's say I have 30 students. If I organized them into six groups of five, I could then choose five topics for the students to research and teach to one another. Throughout the weeks, I could give the students computer time to research their topic. So group 1 gets the computers during class on Monday, group 2 gets the computers on Wednesday, group 3 gets the computers on Friday, and so on until all the groups have had their chance to use the computers for their research. Then, I would re-organize the groups so that a representative for each topic is in each group. They would then present their findings to each other within the group.

The challenge of doing the jigsaw approach in this way is that it takes a long time for the assignment to be completed. The advantage is that the students are working on the assignment in class, so there is less room for procrastination or failure to complete the work. One disadvantage of the jigsaw approach is that it requires the teacher to subdivide the lesson equally, and to find creative ways to make the five subdivisions relevant to the students during discussion of findings. It also presents a challenge to the teacher to combine the right personalities so that the students stay on topic and treat one another with fairness and respect. An advantage of the approach is that students who may not generally participate have a less intimidating audience of just four people rather than the whole class, and, with the proper guidance, it helps the students make connections in the material.