Speaking and listening, reading and viewing, writing
Bands A,B,C,D

What is it?

Jigsaw is a co-operative learning structure that promotes the sharing and understanding of ideas or texts.

What is its purpose?

Jigsaw facilitates learning in two areas; the social skills of positive interdependence and equal participation and the academic skill of acquiring knowledge and understanding. Expert group members share that information with home team members so that each member of that team puts a piece of the ‘jigsaw’ together, forming the basis of holistic understanding of a topic.

How do I do it?

• Organise the class into co-operative home groups of, say, three and hand out three different sets of information which relate to a particular topic for example, rules for language usage, structure of a novel (page one, two and three)

• Organise the class into co-operative expert groups by teaming up students with like materials. For example, all page one students in the class together, page two, and so on. This group reads the materials and discusses the best methods of sharing their acquired knowledge and understanding with their co-operative home group.

• Organise the expert groups to return to their home groups. Each student presents their understanding of their part of the topic and the home group must then demonstrate understanding of the whole topic. For example how the conventions of a capital letter, a full stop and a comma is used in a sentence, or how the setting, plot and characters, work together in the structure of a novel. The demonstration of that understanding may be a written or an oral activity

How can I adapt it?

There are limitless ways of adapting the jigsaw structure in terms of the size of the groups, the range of topics and the demonstration of mastery of those topics.

How can it be used to evaluate students’ language learning?

Assign each group with a proforma that identifies criteria for assessment and ask them to conduct peer and self assessment.

Where can I find out more?

Bennett B., Rolheiser, C., Stevahn, L. (1991) Cooperative Learning: Where Heart Meets Mind, Educational Connections, Ontario.

Jigsaw (Part of the Kagan web site, this section explains the origin of jigsaw and gives a range of variations on it.)