Basic Jigsaw 2

The Pieces of the Puzzle
Before we take a look at the jigsaw method as a whole, let us describe the various
pieces that go into making up the jigsaw classroom.
Students
We have found that young children - even kindergartners - are perfectly able and
willing to engage in cooperative behavior. At the same time, we should note that
our attempts to institute the jigsaw technique prior to the fourth grade have not
always gone smoothly. There are two major issues. First, virtually all of the
students in a group need at least a minimal proficiency in reading for jigsaw to
work; one cannot always count on this general proficiency among all children in
the first few grades. Second, the understanding of the basic elements of
jigsawing requires a certain degree of conceptual ability. While we've found that
most six-year-olds can eventually grasp what is required, it often necessitates a
longer period of time to thoroughly acquaint them with the system than is the
case for youngsters ten years old and above.
At the upper end of the classroom continuum, there seems to be no limit. Middle
school and high school level groups work particularly well. At the university
level, students can be placed in jigsaw groups and meet on their own time
outside of class. Each student is responsible for a portion of the reading material
(a number of research articles, one aspect of a subject area, and so forth).
Students then report to their group and discuss the topics. The only intervention
made by the instructor consists of a brief training session designed to spell out
the degree of specificity required in the actual reporting so that a semblance of
uniformity could be achieved. That is, in technical reporting it is conceivable that
if the students are not instructed, some reports might be overly detailed and
others might be too sparse. A brief instruction about the appropriate degree of
complexity can be invaluable. Virtually all of the university students who have
utilized the jigsaw opportunities reported good results: mastery of the material
in far less time than if they had read it on their own, plus the added enjoyment of
companionship and the intellectual stimulation brought about by the sharing of a
variety of perspectives.
Another way jigsaw has been used is during "inservices" that require covering
reading material in a short period of time. In this case, participants are assigned
individual chapters and given time to read. Next, expert groups are formed of
those assigned the first section of the material, those assigned the second part,
and so forth. After discussing the key points of what they have just read, they
plan the best ways to communicate this information to others. After this, groups
are formed so that all the reading material is covered within a single group and
each person shares her knowledge with the others. This has been used as a quick
and efficient way of covering as much as an entire volume in a one-day
workshop.
Curriculum
A carefully planned curriculum can go a long way toward making students'
introduction to jigsaw go smoothly. Ideally the teacher will have prepared the
curriculum during a school vacation or other non-teaching time, giving the task
uninterrupted attention and making the process of designing the curriculum a
pleasant one. If this is not feasible; we strongly recommend that the preparation
of the curriculum be completed - at least - before jigsawing actually begins.
A wide variety of subject matter can be adapted for use with the jigsaw format.
On the whole, narrative material that emphasizes reading and comprehension
skills is the easiest to work with in groups. Because of this, the area of social
studies - including history, civics, geography and so forth - is perhaps the most
naturally suited to the technique. The major skills involved are reading and
comprehension. Jigsaw has been successfully used, however, in teaching math,
language arts, and biology, although those subjects are more difficult to adapt.
We have also found that jigsaw works best with material that is not conceptually
novel (requiring students to use skills they have not yet learned). Just as we
would not attempt to assign The Life of Joseph Pulitzer to a group of six children
who didn't know how to read, by the same token we would not assign
"subtraction" to a group of students who had not yet acquired this skill. Thus,
introducing addition or subtraction for the first time in the context of a jigsaw
group is probably not a good idea, although jigsaw could certainly be used for
practicing these skills. We know of teachers who have successfully employed the
jigsaw method for the instruction of math, language arts, biology, English as a
second language, and other subject that required new skills to be learned. In
these areas jigsaw has been used primarily to review material previously taught
by more traditional methods..
Another limitation involving subject matter has to do with a reading assignment
which is cumulatively interwoven, by which we mean that because of the nature
of the material it would be difficult to understand part three without having first
read and understood parts one and two. Thus while it is easy to grasp Joseph
Pulitzer's middle years without knowing about his childhood and young
adulthood, it would be far more difficult to make sense out of Chapter 3 of a
detective story without having first read Chapters 1 and 2. Accordingly, if you
were a fifth-grader and you were assigned part three of a story or subject matter
that is, by its very nature, cumulatively interwoven, chances are you would not
be able to grasp its meaning sufficiently well to communicate it meaningfully to
members of your jigsaw group. This is the key to adapting curriculum for jigsaw:
whatever material is used must be divided into coherent segments that can be distributed
to members of the jigsaw group. That is, an individual piece of the lesson must be
understandable to a student without knowledge of the other portions given to
his groupmates.
It is advisable for the teacher to include in her weekly lesson planning the
material to be covered daily in the jigsaw group and to provide additional time
for curriculum preparation. Homework assignments and material to supplement
the basic lesson should also be organized well in advance.
Jigsaw Cards
Almost any study material can be used for the construction of jigsaw cards.
Four-by-six-inch index cards seem to be first choice. If the information is from a
textbook, pages can be copied from books or other resources and glued onto the
index cards with rubber cement. Pictures or other relevant material can be glued
to the back of the card.
Rather than letting students pick their own cards (sometimes they will pick the
one that is prettiest or has the least amount of writing) the teacher might want to
pencil each student's name at the top of his card. This also helps the teacher
balance the groups (including the expert groups) since she knows ahead of time
who will have each part.
To provide for maximum interdependence among group members, each student should
have access to other parts of the lesson only through other groups members. Clearly, if a
student has already had experience with the lesson material, he will be less
dependent on listening to his groupmates to learn that material.1 If standard
texts are used, the material must be cut out or reproduced, divided, and the texts
collected and stored.
The amount of material used and how it is broken up are both important aspects
of curriculum preparation for jigsaw. In the first few weeks, students are still
adjusting to the process as well as learning content material. We suggest that at
least initially the amount of information be kept quite light. After two weeks the
work load can be gradually increased until a full load is reached. We have found
that time lost early in the press is made up later - with interest.
1 Robert Slavin has devised an alternative jigsaw method which he calls Jigsaw II. As with the original
jigsaw, group members in Slavin's adaptation also become experts on one part of the material, meet in
counterpart groups, and are responsible for their group members learning that portion of the material.
However, in Jigsaw II, all students in the group read the entire assignment rather than having to depend
solely on group members for the information. Group members then take individual test on the material, the
results of which contribute to a team score.
How much material constitutes a full load? In our experience students can be
given as much or more material using jigsaw as when using traditional teaching
methods. Even when a large amount of material is to be mastered, the students
seem to rise to the occasion.
The decision about how much material should be contained on each card is a
particularly important one. If there is consistently too little material, there will
be little challenge for the students, and they will quickly become bored with the
process. On the other hand, if there is too much material, it will be difficult to
cover all parts within the allotted time; this is bound to be a frustrating
experience for the group. One way to avoid these extremes is equating the
jigsaw cards for the number of important facts that each card contains. Thus one
student may read three paragraphs and another five, but they will both be
responsible for the same number of important facts. Using this method results in
a student's work load varying from day to day, but we have not found this to
impede the successful working of the group.
An additional policy we have found helpful is breaking up material so that a
separate subject is covered each day of jigsawing (Monday - geography of China;
Tuesday - Chinese family structure; and so forth). The best general advice we
can give concerning the division of material is to strive for a balanced
distribution among individual students and over the course of the unit.
Expert Groups
If a class is to use jigsaw an hour a day, twenty minutes of the hour should be
spent in expert groups and the remaining forty minutes in the jigsaw group. At
the beginning of the hour, students gather in their jigsaw groups to receive their
paragraphs and any special instructions from their group leader. They then
break into expert groups (consisting of those students with identical paragraphs)
to plan their presentation.
Once in the expert group the students first read their cards. It is helpful to the
poor readers if one person reads the card aloud. Then group members start
helping each other understand the material on the card. They work on meanings
of words, think up examples to explain things, and so forth. Students can ask
questions about anything that is unclear. Students who grasp the material
quickly are a vital resource in helping slower students learn the material. When
everybody understands the information on the card, the group decides how to
teach the material to the jigsaw groups. Expert group members thus get an idea
of how the others are planning to present, hear some suggestions that may aid
their own presentation, and give each other constructive feedback.
Expert groups have additional advantages. Even the brightest student is
stimulated by the questions, examples, and trial presentations of his experts. The
expert group may also be considered an effective device to remedy listlessness
on one of those dull, low-energy days that descend from time to time on every
classroom. A typical jigsaw group runs for a period of six to ten weeks, long
enough so that the children in it may occasionally get bored with each other and
may want the excitement of a temporary change in routine. On the other hand,
they may decidedly not want such a change because they have become so
comfortable with their teammates; they know exactly what to expect of each
other and patterns of interaction have become established and easy. In either
case, the expert group challenges them to make new interpersonal adaptations
without disrupting the smoothly functioning jigsaw learning group. Finally, as
jigsaw group identity solidifies, the groups may be tempted to view each other
competitively. Temporary restructuring with expert groups builds bonds across
groups, thus helping to keep such intergroup competition from becoming
pervasive.
Expert groups present several special problems, however, because they are not
ongoing working units like the jigsaw groups; they change with the curriculum.
Since the same people don't meet regularly, they have no chance to develop the
cohesiveness that results from the team-building exercises. Initially students
may have more trouble working with each other in expert groups, but as the
jigsaw groups become used to working together and develop cohesion, the
expert groups improve as well. As mentioned before, it is important not to
develop intense feelings of competition between jigsaw groups since students
from one jigsaw group will have to work with students from other jigsaw groups
in the expert sessions.
There is another problem with expert groups. The students may not
immediately be comfortable working with each other, particularly when the
jigsaw process is new to them. They may even have difficulty getting organized
and down to work. Teachers generally find it advisable to pick a responsible and
capable leader even for these temporary groups. It is also helpful, on occasion, to
run through a quick teambuilding exercise to establish a cooperative mood.
Once the jigsaw process becomes familiar, cooperative attitudes tend to carry
over from group to group.
Expert Group Leadership
It is impossible for expert groups to have regular leaders since the group
composition changes daily. Leaving the groups leaderless creates problems,
however. A leaderless expert group has trouble getting organized and
accomplishing the day's business. We have tried having expert groups pick their
own leaders; this seems to work well with two qualifications: students who are
seen as natural leaders tend always to be chosen, and when there is no natural
leader among the members of the group, it seems hard for the group to get
organized enough to pick any leader at all.
Otherwise, we suggest that the teacher select expert leaders before the day's
session and announce them to the class. This alleviates the necessity for the
group to pick its own leader and saves time in organization.
It is a good idea for students to have notebooks with them in expert groups and
take very short "key word" notes. We strongly discourage, however, letting
students write out what they are going to say and read it. Short notes give them
about the right amount of help with their parts, and of course learning to take
good notes is a valuable skill for students to have.
Jigsaw Groups
Having finished working in their expert groups, the students reassemble in their
jigsaw groups. The jigsaw curriculum cards are labeled in a specific order, and
the students should teach them in this order. After the jigsaw groups get back
together, the student who has card number one beings presenting. If the group
is restless and having trouble settling down, the group leader should make an
intervention (For example: "I'd like to get started now," or "I;m having trouble
hearing Mike because you're talking.") The student who is trying to present
might also say something. (For example: "It makes me feel bad when you don't
listen to me.")
The students in the group should be encouraged to use active listening skills. It's
hard to tell if someone is listening if they are drawing pictures, looking down,
and showing no overt interest in the procedure generally. A short time (five or
ten minutes) should be reserved at the end of the hour for the group to discuss
any problems that have arisen in the hour.
After the individual presentations, the group can review all parts together. Each
student may try to think of three important points from the lesson. Or students
may ask each other questions about the lesson and try to answer questions on
parts other than their own. Having the students review insures that every
students understands the lesson. If a review is not done, students may leave
with an incorrect understanding of the information.
Finally, students in the jigsaw group should fill out the group process sheet and
take five or ten minutes to discuss the day's process sheet. Process discussions
are feedback sessions and allow the students to express their feelings, talk about
problems they feel the group is having, and attempt to find solutions to these
problems.
Teacher as Facilitator
If the class is of average size, it probably will be divided into four to six jigsaw
groups. Clearly, even with a teacher's aide, the teacher cannot be everywhere at
once. The group leaders function as additional assistants to the teacher,
channeling group-process skills to group members and helping organize the
activities of the day.
A jigsaw teacher's goal is having students regard each other as learning resources
rather than depend solely on her as instructor and leader. She does not abandon all
authority in the classroom, however. Instead she acts as a backstage designer,
creating a structure where the students may learn how best to make use of each
other's knowledge and skills. In addition, she plays an important role as an
information resource, one we will discuss in more detail Chapter 6. The teacher
moves around the room, from jigsaw group to jigsaw group, listening, observing,
and keeping alert for any problems that may develop. Whenever possible, she
makes interventions in group process through the group leader, thereby
validating the group leader's authority for the other students. Since getting the
group to regulate itself rather than depend on the teacher is the object,
interventions should help the group discover its own solutions. The teacher may
phrase interventions as requests or suggestions to the group leader. (For
example, "Jane, perhaps you should check to see if everyone feels they
understand all the parts well enough to take a test tomorrow." Or, "Peter, maybe
you should ask the group if telling John that he's stupid is helping them learn the
material.")
If a group member complains directly to the teacher about someone in the group
(Mr. Cross, Jane is drawing funny pictures instead of listening!"), it is not the
responsibility of the teacher to solve the problem directly. The jigsaw teacher
refers the problem back to the group to have them solve the problem themselves.
In the example give above, Mr. Cross might ask the group leader whether group
members have any idea why Jane is drawing pictures instead of listening.
Perhaps the presentations are going to fast for her to understand, or perhaps she
is bored because the speaker is reading his card in a dull tone of voice. Once the
source of the problem has been identified, the teacher may take the group leader
aside and suggest ways of solving it, or the students may be ready to take
responsibility for finding their own solutions.
Teacher interventions are aide at helping students learn content more effectively
and helping them develop an efficient, comfortable, cooperative process.
Perhaps most important, the teacher models for the students effective jigsaw
process. Through his interventions, even phrasing, tone of voice, and the kinds
of suggestions he makes, the teacher provides an example students can
eventually imitate in their roles as group members. The teacher can usefully
make several types of interventions at different stages of the jigsaw process.
The first time expert groups meet, students may have difficulty finding effective,
interesting ways of presenting their material. The teacher can help them learn
how to extract important points from the printed information and think of
creative ways to present what they have learned. The first time students present,
they often simply read their paragraphs aloud - a boring experience for the
listeners. Some examples of teacher interventions in the first expert sessions
follow:
•"Can you think of a way to put the information you just learned into your
own words?"
•"Can you think of how the material you just read is related to your own
life? Are there any examples in your own life you could use in explaining
this to your groupmates?"
•"Do you know what you are going to say when you go back to your
jigsaw group?"
Once students return to the jigsaw groups, the teacher may need to encourage
them in their actual presentations. At the beginning some may have difficulty
summarizing material in their own words. Even after experience in the expert
group, they may simply read the paragraph aloud in the jigsaw group. You will
need to remind them gently that putting the information in their own words
makes their presentations more interesting and easier to follow. You should also
encourage them to include the examples and interesting points discussed in the
expert group and to comment on the presentation of other members.
Initially - in both expert and jigsaw groups - students may stop working together
and become merely six individuals working alone who happen to be sharing a
space. This may happen because they are practicing their own parts while others
are talking. The teacher must emphasize that the purpose of the expert groups is
for the students with the same material to help each other learn it and that jigsaw
groups also are meant to be situations where the students learn from each other.
The following interventions are useful in reminding students of this:
•"Are you helping one another learn the material?"
•"Is everybody in this group understanding the material you covered
today?"
Sometimes very quick students finish learning the material early and withdraw
from the rest of the discussion, leaving other group members to struggle by
themselves. This is the time for the teacher to emphasize the student's role as
teacher as well as student. The bright student need not disappear when she has
learned the material. Rather she should be encouraged to spend the extra time
helping other students learn. We have found that taking this role in the group
can be very rewarding for bright students and prevents them from getting bored.
Having students fulfill this function also helps narrow the social and
communication gap between high achievers and low achievers that is often
found in traditional classrooms. The following intervention is designed to
encourage more able students to help their groupmates:
•"Now that you've learned the material, can you help John learn it so he
can teach it to his groupmates?"
Perhaps the most important intervention the teacher will make is convincing
students that fighting, teasing, and insulting each other are dysfunctional
behaviors. Working in groups invariably involves some conflict. The teacher
will find that some of the quicker students become impatient with those who
learn more slowly; that fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students have definite
misgivings about cooperating with (or even sitting next to) classmates of the
opposite sex; and that exiting rivalries tend to get exaggerated in the group
setting. However, as described in more detail in Chapter (what?), Jigsaw can be
an excellent place to work out some of these conflicts and build understanding
and harmonious relations.
There are two roles in the jigsaw classroom which merit special consideration:
that of teacher and of student group leader. These two are closely related. The
role of the group leader is patterned after the teacher's role; they are both
"facilitators," whose function is to lead a group, help the members look at how
they are working together, and examine how they can improve their interaction
in order to accomplish some task. (These roles will be described in more detail in
Chapter 6.) Ideally, the ultimate goal with jigsaw groups is to reach a point
where a facilitator is no longer necessary because group-process skills will have
been taken over by the members. In the jigsaw classroom, the teacher, as
facilitator, seeks to help the children teach themselves and each other in
smoothly functioning small groups. In any given classroom there may be five or
six groups and, since the teacher cannot be everywhere at once, each group has a
leader, a teacher's "assistant" through whom group-process skills are passed to
each student, and who also acts as an organizer for the business of the day.
Finally, the role of group leader need not be a permanent one. As the
interpersonal and group skills develop, group members may take turns being the
leader.
Part 3
Solving Problems in the Jigsaw Classroom
While research continues to demonstrate numerous advantages of cooperative
learning, this does not mean that working with it is problem free. Certain
problems do occur for which teachers have devised a variety of solutions. This
chapter contains a collection of some of the more common problems, together
with suggestions for how they might be handled. Many of these problems are
not unique to the jigsaw method and neither are the solutions. But, as we saw
earlier, the jigsaw method often illuminates problems that are hidden in more
competitive classroom dynamics. More importantly, though, the jigsaw method
often provides solutions that otherwise would be less readily available.
Problem: The Need for Communication Skills
Teasing, feuding, putting each other down--these activities, unfortunately, are as
much a part of life in the classroom as reading and math. They take place in
virtually all classrooms, in all sections of the country, at all grade levels and in all
classroom structures. The jigsaw group is an intimate situation, one where
children work in very close association and depend heavily on each other.
Because of this, conflict may seem more frequent, particularly at first, than in a
competitive classroom. The great advantage of jigsaw is that this structure
allows children to develop conflict resolution skills--so that they can solve their
own problems as they occur. This is particularly true if these skills are
emphasized as part of the school culture. Fortunately, in many school systems,
children now enter the middle elementary school grades with at least a modicum
of experience at conflict resolution on the playground. The importance and
usefulness of having a process to solve problems is, therefore, not brand new to
them and in many cases they have already practiced many of the necessary
skills. For example, many youngsters have learned not to interrupt others, that
name calling and put-downs are not effective, and so on.
In a jigsaw classroom, the children are not individually isolated units. They are
not forced by the arrangement of the classroom to curtail their conflicts and
postpone them until recess. Moreover, any group (such as the one described in
the previous chapter) has certain built-in conflicts attributable to the age of the
children. Among third and fourth grade girls, best friend/best enemy conflicts
sometimes interfere with classroom peace and among eleven- and twelve-yearolds,
feelings of attraction and annoyance may run strong especially between
children of different sex. A boy and girl may regard each other with familiar
suspicion, but a degree of interest may also begin to emerge. One day they may
show exaggerated horror at finding they must sit together, the next they may
seem to enjoy working together, or vice versa.
Besides these complexities, there are the conflicts which arise around the task
itself. A certain amount of material must be covered by tomorrow, but someone
is holding back the group. Someone else is pushing ahead too rapidly and
leaving the others behind in confusion. Because the jigsaw group tends to bring
conflicts to the surface, it provides the setting and the tools for the children to
work through those conflicts and learn something about themselves and one
another in the process. Moreover, because only a few children are involved, the
rest of the class need not be interrupted in its work. Accordingly, the teacher
may decide to use an instance of petty quarreling as vehicle to help the children
learn about how their behavior affects others.
To demonstrate how the teacher might do this, we will use a simple, unsubtle
instance of negative communication. Name-calling is a great American cultural
tradition. Nicknames are often seen as signs of affection. In reality, nicknames
are often used to express feelings about someone, both positive and negative.
We call members of our family "honey" or "sweetie" but sometimes there is
cruelty attached to the names we call others. Let us suppose Jason is a boy, who
like most children, watches television an average of five hours a day. In almost
every show, whether a police show, cartoon, or comedy, somebody gets called a
name by someone else. It may be for laughs, but Jason comes to know that
name-calling is a common way of interacting with others, one that gets a reaction
out of others. Life seems to mirror television: when Jason's older sister stays out
too late with her boyfriend, dad might get angry and in his anger, refers to her
boyfriend a slacker. And when Jason's mother opens the latest car repair bill, she
might mutter something to the effect that the mechanic who failed to fix her car
properly is an idiot and a thief. It is understandable that Jason comes to believe
that name-calling is what you do to express displeasure. Even children with well
developed conflict resolution skills that include the dictum "no put-downs",
sometimes fail to recognize the sting of naming.
With such experience behind him, Jason goes to school and settles down in his
jigsaw group to complete some work for the test tomorrow. But alas, Sara has
her Civil War battles all mixed up. "You idiot," Jason says somewhat mildly. "I
am not, you creep," Sara replies heatedly, and the task is forgotten; the squabble
is on.
What is going on here? What kind of intervention is needed? It may help to look
a this brief interaction as a chain of events.
Jason has some feelings and, at least in part, he expresses them. Sara perceives
that his verbal behavior is directed against her, and it arouses certain feelings in
her, feelings which Jason may have had no intention of arousing. It is natural for
Sara, in her hurt and anger, to interpret Jason's intentions wrongly. She
evaluates Jason as a person by calling him a name just as he called her a name.
Now let's fill in the particulars. By calling Sara an idiot, Jason has revealed his
impatience but not his anxiety about the test tomorrow. His intention is to get
Sara to hurry up and pull herself together. And, too, there may be some boy-girl
anxieties in the background, barely, if at all, conscious.
But Jason's sarcasm hurts Sara's feelings. She would like to be liked and admired
even though she cannot seem to keep her Civil War battles straight. She thinks
Jason meant to hurt her and put her down, because he is mean, aggressive, and a
boy. She masks her hurt feelings by calling Jason a creep. She wants to get even
by making Jason feel small and ugly.
So the situation has escalated; the problem of covering the material in a limited
time has blown up into an unpleasant personal confrontation. Jason's semiserious,
semi-teasing behavior puts Sara on the defensive and she retaliates in
full anger. Now he will have to defend himself. Under such circumstances what
can the teacher do? As you remember, the group we observed and described in
the previous chapter was able to move past their quarrel fairly quickly, without
intervention so that interference with the academic task was minimal. But
suppose intervention is required Then the teacher may decide simply to brush
past the quarrel with a practical reminder of their task. On the other hand, he
may decide it is time for these interpersonal difficulties to be faced directly. In
this case he would attempt two things. First, he would guide the children to an
awareness of the effects they are having on one another. Second, he would help
them find better ways to express their feelings. His intervention might go
something like this:
Let's look at what happened. Jason said this, Sara replied that. Jason, how were
you feeling when you called Sara an idiot? Were you feeling mad?
No...but she ought to hurry up, she ought to be organized by now.
So you were feeling impatient?
Yes.
I bet you were also kind of worried about that test tomorrow.
Yes.
But did teasing help Sara straighten things out?
In other words, the teacher is helping Jason focus on his feelings
and his behavior, and moving away from examining what is wrong with Sara.
The teacher may sense the boy-girl issue but may want to save it for a later date
when the children have more experience sharing their feelings and more
confidence expressing themselves. He then returns to Sara and asks how she felt
when Jason called her a name. She may reply that she wanted to punch him in
the mouth (a quick and common translation of feeling into fantasy action), but
with help she may admit to feeling anger and finally to feeling hurt. This is
because the teacher has, at least for the moment, converted a win-lose
atmosphere into one where it is safe to share feelings of vulnerability. The
teacher does this by his attitude as much as anything else, by being caring and
helpful and gentle. Intervention of an authoritarian nature ("Why did you do
that? It's not nice. I'm ashamed of you. You know better.") has the opposite
effect. Of course they know better, but they are caught in some difficult
emotions and do not know what else to do.
One Solution: Learning to Make "I" Statements
Let us take a moment to clarify the theory underlying the mode of
communication that we are recommending. As you know, there are two ways
we commonly use the word "feel." First, we often say: I feel that you are an
angry person, a wonderful fellow, or whatever. The "feeling" in this instance is
really an opinion, my evaluation of judgment of you. But feeling has another,
more basic meaning: I feel angry, sad, annoyed, happy. I am expressing my own
primary emotion. The focus is on "I" not "you" or "he" or "she." I am saying
something about my own state rather than saying something judgmental about
you. It is feeling in this second sense that we think is the effective unit of
communication for small-group problem solving, because it can be heard more
easily by the recipient, and so is more easily dealt with. It does not arouse
defensiveness in the other person so it does not result in the desire on their part
to run away or to fight back. When I say that I am feeling angry, I am expressing
a fact. I know my feelings, there is no guesswork involved, no theories about
your character (for example: I feel frustrated rather than I "feel" you are
irresponsible). Now, if you want to interact with me, you will probably be
interested in my feelings rather than defending yourself from a perceived attack.
You may or may not want to determine whether or not you played any part in
triggering them but the focus is on the task at hand, since it would be useful (and
perhaps necessary) to work this out before we can continue with our task. On
the other hand, if I deliver a judgment about you instead of exposing my
feelings, you will probably not be interested in anything but your own selfdefense.
Many older children are able to understand this. Younger children can simply
learn to make "I" statements" rather than "you" statements, with the reasoning
coming later.
To return to our classroom example, once the feelings have been clarified, the
teacher might have to reassure the children that it is all right to have "bad"
feelings. He could point out that everyone does, and that it is legitimate to
express anger or anxiety, but that there are ways to do it that are more
constructive than others. If Sara had said outright: "I feel bad when you call me
that" or "That makes me mad," Jason would have known immediately that his
tactic of teasing was not having the effect he intended. Moreover, he would not
have had to go on to prove he was not a creep. He could, of course, ignore Sara's
protest. But at least he would have to ask himself, "Is that a good choice of
behavior for what I want to accomplish?"
The dialogue described above is, of course, an idealized version of the process. It
is usually not that quick or complete. But a hard-working group eventually
reaches a point where interactions like this are neither impossible nor infrequent.
One of the beauties of any small-group arrangement is that it provides the
students with an opportunity for observing their own behavior as it affects
others. It also provides opportunities for learning how to handle feelings of
anger, impatience, shyness, or affection. Importantly, this learning occurs while
the students are learning about the Civil War or the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
The learning of communication skills is not a separate lesson in a jigsaw
classroom. Rather, it enhances the mastery of the content at hand, increasing the
usefulness and attentiveness of the human resources involved.1
The "No-Put Down Classroom"
Creating an environment that is free of "put-downs" is part of the classroom
management strategy of an increasing number of teachers. It also sets the stage
so that group members can approach difficulties as problems to solve rather than
blaming each other. As a step toward creating a "put-down free zone" some
teachers have used variations on the following: students are asked to write
down them all the put-downs they could think of, or the class as a whole
brainstorms a list of put-downs. Once this is done, the teacher collects (or copies)
the put-downs, places them in a receptacle, seals it, and disposes of it. The
method of disposal varies, the a bag can be simply tossed in the garbage, or a
"coffin" can be given a proper burial with an appropriate ceremony attached.
These exercises serve to call attention to what is inappropriate and later a student
can be reminded with, "Why, I thought that comment was dead and buried."
Problem: The Poor Reader
How do we help the poor reader, the child who may be reading one or several
grade levels below her peers, and who, consequently, is suffering both in
1 For a more detailed analysis of communication skills, see Chapter 8 in The Social Animal by Elliot
Aronson (W.H. Freeman, 1995).
practical and emotional terms? As schools move away from tracking students,
the reading ability of the students in a single classroom may vary considerably.
In a jigsaw group, some group members will inevitably find themselves
dependent for vital information on a student who, because of reading problems
or for whom English in a second language, cannot easily get that information to
them. The problem for that relatively unskilled student is not only that he
cannot read very well but also that he cannot hide the fact from his peers as he
might have been able to do in a more traditional classroom. He is confronted
with their impatience and their unfavorable judgments. As a result he is under
pressure which potentially could inhibit his performance still further.
One Solution: Alternative Materials
There are several tactics a teacher can adopt in order to forestall such a
destructive situation while at the same time increasing the flexibility of the
learning environment. In a jigsaw group, anyone can make a useful
contribution. For example the slower reader may be given a drawing
assignment, or the teacher can assign material of different reading levels to each
group, making sure that the less accomplished readers get the least difficult
material. Instead of copying a unit from a text where vocabulary and concepts
are set at too high a grade level, a teacher can briefly summarize a portion of the
material for a poor reader. Of the material may also be recorded on cassettes.
The recording could also, or instead, be assigned to quicker students to
encourage in them a sense of responsibility toward their less skilled peers, while
keeping them busy and challenged with an interesting, constructive task.
Generally the recorded material is used in conjunction with, not instead of,
written material in order to reinforce orally what the child is reading.
One Solution: Coaching
Another practice that has become common is that of student coaching with the
higher-achieving students working directly with the slower students. This
practice is more desirable than that of isolating a student with a tape recorder
because it is yet another way to stress the development of interpersonal skills.
The coaching teams are set up within each jigsaw group and serve to underscore
its supportive values and the interdependency of the students. As we noted in
our discussion of group composition, the benefits are mutual. The adept reader
has the immediate, energizing reward of an image change: that is, he sees
himself as a helper instead of as a hampered and bored student. The slower
reader is being helped by someone who is more skilled but not perfect, a model
within the limits of possible attainment, compared, for example, to the teacher,
who is all-knowing. In our experience, this procedure opens the slow reader to
learning by reducing his need to feel intimidated and defensive. This, in turn,
frees him to be more attentive and take more risks in his learning, provided that
his coach has learned well her interpersonal skills.
When the jigsaw process is first getting underway, the teacher will probably be
the one to suggest the coaching arrangement. Eventually, as cooperation
becomes an established practice, the students themselves will make the choice to
work in this manner. At first it is easier to imagine a faster student offering to
help than it is to imagine a slower student taking the initiative to ask for that
help. However, the kind of classroom the jigsaw teacher is developing is one
where all the students realize that different levels of skills at any given moment
are ordinary facts of life, a cause for neither shame nor vanity. The slower
students or poorer readers often become quite accurate judges of what they can
and cannot do, and are not too embarrassed to ask for help when they need it.
Once the coaching team is set up, the teacher helps the students make effective
use of one another as resources. He shows them how to break a task into parts
and also provides a structure for their interaction. For example, he might
suggest that David first read the paragraph to Susan. Having heard the words
and the rhythmical phrasing that serves to clarify content, Susan could then read
the passage back. Then together they could decide on two important points and
discuss how Susan is going to present them. As the teacher moves from group to
group, he will want to be particularly attentive to how the coaching press is
functioning. Is David getting impatient, for example, teaching down to Susan
rather than working with her? The teacher may also ask the students to
comment on the process: Does David find that teaching the material helps him
to learn it? How does Susan think the system is working for her? Does she have
any suggestions for David that would enable him to be more helpful to her? The
sooner the slower students are encouraged to state their own needs and
opinions, the more confident they feel, along developing a sense that they have
some control over their own learning.
One Solution: Use The Expert Group
Providing a variety of materials and arranging for student coaches are two
strategies for helping poor readers that have worked in jigsaw classrooms, but of
course they are not unique to the jigsaw approach; they can be employed in any
classroom structure. Now let us look at a solution that is unique to the jigsaw
procedure; indeed, it forms a basic part of its structure. This is the expert group.
In this way, poorer readers or students for whom English is a second language
are being helped by their peers, this time members of other groups who are
responsible for the same section. The students in a expert group have a chance to
hear the material read, are helped with the meaning of words, can share
examples, and can try out their presentations. When the original jigsaw groups
resume, even the slowest student has her section fairly well planned and
rehearsed. Through this procedure she gains confidence. She begins to see
herself as a useful member of her jigsaw group rather than the "dummy."
Problem: The Troublemaker
Inevitably in almost any classroom there will be a student who, in relation to his
classmates, is immature or recalcitrant; the student who becomes known as the
"troublemaker." In a jigsaw classroom we would be surprised if there were not
at least one or two students who simply will not work effectively in a group or
who may even go so far as to sabotage efforts at cooperation by persistent
attempts at mischief. For example, Steve may have a game he likes to play:
when Tametria is making her presentation, Steve makes the others laugh by
mimicking her facial expressions and gestures. The leader calls him on it, not for
the first time. And, also not for the first time, Steve says, with wide-eyed
innocence, that he wasn't doing anything-Tracy was. Steve's repeated "sneak and
defense" behavior might be an important survival tactic that he has developed at
home, or it may simply be an attention-getting device. Whatever its cause, it is
destructive to the group and he is exerting a powerful disruptive influence.
Moreover, he is not learning anything. It would be a mistake simply to thrust
Steve into a jigsaw group without preparation.
One Solution: Special Handling
Students like Steve may need to work alone for a while under close adult
supervision. Teachers we have worked with have made it clear to the
recalcitrant student that working in a jigsaw group is an opportunity to be
earned. The student can do this by making responsible decisions about his
learning situation. For example, with teacher guidance, Steve may draw up a
daily contract. It can be made clear to him at the outset that he is choosing to
behave in a way that will exclude him from group work. First he may simply be
warned but then the consequences of his behavior will be spelled out in his
contract: he is choosing, through his behavior, to be excluded from the group.
Likewise, he may work his way back into the group. For example, he may agree
(1) to learn the new words on page 7 and (2) to write a short paragraph on each
explorer. It can be impressed upon him that these are the tasks to which he
committed. The teacher then begins to introduce him to cooperative activities.
Perhaps he and another carefully chosen student are assigned to make a chart for
the class. The point is, teachers find it wise to exclude and the bring the Steves in
their classrooms step by step toward the goal of group participation. To leave
him in a group and hope for the best can be disruptive to him and to the others.
Problem: Boredom and the Bright Student
We are frequently asked what happens to the brightest students in the jigsaw
situation. Don't they become impatient, bored, or resentful of the slower
students? Boredom is not uncommon in elementary school regardless of the
techniques being used, and it would be grossly misleading for us to imply that
children working with the jigsaw process were never bored or impatient. While
today's teacher is better trained than her earlier expert, she must also contend
with the higher expectancies and lower thresholds for boredom extant among
most young children. No matter how gifted the teacher, how exciting the subject
matter, how engrossing the activities, the classroom lacks the excitement,
entertainment value, and pace of much of children's television. Moreover,
because their minds are so quick, bright students tend to be among the most
easily bored if events are moving too slowly for them.
One Solution: Peer Tutoring
While it may be impossible to eliminate boredom from the school experience,
teachers who have used the jigsaw technique report a great deal less boredom
among their students than is the case in a more competitive classroom
atmosphere. Our data support this observation: children in jigsaw classes do
like school better than children in the control classes, and this is true for the
bright students as well as the slower students. There is an old adage, docemur
docendo (he who teaches learns). This is clearly the case in the jigsaw situation.
Teaching can be an exciting change of pace for a student. It frees her from being
a more or less passive receptacle of information and allows her the opportunity
to try a new skill. Not only does this almost certainly reduce boredom, but if
introduced properly it can also reduce the impatience that bright students
otherwise experience when slower students are experiencing difficulty By
developing the mind set of "teacher" the bright students can turn what might
have been a boring, mark-time, impatient experience into an exciting challenge.
And, as previously reported, not only does this challenge produce psychological
benefits, but the learning is frequently more thorough.
One Solution
Many classrooms have students who are chronically absent yet when they are in
class they need (perhaps more than most) to be included in the jigsaw groups.
The bored bright student might be able to serve as a "generalist" for the group
and possibly for the class. Their abilities make it likely that they would already
know the material and this would give them something active and useful to do.
One other point is relevant in this context. In developing the jigsaw method
special pains were taken to minimize conflict and/or resentment among
students. For this reason we designed jigsaw so that, although children learn the
material in a cooperative fashion in jigsaw, they are tested individually and
receive individual scores rather than an average of the group score. Thus a
particularly bright student has the opportunity to score individually; in no way
can her score be diminished by the exam performance of a less gifted student.
This aspect of jigsaw has proven itself to be congenial with the desires of most
students as well as those of their parents.
While jigsaw has proven to be one good way to reduce boredom, there are other
ways. Indeed, one surefire way any teacher can reduce boredom is to refuse to
stick to one method, whether it is competitiveness, individually guided
instruction, multimedia presentations, or cooperative learning techniques
including jigsaw.
Problem: Materials
Perhaps the most difficult problem new jigsaw teachers face is that of obtaining
and developing appropriate instructional materials. The usual curriculum
material must be divided into segments for the students to share. Some
assignments have to be created from various resources, others can simply be
reproduced from texts.
One Solution: Sharing Resources
Nearly all books on cooperative learning include sections on jigsaw and recipes
useful in devising lessons in a wide variety of subjects. There are even a few
books that focus on jigsaw activities alone (see Coelho, 1989). With jigsaw
everything must be transferred to cards that can be handed out once class beings.
This requires time, which is always a precious commodity to the teacher. More
specifically, it requires the efficient use of time. When we get rushed, we tend to
plan less and be less systematic while just the opposite behavior is most efficient.
As mentioned before, the ideal time for a teacher to prepare curriculum is when
he is under no pressure to teach it, such as during vacations, and this is when
most teachers do it. When time pressures are off, the creativity of the task can be
enjoyed. Once these plans and materials are developed, teachers can share units
with one another. When colleagues share prepared jigsaw lessons they not only
save time but also model cooperation for their students. A team of teachers not
only decreases the work load but also eliminates the loneliness that can develop
when one is attempting something new.
There may be instances when the students themselves can help in the physical
preparation of a unit, transferring materials to cards, cutting copied material into
strips, and gathering illustrations. In some classrooms, a jigsaw group has been
assigned the entire responsibility for a unit. In such a case, the students would
devise the assignments, decide how to divide and distribute the reading
material, and create questions and exercises. This kind of organizing activity is
an effective way of learning material as teachers well know from their own
experience when, for example, they discover the Civil War they have managed to
avoid for a lifetime is coming up in the next chapter of the seventh-grade text.
However, to be able to shoulder such responsibility in a cooperative effort, the
students should have some experience in the group-process techniques of
jigsawing. Thus, a unit on curriculum planning might best be left until Spring.
Finally, most school districts have sponsored in-services on cooperative learning.
The curriculum supervisor of a district will often know what group materials are
available for each subject and level.
Problem: Other School Personnel
Most teachers learn quickly that cooperative learning is noisy. Picture this scene.
Children are scattered abound the room. Everybody is talking at once. Chaos.
And the principal walks in. What is she likely to conclude? That the teacher
must be an undisciplined person, unskilled, ineffective, for how can children
learn anything in such a noisy atmosphere? Or perhaps, she thinks, the teacher
does not care, is sacrificing academics and good behavior to some vague ideal of
spontaneity.
Such might also be the thoughts of a non-jigsaw teacher upon observing a jigsaw
classroom for the first time. The jigsaw classroom is noisy but as most
experienced teachers know, there is noise that is just noise, and there is the kind
of noise which is the sound of learning and living. An outsider to the jigsaw and
other cooperative learning methods may believe he is witnessing chaos when in
reality he is observing creative energy released by a carefully planned structure,
not youthful energy combating structure.
One Solution: Share Knowledge
Jigsaw teachers have found it useful to prepare their supervisors and colleagues
for their classroom innovations. Most educators today have at least been
exposed to cooperative learning ideas and techniques so explaining what you are
up to is no longer difficult. Teachers have learned that it facilitates
understanding when they remind the other professionals in their environment
that cooperative learning encourages student responsibility. The goals of jigsaw
teachers are no different from those of their colleagues. Some teachers ask their
colleagues to sit in on a jigsaw group and then share their opinions as to the
effectiveness of the technique in teaching the content material. All too often,
classrooms and their teachers are isolated units in the school. In some schools
teachers are colleagues only insofar as they hold the same degrees and work in
the same building. For a jigsaw teacher to open her method to discussion gives
some substance to the word "colleague." We have provided a step-by-step
description of a one-day inservice later in the book so that the experience of
jigsaw and the development of its component skills is available to everyone.
Teachers are strongly encouraged to participate in such workshops in school
teams, perhaps grade level teams. They will then have the support they need onsite
as well as others with whom to share the burden of preparing materials.
Students too must be able to articulate class objectives to outsiders, particularly
to those parents who say, "That's not the way we did things in my day!" To this
end, teachers and students often develop a routine for welcoming visitors and
showing them around and explaining solutions to such parental concerns as
grading and the appropriateness of jigsaw for their particular child.
Problem: Maintaining a Cooperative Spirit
There are times even among experienced jigsaw groups when the cooperative
spirit seems to dissipate and the students lose interest. The jigsaw teacher is
concerned with keeping alive a more enjoyable, more productive, and supportive
mood.
One Solution: Additional Teambuilding
We mentioned earlier that a change of routine by meeting in the expert groups
can be helpful. In addition, one fifth-grade teacher begins each new unit (for
which new groups are usually formed) with teambuilding exercises, and once
every few weeks begins the jigsaw hour with some variation on the Broken
Squares exercises described earlier. This takes only five minutes, at the end of
which time the students are ready to work more closely with each other. Other
teachers have discovered stories or parables which inspire their students and
build cooperative spirit; storytelling can teach and relax at the same time
Problem: Teacher Discouragement
We have been concentrating thus far on how to help the students. But what
about the teacher? Who helps the helper? As you know, even under the most
ideal circumstances, teaching is not an easy, stress-free vocation. Most teachers
get discouraged for any number of reasons during the course of a school year.
This is especially so when they are initiating a new method - the pressure of new
responsibilities, the insecurity of not knowing in advance what will and will not
work. The advice we are about to discuss can be used effectively by any teacher
using almost any technique, but the jigsaw teachers we have worked with have
found it particularly helpful.
One Solution: Teacher Support Teams
For example, there is some guilt or anxiety reported by most skilled teachers,
reflected in their tendency to demand perfection of themselves 100 percent of the
time. They fall into a slump, the bad day of week is all their fault, they are not
reaching one or two students who are having trouble. Anybody who is
discouraged feels better if he can talk about it. It may seem functional for a
teacher to be able to let off steam in the staff room. Unfortunately, this is not a
helpful tactic if it stimulates a general "gripe" session. For example, a teacher
who is momentarily discouraged may mention a student who was very
disruptive that particular morning, which may elicit sympathy and support or
perhaps a volley of stories that begin, "If you think that's bad, let me tell you the
trouble I'm having." After a session of this sort, when the teachers return to their
classrooms they haven't solved their problem and are likely to feel even worse.
Much more helpful than a casual coffee group commiserating together is a group
of colleagues set up explicate as a support system. In our experience with
teachers using the jigsaw techniques, those who were happiest and got the most
out of it were the ones who were able to form a group for mutual support and
consultation. Members not only support each other emotionally, but encourage
rational problem solving. This creates norms to give teachers energy and
direction, and they devise a systematic method for exploring new alternatives.
Being a good consultant is itself a skill, but one that can be easily acquired.
One Solution: Peer Consultation
The effective consultant hears her fellow teacher out, listens supportively, and
then asks the kinds of questions that will clarify issues and generate possible
solutions. Sometimes the discouraged teacher states explicitly the kind of help
he is looking for. For example, he might say he is in a slump and simply wants
to unburden himself. Could his colleague listen for a few minutes and say back
to him what she thinks she hears him saying? Even when the teacher does not
quite know what he wants, it can be very helpful to have the gist of one's own
words played back by a consultant. This helps think through the problem. Then
they might go on to consider the questions he could usefully ask himself in order
to begin shaping a solution.
To illustrate: Carol is a student who is falling behind. Her teacher is particularly
upset because Carol had started the year full of excitement and hope; this year, in
this classroom, she was really going to work hard and learn something. The
teacher believes he has failed her somehow. Has he? While his feelings are
painful and worthy of sympathy, his question is not a particularly fruitful one in
practical terms. So after acknowledging his feelings, the consultant might
encourage him to ask himself: What specific learning problems does Carol have?
What does the record say? What do I know about her attitudes? How could the
technique we're using (jigsaw or whatever) be affecting her difficulties? Such
questions developed and examined with trusted colleagues will benefit Carol.
And, very importantly, because these questions are infused with practical
energy, because they reflect the teacher's power to analyze and understand a
problem and to be of specific use, they benefit him by allaying his fears and
combating discouragement: there is something he can do. In sum, while a
support system gives a teacher some opportunity to vent feelings and to have a
sense of being heard, most of the time is spent on specifically defining a problem
and thinking about different ways to solve it.

www.Basic Jigsaw 2
The Pieces of the Puzzle
Before we take a look at the jigsaw method as a whole, let us describe the various
pieces that go into making up the jigsaw classroom.
Students
We have found that young children - even kindergartners - are perfectly able and
willing to engage in cooperative behavior. At the same time, we should note that
our attempts to institute the jigsaw technique prior to the fourth grade have not
always gone smoothly. There are two major issues. First, virtually all of the
students in a group need at least a minimal proficiency in reading for jigsaw to
work; one cannot always count on this general proficiency among all children in
the first few grades. Second, the understanding of the basic elements of
jigsawing requires a certain degree of conceptual ability. While we've found that
most six-year-olds can eventually grasp what is required, it often necessitates a
longer period of time to thoroughly acquaint them with the system than is the
case for youngsters ten years old and above.
At the upper end of the classroom continuum, there seems to be no limit. Middle
school and high school level groups work particularly well. At the university
level, students can be placed in jigsaw groups and meet on their own time
outside of class. Each student is responsible for a portion of the reading material
(a number of research articles, one aspect of a subject area, and so forth).
Students then report to their group and discuss the topics. The only intervention
made by the instructor consists of a brief training session designed to spell out
the degree of specificity required in the actual reporting so that a semblance of
uniformity could be achieved. That is, in technical reporting it is conceivable that
if the students are not instructed, some reports might be overly detailed and
others might be too sparse. A brief instruction about the appropriate degree of
complexity can be invaluable. Virtually all of the university students who have
utilized the jigsaw opportunities reported good results: mastery of the material
in far less time than if they had read it on their own, plus the added enjoyment of
companionship and the intellectual stimulation brought about by the sharing of a
variety of perspectives.
Another way jigsaw has been used is during "inservices" that require covering
reading material in a short period of time. In this case, participants are assigned
individual chapters and given time to read. Next, expert groups are formed of
those assigned the first section of the material, those assigned the second part,
and so forth. After discussing the key points of what they have just read, they
plan the best ways to communicate this information to others. After this, groups
are formed so that all the reading material is covered within a single group and
each person shares her knowledge with the others. This has been used as a quick
and efficient way of covering as much as an entire volume in a one-day
workshop.
Curriculum
A carefully planned curriculum can go a long way toward making students'
introduction to jigsaw go smoothly. Ideally the teacher will have prepared the
curriculum during a school vacation or other non-teaching time, giving the task
uninterrupted attention and making the process of designing the curriculum a
pleasant one. If this is not feasible; we strongly recommend that the preparation
of the curriculum be completed - at least - before jigsawing actually begins.
A wide variety of subject matter can be adapted for use with the jigsaw format.
On the whole, narrative material that emphasizes reading and comprehension
skills is the easiest to work with in groups. Because of this, the area of social
studies - including history, civics, geography and so forth - is perhaps the most
naturally suited to the technique. The major skills involved are reading and
comprehension. Jigsaw has been successfully used, however, in teaching math,
language arts, and biology, although those subjects are more difficult to adapt.
We have also found that jigsaw works best with material that is not conceptually
novel (requiring students to use skills they have not yet learned). Just as we
would not attempt to assign The Life of Joseph Pulitzer to a group of six children
who didn't know how to read, by the same token we would not assign
"subtraction" to a group of students who had not yet acquired this skill. Thus,
introducing addition or subtraction for the first time in the context of a jigsaw
group is probably not a good idea, although jigsaw could certainly be used for
practicing these skills. We know of teachers who have successfully employed the
jigsaw method for the instruction of math, language arts, biology, English as a
second language, and other subject that required new skills to be learned. In
these areas jigsaw has been used primarily to review material previously taught
by more traditional methods..
Another limitation involving subject matter has to do with a reading assignment
which is cumulatively interwoven, by which we mean that because of the nature
of the material it would be difficult to understand part three without having first
read and understood parts one and two. Thus while it is easy to grasp Joseph
Pulitzer's middle years without knowing about his childhood and young
adulthood, it would be far more difficult to make sense out of Chapter 3 of a
detective story without having first read Chapters 1 and 2. Accordingly, if you
were a fifth-grader and you were assigned part three of a story or subject matter
that is, by its very nature, cumulatively interwoven, chances are you would not
be able to grasp its meaning sufficiently well to communicate it meaningfully to
members of your jigsaw group. This is the key to adapting curriculum for jigsaw:
whatever material is used must be divided into coherent segments that can be distributed
to members of the jigsaw group. That is, an individual piece of the lesson must be
understandable to a student without knowledge of the other portions given to
his groupmates.
It is advisable for the teacher to include in her weekly lesson planning the
material to be covered daily in the jigsaw group and to provide additional time
for curriculum preparation. Homework assignments and material to supplement
the basic lesson should also be organized well in advance.
Jigsaw Cards
Almost any study material can be used for the construction of jigsaw cards.
Four-by-six-inch index cards seem to be first choice. If the information is from a
textbook, pages can be copied from books or other resources and glued onto the
index cards with rubber cement. Pictures or other relevant material can be glued
to the back of the card.
Rather than letting students pick their own cards (sometimes they will pick the
one that is prettiest or has the least amount of writing) the teacher might want to
pencil each student's name at the top of his card. This also helps the teacher
balance the groups (including the expert groups) since she knows ahead of time
who will have each part.
To provide for maximum interdependence among group members, each student should
have access to other parts of the lesson only through other groups members. Clearly, if a
student has already had experience with the lesson material, he will be less
dependent on listening to his groupmates to learn that material.1 If standard
texts are used, the material must be cut out or reproduced, divided, and the texts
collected and stored.
The amount of material used and how it is broken up are both important aspects
of curriculum preparation for jigsaw. In the first few weeks, students are still
adjusting to the process as well as learning content material. We suggest that at
least initially the amount of information be kept quite light. After two weeks the
work load can be gradually increased until a full load is reached. We have found
that time lost early in the press is made up later - with interest.
1 Robert Slavin has devised an alternative jigsaw method which he calls Jigsaw II. As with the original
jigsaw, group members in Slavin's adaptation also become experts on one part of the material, meet in
counterpart groups, and are responsible for their group members learning that portion of the material.
However, in Jigsaw II, all students in the group read the entire assignment rather than having to depend
solely on group members for the information. Group members then take individual test on the material, the
results of which contribute to a team score.
How much material constitutes a full load? In our experience students can be
given as much or more material using jigsaw as when using traditional teaching
methods. Even when a large amount of material is to be mastered, the students
seem to rise to the occasion.
The decision about how much material should be contained on each card is a
particularly important one. If there is consistently too little material, there will
be little challenge for the students, and they will quickly become bored with the
process. On the other hand, if there is too much material, it will be difficult to
cover all parts within the allotted time; this is bound to be a frustrating
experience for the group. One way to avoid these extremes is equating the
jigsaw cards for the number of important facts that each card contains. Thus one
student may read three paragraphs and another five, but they will both be
responsible for the same number of important facts. Using this method results in
a student's work load varying from day to day, but we have not found this to
impede the successful working of the group.
An additional policy we have found helpful is breaking up material so that a
separate subject is covered each day of jigsawing (Monday - geography of China;
Tuesday - Chinese family structure; and so forth). The best general advice we
can give concerning the division of material is to strive for a balanced
distribution among individual students and over the course of the unit.
Expert Groups
If a class is to use jigsaw an hour a day, twenty minutes of the hour should be
spent in expert groups and the remaining forty minutes in the jigsaw group. At
the beginning of the hour, students gather in their jigsaw groups to receive their
paragraphs and any special instructions from their group leader. They then
break into expert groups (consisting of those students with identical paragraphs)
to plan their presentation.
Once in the expert group the students first read their cards. It is helpful to the
poor readers if one person reads the card aloud. Then group members start
helping each other understand the material on the card. They work on meanings
of words, think up examples to explain things, and so forth. Students can ask
questions about anything that is unclear. Students who grasp the material
quickly are a vital resource in helping slower students learn the material. When
everybody understands the information on the card, the group decides how to
teach the material to the jigsaw groups. Expert group members thus get an idea
of how the others are planning to present, hear some suggestions that may aid
their own presentation, and give each other constructive feedback.
Expert groups have additional advantages. Even the brightest student is
stimulated by the questions, examples, and trial presentations of his experts. The
expert group may also be considered an effective device to remedy listlessness
on one of those dull, low-energy days that descend from time to time on every
classroom. A typical jigsaw group runs for a period of six to ten weeks, long
enough so that the children in it may occasionally get bored with each other and
may want the excitement of a temporary change in routine. On the other hand,
they may decidedly not want such a change because they have become so
comfortable with their teammates; they know exactly what to expect of each
other and patterns of interaction have become established and easy. In either
case, the expert group challenges them to make new interpersonal adaptations
without disrupting the smoothly functioning jigsaw learning group. Finally, as
jigsaw group identity solidifies, the groups may be tempted to view each other
competitively. Temporary restructuring with expert groups builds bonds across
groups, thus helping to keep such intergroup competition from becoming
pervasive.
Expert groups present several special problems, however, because they are not
ongoing working units like the jigsaw groups; they change with the curriculum.
Since the same people don't meet regularly, they have no chance to develop the
cohesiveness that results from the team-building exercises. Initially students
may have more trouble working with each other in expert groups, but as the
jigsaw groups become used to working together and develop cohesion, the
expert groups improve as well. As mentioned before, it is important not to
develop intense feelings of competition between jigsaw groups since students
from one jigsaw group will have to work with students from other jigsaw groups
in the expert sessions.
There is another problem with expert groups. The students may not
immediately be comfortable working with each other, particularly when the
jigsaw process is new to them. They may even have difficulty getting organized
and down to work. Teachers generally find it advisable to pick a responsible and
capable leader even for these temporary groups. It is also helpful, on occasion, to
run through a quick teambuilding exercise to establish a cooperative mood.
Once the jigsaw process becomes familiar, cooperative attitudes tend to carry
over from group to group.
Expert Group Leadership
It is impossible for expert groups to have regular leaders since the group
composition changes daily. Leaving the groups leaderless creates problems,
however. A leaderless expert group has trouble getting organized and
accomplishing the day's business. We have tried having expert groups pick their
own leaders; this seems to work well with two qualifications: students who are
seen as natural leaders tend always to be chosen, and when there is no natural
leader among the members of the group, it seems hard for the group to get
organized enough to pick any leader at all.
Otherwise, we suggest that the teacher select expert leaders before the day's
session and announce them to the class. This alleviates the necessity for the
group to pick its own leader and saves time in organization.
It is a good idea for students to have notebooks with them in expert groups and
take very short "key word" notes. We strongly discourage, however, letting
students write out what they are going to say and read it. Short notes give them
about the right amount of help with their parts, and of course learning to take
good notes is a valuable skill for students to have.
Jigsaw Groups
Having finished working in their expert groups, the students reassemble in their
jigsaw groups. The jigsaw curriculum cards are labeled in a specific order, and
the students should teach them in this order. After the jigsaw groups get back
together, the student who has card number one beings presenting. If the group
is restless and having trouble settling down, the group leader should make an
intervention (For example: "I'd like to get started now," or "I;m having trouble
hearing Mike because you're talking.") The student who is trying to present
might also say something. (For example: "It makes me feel bad when you don't
listen to me.")
The students in the group should be encouraged to use active listening skills. It's
hard to tell if someone is listening if they are drawing pictures, looking down,
and showing no overt interest in the procedure generally. A short time (five or
ten minutes) should be reserved at the end of the hour for the group to discuss
any problems that have arisen in the hour.
After the individual presentations, the group can review all parts together. Each
student may try to think of three important points from the lesson. Or students
may ask each other questions about the lesson and try to answer questions on
parts other than their own. Having the students review insures that every
students understands the lesson. If a review is not done, students may leave
with an incorrect understanding of the information.
Finally, students in the jigsaw group should fill out the group process sheet and
take five or ten minutes to discuss the day's process sheet. Process discussions
are feedback sessions and allow the students to express their feelings, talk about
problems they feel the group is having, and attempt to find solutions to these
problems.
Teacher as Facilitator
If the class is of average size, it probably will be divided into four to six jigsaw
groups. Clearly, even with a teacher's aide, the teacher cannot be everywhere at
once. The group leaders function as additional assistants to the teacher,
channeling group-process skills to group members and helping organize the
activities of the day.
A jigsaw teacher's goal is having students regard each other as learning resources
rather than depend solely on her as instructor and leader. She does not abandon all
authority in the classroom, however. Instead she acts as a backstage designer,
creating a structure where the students may learn how best to make use of each
other's knowledge and skills. In addition, she plays an important role as an
information resource, one we will discuss in more detail Chapter 6. The teacher
moves around the room, from jigsaw group to jigsaw group, listening, observing,
and keeping alert for any problems that may develop. Whenever possible, she
makes interventions in group process through the group leader, thereby
validating the group leader's authority for the other students. Since getting the
group to regulate itself rather than depend on the teacher is the object,
interventions should help the group discover its own solutions. The teacher may
phrase interventions as requests or suggestions to the group leader. (For
example, "Jane, perhaps you should check to see if everyone feels they
understand all the parts well enough to take a test tomorrow." Or, "Peter, maybe
you should ask the group if telling John that he's stupid is helping them learn the
material.")
If a group member complains directly to the teacher about someone in the group
(Mr. Cross, Jane is drawing funny pictures instead of listening!"), it is not the
responsibility of the teacher to solve the problem directly. The jigsaw teacher
refers the problem back to the group to have them solve the problem themselves.
In the example give above, Mr. Cross might ask the group leader whether group
members have any idea why Jane is drawing pictures instead of listening.
Perhaps the presentations are going to fast for her to understand, or perhaps she
is bored because the speaker is reading his card in a dull tone of voice. Once the
source of the problem has been identified, the teacher may take the group leader
aside and suggest ways of solving it, or the students may be ready to take
responsibility for finding their own solutions.
Teacher interventions are aide at helping students learn content more effectively
and helping them develop an efficient, comfortable, cooperative process.
Perhaps most important, the teacher models for the students effective jigsaw
process. Through his interventions, even phrasing, tone of voice, and the kinds
of suggestions he makes, the teacher provides an example students can
eventually imitate in their roles as group members. The teacher can usefully
make several types of interventions at different stages of the jigsaw process.
The first time expert groups meet, students may have difficulty finding effective,
interesting ways of presenting their material. The teacher can help them learn
how to extract important points from the printed information and think of
creative ways to present what they have learned. The first time students present,
they often simply read their paragraphs aloud - a boring experience for the
listeners. Some examples of teacher interventions in the first expert sessions
follow:
•"Can you think of a way to put the information you just learned into your
own words?"
•"Can you think of how the material you just read is related to your own
life? Are there any examples in your own life you could use in explaining
this to your groupmates?"
•"Do you know what you are going to say when you go back to your
jigsaw group?"
Once students return to the jigsaw groups, the teacher may need to encourage
them in their actual presentations. At the beginning some may have difficulty
summarizing material in their own words. Even after experience in the expert
group, they may simply read the paragraph aloud in the jigsaw group. You will
need to remind them gently that putting the information in their own words
makes their presentations more interesting and easier to follow. You should also
encourage them to include the examples and interesting points discussed in the
expert group and to comment on the presentation of other members.
Initially - in both expert and jigsaw groups - students may stop working together
and become merely six individuals working alone who happen to be sharing a
space. This may happen because they are practicing their own parts while others
are talking. The teacher must emphasize that the purpose of the expert groups is
for the students with the same material to help each other learn it and that jigsaw
groups also are meant to be situations where the students learn from each other.
The following interventions are useful in reminding students of this:
•"Are you helping one another learn the material?"
•"Is everybody in this group understanding the material you covered
today?"
Sometimes very quick students finish learning the material early and withdraw
from the rest of the discussion, leaving other group members to struggle by
themselves. This is the time for the teacher to emphasize the student's role as
teacher as well as student. The bright student need not disappear when she has
learned the material. Rather she should be encouraged to spend the extra time
helping other students learn. We have found that taking this role in the group
can be very rewarding for bright students and prevents them from getting bored.
Having students fulfill this function also helps narrow the social and
communication gap between high achievers and low achievers that is often
found in traditional classrooms. The following intervention is designed to
encourage more able students to help their groupmates:
•"Now that you've learned the material, can you help John learn it so he
can teach it to his groupmates?"
Perhaps the most important intervention the teacher will make is convincing
students that fighting, teasing, and insulting each other are dysfunctional
behaviors. Working in groups invariably involves some conflict. The teacher
will find that some of the quicker students become impatient with those who
learn more slowly; that fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students have definite
misgivings about cooperating with (or even sitting next to) classmates of the
opposite sex; and that exiting rivalries tend to get exaggerated in the group
setting. However, as described in more detail in Chapter (what?), Jigsaw can be
an excellent place to work out some of these conflicts and build understanding
and harmonious relations.
There are two roles in the jigsaw classroom which merit special consideration:
that of teacher and of student group leader. These two are closely related. The
role of the group leader is patterned after the teacher's role; they are both
"facilitators," whose function is to lead a group, help the members look at how
they are working together, and examine how they can improve their interaction
in order to accomplish some task. (These roles will be described in more detail in
Chapter 6.) Ideally, the ultimate goal with jigsaw groups is to reach a point
where a facilitator is no longer necessary because group-process skills will have
been taken over by the members. In the jigsaw classroom, the teacher, as
facilitator, seeks to help the children teach themselves and each other in
smoothly functioning small groups. In any given classroom there may be five or
six groups and, since the teacher cannot be everywhere at once, each group has a
leader, a teacher's "assistant" through whom group-process skills are passed to
each student, and who also acts as an organizer for the business of the day.
Finally, the role of group leader need not be a permanent one. As the
interpersonal and group skills develop, group members may take turns being the
leader.
Part 3
Solving Problems in the Jigsaw Classroom
While research continues to demonstrate numerous advantages of cooperative
learning, this does not mean that working with it is problem free. Certain
problems do occur for which teachers have devised a variety of solutions. This
chapter contains a collection of some of the more common problems, together
with suggestions for how they might be handled. Many of these problems are
not unique to the jigsaw method and neither are the solutions. But, as we saw
earlier, the jigsaw method often illuminates problems that are hidden in more
competitive classroom dynamics. More importantly, though, the jigsaw method
often provides solutions that otherwise would be less readily available.
Problem: The Need for Communication Skills
Teasing, feuding, putting each other down--these activities, unfortunately, are as
much a part of life in the classroom as reading and math. They take place in
virtually all classrooms, in all sections of the country, at all grade levels and in all
classroom structures. The jigsaw group is an intimate situation, one where
children work in very close association and depend heavily on each other.
Because of this, conflict may seem more frequent, particularly at first, than in a
competitive classroom. The great advantage of jigsaw is that this structure
allows children to develop conflict resolution skills--so that they can solve their
own problems as they occur. This is particularly true if these skills are
emphasized as part of the school culture. Fortunately, in many school systems,
children now enter the middle elementary school grades with at least a modicum
of experience at conflict resolution on the playground. The importance and
usefulness of having a process to solve problems is, therefore, not brand new to
them and in many cases they have already practiced many of the necessary
skills. For example, many youngsters have learned not to interrupt others, that
name calling and put-downs are not effective, and so on.
In a jigsaw classroom, the children are not individually isolated units. They are
not forced by the arrangement of the classroom to curtail their conflicts and
postpone them until recess. Moreover, any group (such as the one described in
the previous chapter) has certain built-in conflicts attributable to the age of the
children. Among third and fourth grade girls, best friend/best enemy conflicts
sometimes interfere with classroom peace and among eleven- and twelve-yearolds,
feelings of attraction and annoyance may run strong especially between
children of different sex. A boy and girl may regard each other with familiar
suspicion, but a degree of interest may also begin to emerge. One day they may
show exaggerated horror at finding they must sit together, the next they may
seem to enjoy working together, or vice versa.
Besides these complexities, there are the conflicts which arise around the task
itself. A certain amount of material must be covered by tomorrow, but someone
is holding back the group. Someone else is pushing ahead too rapidly and
leaving the others behind in confusion. Because the jigsaw group tends to bring
conflicts to the surface, it provides the setting and the tools for the children to
work through those conflicts and learn something about themselves and one
another in the process. Moreover, because only a few children are involved, the
rest of the class need not be interrupted in its work. Accordingly, the teacher
may decide to use an instance of petty quarreling as vehicle to help the children
learn about how their behavior affects others.
To demonstrate how the teacher might do this, we will use a simple, unsubtle
instance of negative communication. Name-calling is a great American cultural
tradition. Nicknames are often seen as signs of affection. In reality, nicknames
are often used to express feelings about someone, both positive and negative.
We call members of our family "honey" or "sweetie" but sometimes there is
cruelty attached to the names we call others. Let us suppose Jason is a boy, who
like most children, watches television an average of five hours a day. In almost
every show, whether a police show, cartoon, or comedy, somebody gets called a
name by someone else. It may be for laughs, but Jason comes to know that
name-calling is a common way of interacting with others, one that gets a reaction
out of others. Life seems to mirror television: when Jason's older sister stays out
too late with her boyfriend, dad might get angry and in his anger, refers to her
boyfriend a slacker. And when Jason's mother opens the latest car repair bill, she
might mutter something to the effect that the mechanic who failed to fix her car
properly is an idiot and a thief. It is understandable that Jason comes to believe
that name-calling is what you do to express displeasure. Even children with well
developed conflict resolution skills that include the dictum "no put-downs",
sometimes fail to recognize the sting of naming.
With such experience behind him, Jason goes to school and settles down in his
jigsaw group to complete some work for the test tomorrow. But alas, Sara has
her Civil War battles all mixed up. "You idiot," Jason says somewhat mildly. "I
am not, you creep," Sara replies heatedly, and the task is forgotten; the squabble
is on.
What is going on here? What kind of intervention is needed? It may help to look
a this brief interaction as a chain of events.
Jason has some feelings and, at least in part, he expresses them. Sara perceives
that his verbal behavior is directed against her, and it arouses certain feelings in
her, feelings which Jason may have had no intention of arousing. It is natural for
Sara, in her hurt and anger, to interpret Jason's intentions wrongly. She
evaluates Jason as a person by calling him a name just as he called her a name.
Now let's fill in the particulars. By calling Sara an idiot, Jason has revealed his
impatience but not his anxiety about the test tomorrow. His intention is to get
Sara to hurry up and pull herself together. And, too, there may be some boy-girl
anxieties in the background, barely, if at all, conscious.
But Jason's sarcasm hurts Sara's feelings. She would like to be liked and admired
even though she cannot seem to keep her Civil War battles straight. She thinks
Jason meant to hurt her and put her down, because he is mean, aggressive, and a
boy. She masks her hurt feelings by calling Jason a creep. She wants to get even
by making Jason feel small and ugly.
So the situation has escalated; the problem of covering the material in a limited
time has blown up into an unpleasant personal confrontation. Jason's semiserious,
semi-teasing behavior puts Sara on the defensive and she retaliates in
full anger. Now he will have to defend himself. Under such circumstances what
can the teacher do? As you remember, the group we observed and described in
the previous chapter was able to move past their quarrel fairly quickly, without
intervention so that interference with the academic task was minimal. But
suppose intervention is required Then the teacher may decide simply to brush
past the quarrel with a practical reminder of their task. On the other hand, he
may decide it is time for these interpersonal difficulties to be faced directly. In
this case he would attempt two things. First, he would guide the children to an
awareness of the effects they are having on one another. Second, he would help
them find better ways to express their feelings. His intervention might go
something like this:
Let's look at what happened. Jason said this, Sara replied that. Jason, how were
you feeling when you called Sara an idiot? Were you feeling mad?
No...but she ought to hurry up, she ought to be organized by now.
So you were feeling impatient?
Yes.
I bet you were also kind of worried about that test tomorrow.
Yes.
But did teasing help Sara straighten things out?
In other words, the teacher is helping Jason focus on his feelings
and his behavior, and moving away from examining what is wrong with Sara.
The teacher may sense the boy-girl issue but may want to save it for a later date
when the children have more experience sharing their feelings and more
confidence expressing themselves. He then returns to Sara and asks how she felt
when Jason called her a name. She may reply that she wanted to punch him in
the mouth (a quick and common translation of feeling into fantasy action), but
with help she may admit to feeling anger and finally to feeling hurt. This is
because the teacher has, at least for the moment, converted a win-lose
atmosphere into one where it is safe to share feelings of vulnerability. The
teacher does this by his attitude as much as anything else, by being caring and
helpful and gentle. Intervention of an authoritarian nature ("Why did you do
that? It's not nice. I'm ashamed of you. You know better.") has the opposite
effect. Of course they know better, but they are caught in some difficult
emotions and do not know what else to do.
One Solution: Learning to Make "I" Statements
Let us take a moment to clarify the theory underlying the mode of
communication that we are recommending. As you know, there are two ways
we commonly use the word "feel." First, we often say: I feel that you are an
angry person, a wonderful fellow, or whatever. The "feeling" in this instance is
really an opinion, my evaluation of judgment of you. But feeling has another,
more basic meaning: I feel angry, sad, annoyed, happy. I am expressing my own
primary emotion. The focus is on "I" not "you" or "he" or "she." I am saying
something about my own state rather than saying something judgmental about
you. It is feeling in this second sense that we think is the effective unit of
communication for small-group problem solving, because it can be heard more
easily by the recipient, and so is more easily dealt with. It does not arouse
defensiveness in the other person so it does not result in the desire on their part
to run away or to fight back. When I say that I am feeling angry, I am expressing
a fact. I know my feelings, there is no guesswork involved, no theories about
your character (for example: I feel frustrated rather than I "feel" you are
irresponsible). Now, if you want to interact with me, you will probably be
interested in my feelings rather than defending yourself from a perceived attack.
You may or may not want to determine whether or not you played any part in
triggering them but the focus is on the task at hand, since it would be useful (and
perhaps necessary) to work this out before we can continue with our task. On
the other hand, if I deliver a judgment about you instead of exposing my
feelings, you will probably not be interested in anything but your own selfdefense.
Many older children are able to understand this. Younger children can simply
learn to make "I" statements" rather than "you" statements, with the reasoning
coming later.
To return to our classroom example, once the feelings have been clarified, the
teacher might have to reassure the children that it is all right to have "bad"
feelings. He could point out that everyone does, and that it is legitimate to
express anger or anxiety, but that there are ways to do it that are more
constructive than others. If Sara had said outright: "I feel bad when you call me
that" or "That makes me mad," Jason would have known immediately that his
tactic of teasing was not having the effect he intended. Moreover, he would not
have had to go on to prove he was not a creep. He could, of course, ignore Sara's
protest. But at least he would have to ask himself, "Is that a good choice of
behavior for what I want to accomplish?"
The dialogue described above is, of course, an idealized version of the process. It
is usually not that quick or complete. But a hard-working group eventually
reaches a point where interactions like this are neither impossible nor infrequent.
One of the beauties of any small-group arrangement is that it provides the
students with an opportunity for observing their own behavior as it affects
others. It also provides opportunities for learning how to handle feelings of
anger, impatience, shyness, or affection. Importantly, this learning occurs while
the students are learning about the Civil War or the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
The learning of communication skills is not a separate lesson in a jigsaw
classroom. Rather, it enhances the mastery of the content at hand, increasing the
usefulness and attentiveness of the human resources involved.1
The "No-Put Down Classroom"
Creating an environment that is free of "put-downs" is part of the classroom
management strategy of an increasing number of teachers. It also sets the stage
so that group members can approach difficulties as problems to solve rather than
blaming each other. As a step toward creating a "put-down free zone" some
teachers have used variations on the following: students are asked to write
down them all the put-downs they could think of, or the class as a whole
brainstorms a list of put-downs. Once this is done, the teacher collects (or copies)
the put-downs, places them in a receptacle, seals it, and disposes of it. The
method of disposal varies, the a bag can be simply tossed in the garbage, or a
"coffin" can be given a proper burial with an appropriate ceremony attached.
These exercises serve to call attention to what is inappropriate and later a student
can be reminded with, "Why, I thought that comment was dead and buried."
Problem: The Poor Reader
How do we help the poor reader, the child who may be reading one or several
grade levels below her peers, and who, consequently, is suffering both in
1 For a more detailed analysis of communication skills, see Chapter 8 in The Social Animal by Elliot
Aronson (W.H. Freeman, 1995).
practical and emotional terms? As schools move away from tracking students,
the reading ability of the students in a single classroom may vary considerably.
In a jigsaw group, some group members will inevitably find themselves
dependent for vital information on a student who, because of reading problems
or for whom English in a second language, cannot easily get that information to
them. The problem for that relatively unskilled student is not only that he
cannot read very well but also that he cannot hide the fact from his peers as he
might have been able to do in a more traditional classroom. He is confronted
with their impatience and their unfavorable judgments. As a result he is under
pressure which potentially could inhibit his performance still further.
One Solution: Alternative Materials
There are several tactics a teacher can adopt in order to forestall such a
destructive situation while at the same time increasing the flexibility of the
learning environment. In a jigsaw group, anyone can make a useful
contribution. For example the slower reader may be given a drawing
assignment, or the teacher can assign material of different reading levels to each
group, making sure that the less accomplished readers get the least difficult
material. Instead of copying a unit from a text where vocabulary and concepts
are set at too high a grade level, a teacher can briefly summarize a portion of the
material for a poor reader. Of the material may also be recorded on cassettes.
The recording could also, or instead, be assigned to quicker students to
encourage in them a sense of responsibility toward their less skilled peers, while
keeping them busy and challenged with an interesting, constructive task.
Generally the recorded material is used in conjunction with, not instead of,
written material in order to reinforce orally what the child is reading.
One Solution: Coaching
Another practice that has become common is that of student coaching with the
higher-achieving students working directly with the slower students. This
practice is more desirable than that of isolating a student with a tape recorder
because it is yet another way to stress the development of interpersonal skills.
The coaching teams are set up within each jigsaw group and serve to underscore
its supportive values and the interdependency of the students. As we noted in
our discussion of group composition, the benefits are mutual. The adept reader
has the immediate, energizing reward of an image change: that is, he sees
himself as a helper instead of as a hampered and bored student. The slower
reader is being helped by someone who is more skilled but not perfect, a model
within the limits of possible attainment, compared, for example, to the teacher,
who is all-knowing. In our experience, this procedure opens the slow reader to
learning by reducing his need to feel intimidated and defensive. This, in turn,
frees him to be more attentive and take more risks in his learning, provided that
his coach has learned well her interpersonal skills.
When the jigsaw process is first getting underway, the teacher will probably be
the one to suggest the coaching arrangement. Eventually, as cooperation
becomes an established practice, the students themselves will make the choice to
work in this manner. At first it is easier to imagine a faster student offering to
help than it is to imagine a slower student taking the initiative to ask for that
help. However, the kind of classroom the jigsaw teacher is developing is one
where all the students realize that different levels of skills at any given moment
are ordinary facts of life, a cause for neither shame nor vanity. The slower
students or poorer readers often become quite accurate judges of what they can
and cannot do, and are not too embarrassed to ask for help when they need it.
Once the coaching team is set up, the teacher helps the students make effective
use of one another as resources. He shows them how to break a task into parts
and also provides a structure for their interaction. For example, he might
suggest that David first read the paragraph to Susan. Having heard the words
and the rhythmical phrasing that serves to clarify content, Susan could then read
the passage back. Then together they could decide on two important points and
discuss how Susan is going to present them. As the teacher moves from group to
group, he will want to be particularly attentive to how the coaching press is
functioning. Is David getting impatient, for example, teaching down to Susan
rather than working with her? The teacher may also ask the students to
comment on the process: Does David find that teaching the material helps him
to learn it? How does Susan think the system is working for her? Does she have
any suggestions for David that would enable him to be more helpful to her? The
sooner the slower students are encouraged to state their own needs and
opinions, the more confident they feel, along developing a sense that they have
some control over their own learning.
One Solution: Use The Expert Group
Providing a variety of materials and arranging for student coaches are two
strategies for helping poor readers that have worked in jigsaw classrooms, but of
course they are not unique to the jigsaw approach; they can be employed in any
classroom structure. Now let us look at a solution that is unique to the jigsaw
procedure; indeed, it forms a basic part of its structure. This is the expert group.
In this way, poorer readers or students for whom English is a second language
are being helped by their peers, this time members of other groups who are
responsible for the same section. The students in a expert group have a chance to
hear the material read, are helped with the meaning of words, can share
examples, and can try out their presentations. When the original jigsaw groups
resume, even the slowest student has her section fairly well planned and
rehearsed. Through this procedure she gains confidence. She begins to see
herself as a useful member of her jigsaw group rather than the "dummy."
Problem: The Troublemaker
Inevitably in almost any classroom there will be a student who, in relation to his
classmates, is immature or recalcitrant; the student who becomes known as the
"troublemaker." In a jigsaw classroom we would be surprised if there were not
at least one or two students who simply will not work effectively in a group or
who may even go so far as to sabotage efforts at cooperation by persistent
attempts at mischief. For example, Steve may have a game he likes to play:
when Tametria is making her presentation, Steve makes the others laugh by
mimicking her facial expressions and gestures. The leader calls him on it, not for
the first time. And, also not for the first time, Steve says, with wide-eyed
innocence, that he wasn't doing anything-Tracy was. Steve's repeated "sneak and
defense" behavior might be an important survival tactic that he has developed at
home, or it may simply be an attention-getting device. Whatever its cause, it is
destructive to the group and he is exerting a powerful disruptive influence.
Moreover, he is not learning anything. It would be a mistake simply to thrust
Steve into a jigsaw group without preparation.
One Solution: Special Handling
Students like Steve may need to work alone for a while under close adult
supervision. Teachers we have worked with have made it clear to the
recalcitrant student that working in a jigsaw group is an opportunity to be
earned. The student can do this by making responsible decisions about his
learning situation. For example, with teacher guidance, Steve may draw up a
daily contract. It can be made clear to him at the outset that he is choosing to
behave in a way that will exclude him from group work. First he may simply be
warned but then the consequences of his behavior will be spelled out in his
contract: he is choosing, through his behavior, to be excluded from the group.
Likewise, he may work his way back into the group. For example, he may agree
(1) to learn the new words on page 7 and (2) to write a short paragraph on each
explorer. It can be impressed upon him that these are the tasks to which he
committed. The teacher then begins to introduce him to cooperative activities.
Perhaps he and another carefully chosen student are assigned to make a chart for
the class. The point is, teachers find it wise to exclude and the bring the Steves in
their classrooms step by step toward the goal of group participation. To leave
him in a group and hope for the best can be disruptive to him and to the others.
Problem: Boredom and the Bright Student
We are frequently asked what happens to the brightest students in the jigsaw
situation. Don't they become impatient, bored, or resentful of the slower
students? Boredom is not uncommon in elementary school regardless of the
techniques being used, and it would be grossly misleading for us to imply that
children working with the jigsaw process were never bored or impatient. While
today's teacher is better trained than her earlier expert, she must also contend
with the higher expectancies and lower thresholds for boredom extant among
most young children. No matter how gifted the teacher, how exciting the subject
matter, how engrossing the activities, the classroom lacks the excitement,
entertainment value, and pace of much of children's television. Moreover,
because their minds are so quick, bright students tend to be among the most
easily bored if events are moving too slowly for them.
One Solution: Peer Tutoring
While it may be impossible to eliminate boredom from the school experience,
teachers who have used the jigsaw technique report a great deal less boredom
among their students than is the case in a more competitive classroom
atmosphere. Our data support this observation: children in jigsaw classes do
like school better than children in the control classes, and this is true for the
bright students as well as the slower students. There is an old adage, docemur
docendo (he who teaches learns). This is clearly the case in the jigsaw situation.
Teaching can be an exciting change of pace for a student. It frees her from being
a more or less passive receptacle of information and allows her the opportunity
to try a new skill. Not only does this almost certainly reduce boredom, but if
introduced properly it can also reduce the impatience that bright students
otherwise experience when slower students are experiencing difficulty By
developing the mind set of "teacher" the bright students can turn what might
have been a boring, mark-time, impatient experience into an exciting challenge.
And, as previously reported, not only does this challenge produce psychological
benefits, but the learning is frequently more thorough.
One Solution
Many classrooms have students who are chronically absent yet when they are in
class they need (perhaps more than most) to be included in the jigsaw groups.
The bored bright student might be able to serve as a "generalist" for the group
and possibly for the class. Their abilities make it likely that they would already
know the material and this would give them something active and useful to do.
One other point is relevant in this context. In developing the jigsaw method
special pains were taken to minimize conflict and/or resentment among
students. For this reason we designed jigsaw so that, although children learn the
material in a cooperative fashion in jigsaw, they are tested individually and
receive individual scores rather than an average of the group score. Thus a
particularly bright student has the opportunity to score individually; in no way
can her score be diminished by the exam performance of a less gifted student.
This aspect of jigsaw has proven itself to be congenial with the desires of most
students as well as those of their parents.
While jigsaw has proven to be one good way to reduce boredom, there are other
ways. Indeed, one surefire way any teacher can reduce boredom is to refuse to
stick to one method, whether it is competitiveness, individually guided
instruction, multimedia presentations, or cooperative learning techniques
including jigsaw.
Problem: Materials
Perhaps the most difficult problem new jigsaw teachers face is that of obtaining
and developing appropriate instructional materials. The usual curriculum
material must be divided into segments for the students to share. Some
assignments have to be created from various resources, others can simply be
reproduced from texts.
One Solution: Sharing Resources
Nearly all books on cooperative learning include sections on jigsaw and recipes
useful in devising lessons in a wide variety of subjects. There are even a few
books that focus on jigsaw activities alone (see Coelho, 1989). With jigsaw
everything must be transferred to cards that can be handed out once class beings.
This requires time, which is always a precious commodity to the teacher. More
specifically, it requires the efficient use of time. When we get rushed, we tend to
plan less and be less systematic while just the opposite behavior is most efficient.
As mentioned before, the ideal time for a teacher to prepare curriculum is when
he is under no pressure to teach it, such as during vacations, and this is when
most teachers do it. When time pressures are off, the creativity of the task can be
enjoyed. Once these plans and materials are developed, teachers can share units
with one another. When colleagues share prepared jigsaw lessons they not only
save time but also model cooperation for their students. A team of teachers not
only decreases the work load but also eliminates the loneliness that can develop
when one is attempting something new.
There may be instances when the students themselves can help in the physical
preparation of a unit, transferring materials to cards, cutting copied material into
strips, and gathering illustrations. In some classrooms, a jigsaw group has been
assigned the entire responsibility for a unit. In such a case, the students would
devise the assignments, decide how to divide and distribute the reading
material, and create questions and exercises. This kind of organizing activity is
an effective way of learning material as teachers well know from their own
experience when, for example, they discover the Civil War they have managed to
avoid for a lifetime is coming up in the next chapter of the seventh-grade text.
However, to be able to shoulder such responsibility in a cooperative effort, the
students should have some experience in the group-process techniques of
jigsawing. Thus, a unit on curriculum planning might best be left until Spring.
Finally, most school districts have sponsored in-services on cooperative learning.
The curriculum supervisor of a district will often know what group materials are
available for each subject and level.
Problem: Other School Personnel
Most teachers learn quickly that cooperative learning is noisy. Picture this scene.
Children are scattered abound the room. Everybody is talking at once. Chaos.
And the principal walks in. What is she likely to conclude? That the teacher
must be an undisciplined person, unskilled, ineffective, for how can children
learn anything in such a noisy atmosphere? Or perhaps, she thinks, the teacher
does not care, is sacrificing academics and good behavior to some vague ideal of
spontaneity.
Such might also be the thoughts of a non-jigsaw teacher upon observing a jigsaw
classroom for the first time. The jigsaw classroom is noisy but as most
experienced teachers know, there is noise that is just noise, and there is the kind
of noise which is the sound of learning and living. An outsider to the jigsaw and
other cooperative learning methods may believe he is witnessing chaos when in
reality he is observing creative energy released by a carefully planned structure,
not youthful energy combating structure.
One Solution: Share Knowledge
Jigsaw teachers have found it useful to prepare their supervisors and colleagues
for their classroom innovations. Most educators today have at least been
exposed to cooperative learning ideas and techniques so explaining what you are
up to is no longer difficult. Teachers have learned that it facilitates
understanding when they remind the other professionals in their environment
that cooperative learning encourages student responsibility. The goals of jigsaw
teachers are no different from those of their colleagues. Some teachers ask their
colleagues to sit in on a jigsaw group and then share their opinions as to the
effectiveness of the technique in teaching the content material. All too often,
classrooms and their teachers are isolated units in the school. In some schools
teachers are colleagues only insofar as they hold the same degrees and work in
the same building. For a jigsaw teacher to open her method to discussion gives
some substance to the word "colleague." We have provided a step-by-step
description of a one-day inservice later in the book so that the experience of
jigsaw and the development of its component skills is available to everyone.
Teachers are strongly encouraged to participate in such workshops in school
teams, perhaps grade level teams. They will then have the support they need onsite
as well as others with whom to share the burden of preparing materials.
Students too must be able to articulate class objectives to outsiders, particularly
to those parents who say, "That's not the way we did things in my day!" To this
end, teachers and students often develop a routine for welcoming visitors and
showing them around and explaining solutions to such parental concerns as
grading and the appropriateness of jigsaw for their particular child.
Problem: Maintaining a Cooperative Spirit
There are times even among experienced jigsaw groups when the cooperative
spirit seems to dissipate and the students lose interest. The jigsaw teacher is
concerned with keeping alive a more enjoyable, more productive, and supportive
mood.
One Solution: Additional Teambuilding
We mentioned earlier that a change of routine by meeting in the expert groups
can be helpful. In addition, one fifth-grade teacher begins each new unit (for
which new groups are usually formed) with teambuilding exercises, and once
every few weeks begins the jigsaw hour with some variation on the Broken
Squares exercises described earlier. This takes only five minutes, at the end of
which time the students are ready to work more closely with each other. Other
teachers have discovered stories or parables which inspire their students and
build cooperative spirit; storytelling can teach and relax at the same time
Problem: Teacher Discouragement
We have been concentrating thus far on how to help the students. But what
about the teacher? Who helps the helper? As you know, even under the most
ideal circumstances, teaching is not an easy, stress-free vocation. Most teachers
get discouraged for any number of reasons during the course of a school year.
This is especially so when they are initiating a new method - the pressure of new
responsibilities, the insecurity of not knowing in advance what will and will not
work. The advice we are about to discuss can be used effectively by any teacher
using almost any technique, but the jigsaw teachers we have worked with have
found it particularly helpful.
One Solution: Teacher Support Teams
For example, there is some guilt or anxiety reported by most skilled teachers,
reflected in their tendency to demand perfection of themselves 100 percent of the
time. They fall into a slump, the bad day of week is all their fault, they are not
reaching one or two students who are having trouble. Anybody who is
discouraged feels better if he can talk about it. It may seem functional for a
teacher to be able to let off steam in the staff room. Unfortunately, this is not a
helpful tactic if it stimulates a general "gripe" session. For example, a teacher
who is momentarily discouraged may mention a student who was very
disruptive that particular morning, which may elicit sympathy and support or
perhaps a volley of stories that begin, "If you think that's bad, let me tell you the
trouble I'm having." After a session of this sort, when the teachers return to their
classrooms they haven't solved their problem and are likely to feel even worse.
Much more helpful than a casual coffee group commiserating together is a group
of colleagues set up explicate as a support system. In our experience with
teachers using the jigsaw techniques, those who were happiest and got the most
out of it were the ones who were able to form a group for mutual support and
consultation. Members not only support each other emotionally, but encourage
rational problem solving. This creates norms to give teachers energy and
direction, and they devise a systematic method for exploring new alternatives.
Being a good consultant is itself a skill, but one that can be easily acquired.
One Solution: Peer Consultation
The effective consultant hears her fellow teacher out, listens supportively, and
then asks the kinds of questions that will clarify issues and generate possible
solutions. Sometimes the discouraged teacher states explicitly the kind of help
he is looking for. For example, he might say he is in a slump and simply wants
to unburden himself. Could his colleague listen for a few minutes and say back
to him what she thinks she hears him saying? Even when the teacher does not
quite know what he wants, it can be very helpful to have the gist of one's own
words played back by a consultant. This helps think through the problem. Then
they might go on to consider the questions he could usefully ask himself in order
to begin shaping a solution.
To illustrate: Carol is a student who is falling behind. Her teacher is particularly
upset because Carol had started the year full of excitement and hope; this year, in
this classroom, she was really going to work hard and learn something. The
teacher believes he has failed her somehow. Has he? While his feelings are
painful and worthy of sympathy, his question is not a particularly fruitful one in
practical terms. So after acknowledging his feelings, the consultant might
encourage him to ask himself: What specific learning problems does Carol have?
What does the record say? What do I know about her attitudes? How could the
technique we're using (jigsaw or whatever) be affecting her difficulties? Such
questions developed and examined with trusted colleagues will benefit Carol.
And, very importantly, because these questions are infused with practical
energy, because they reflect the teacher's power to analyze and understand a
problem and to be of specific use, they benefit him by allaying his fears and
combating discouragement: there is something he can do. In sum, while a
support system gives a teacher some opportunity to vent feelings and to have a
sense of being heard, most of the time is spent on specifically defining a problem
and thinking about different ways to solve it.

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