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Jigsaw (Version 2)
Steps (Version 2)
- Create “home” groups of 4 to 6 students.
- Have one student from each home group join an “expert” group.
- Get each expert group to work on one component of a larger problem.
- After the expert groups are finished with their work, ask students return to their home groups.
- Guide students to combine their knowledge or analyses in home groups to form a whole.
- Direct home groups to present their interpretation to the rest of the class. Facilitate a discussion or debate and get students to explain their reasoning.
Example Jigsaw: Tsilhqot’in Motivations during The Chilcotin War
- Students are asked to develop a historical argument based on evidence drawn from six primary sources (documents or artifacts from the past). For example: “Why did the Tsilhqot’in warriors attack a road crew along the Homathko River near Bute Inlet in May 1864?”
- In their home groups (Figure 1), students develop a working theory based on their knowledge drawn from the textbook, maps, readings, and other secondary sources. You might ask them to draw up a timeline, highlight important contextual factors, themes related to the question, etc.
- Students leave their home groups and each joins a different expert group.
- Each expert group (Figure 2) studies a different document. Each student reads the document on their own and answers a series of questions about it (e.g., who wrote it, when, why, what is the message, etc.) and looks for evidence related to the question.
- They share their findings and each student combines the evidence together in a matrix which they will take back to their home group.
- Returning to their home groups, students share what they found in their expert groups and use the evidence to formulate and defend an argument (their answer to the question).
- Home groups present and discuss their arguments with the rest of the class.
