Jigsaw

The Jigsaw activity can facilitate effective group work while helping students learn, consolidate and apply material. In the Jigsaw technique, students are divided into groups and each group is given a unique topic, task or problem to solve. Once they have completed their tasks, students form new teams made up of one member from each of the previous groups. Each person in the new team must share their key findings from the task and then work together to solve a new task or problem.

Jigsaw works best if all of the original tasks are related to the final task or problem. This way, members of the new team will each hold a piece of the puzzle and must effectively teach each other about their topic and work together to solve the new problem.

Jigsaw is

effective for:

best to pair with:

  • Identifying misconceptions
  • Critical thinking
  • Collaboration and cooperation
  • Decision-making
  • Authentic experience
  • Peer learning
  • Clarification pause
  • Case study
  • Categorising grid

Example 1

The educator assigns related topics to each group to research and discuss. When students form new teams they should teach those topics to each other. After discussion, students analyse and apply their knowledge. Together, students create an object such as an information sheet, recommendation or poster showing an understanding of the topic as a whole.

Example 2

Educators engage students in cooperative problem-solving by breaking a large project into sub-projects. The educator gives each group a sub-project to work on. When students form new teams they should explain their projects to each other, and work together to solve the larger project/problem.

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