The jigsaw method (with editable files to organise it)

The “jigsaw method” is used for cooperative learning (and Anja Møgelvang explains here what that is). In a nutshell, let’s say we have a group of 25 students. We can split them into 5 groups à 5 students each. That is their home group, that they sit at one group table with for the duration of the course. But then we can also assign them to a second set of groups, the “expert groups”, which consist of one participant from each of the home groups. When participants are in that group configuration, each group reads up on a different topic, becoming experts on that specific topic. Then, experts return to their home groups, bringing together their expertise on 5 different topics in order to solve a problem together.

In the course I am teaching this week, the numbers work out perfectly with 25 participants. We use the jigsaw method for example when reading literature, but we also use an inverse version where home groups prepare topics that they then present to everybody else in the mixed groups (for example for microteaching, but also for final presentations of a group project).

The jigsaw method is great because there is at least 5 times as much engagement than if there was only one person speaking at a time (and probably a lot more, because everybody at the table knows that they have to contribute since they are the only expert on a topic). This reduces freeriding, but it also gives a lot more people the opportunity to speak, to test their ideas out loud, to get feedback.

We have used the jigsaw method also for cruise preparation (home group), cruise days (expert groups) and report writing (home groups), so over the course of a whole semester rather than “just” one or two course sessions. One of the big advantages here is that home groups organise themselves who takes the fieldwork on which day (so when someone gets sick, they can typically solve it themselves rather than creating a big hassle for the instructor), and that they can re-adjust what they do on the cruise days because they are bringing their experiences together and build on each others’ work. Plus more autonomy, more connectedness, more experienced competence!

There are a lot of different ways for the practical organisation of the jigsaw. Some people embrace the chaos of telling each table to spread out on all tables so that there is only one of them at each of the tables. Not me, though. I do different things: Hand out small slips of paper with both the table number and a letter A-E to indicate which table, A-E, each person will end up in their new group (print version). Or I write post-its and stick them on peoples’ name tents (for example when I want to make sure that two specific people don’t accidentally end up in the same expert group). Or I show an animated pptx to visualize what is about to happen, see also gif below.

But what do you do when numbers don’t add up? Here is an animated pptx for my solution when someone “at table 2” is missing (but of course it doesn’t matter who is missing from where, this is just an example).

This is always a very high-energy, high engagement learning situation that has yet to fail. Have fun!