What is one of the main reasons the jigsaw method is effective?

Teaching students to get along with each other is not a major problem in some classrooms and schools. Of course there are disagreements and minor squabbles but nothing that cannot be handled. Some learning environments are bliss.

Then there are schools filled with tension and anxiety where significant numbers of students do not get along. Relationships can be strained, uncomfortable and there is a whiff of volatility in the air.

Some student relationships are so bad, teachers are constantly fire-fighting and often dealing with situations way beyond the scope of their training. Behaviour becomes such an issue that it drives decent teachers out of the profession and everyone loses.

When some students display out and out hostility for each other, appropriate interventions are crucial. Prejudice, hatred, racism, violence – they can all grow rapidly and deepen daily. None of these belong in a school but they will come into the school environment from surrounding communities.

School is a social environment and student learning is dependent on positive relationships. A large chunk of our time is devoted to building student relationships through a culture of mutual respect, modelled and taught by us. We work hard at it.

We remind students of the importance of empathy and diversity and we give them the opportunities to work together to work-out their differences. But sometimes this can fall short and even backfire.

We cannot force students to like each other and be friends or even be friendly towards one another. Tolerance and understanding is hard to magic up and needs a sensitive approach, not crisis-management.

Sometimes we just need to withdraw and let them get on with it. That might sound reckless and an open invitation for disaster but it can be done. We can still be involved but in a different way – as a chief facilitator.

You get the picture

Picking up the pieces of fractured relationships can be approached by making your classroom a jigsaw classroom.

Developed in the early 1970s by American social psychologist Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California, the jigsaw classroom is a research-based cooperative learning technique for defusing inter-group tension and promoting self-esteem. It is “cooperation by design” and was created in response to the racial turmoil caused by school desegregation in Austin, Texas.

The jigsaw classroom has an impressive track record of successfully reducing racial conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes such as improved test performance, reduced absenteeism, and greater liking for school (Aronson & Patnoe, 1997).

The idea behind the jigsaw classroom is to foster cooperation not competition and it encourages students to work together as a team and be interdependent – each individual student has something unique to contribute to their group’s outcome.

As The Jigsaw Classroom website says: “If each student’s part is essential, then each student is essential; and that is precisely what makes this strategy so effective.”

Each child is assigned to an expert group that is responsible for one part of each day’s lesson. Each group then teaches each other group, which encourages cooperation, friendship and group success.

There are 10 steps in this technique. They are as follows.

1. Divide students into five or six-person “jigsaw groups”.
2. Appoint one student from each group as the leader.
3. Divide the day’s lesson into five to six segments.
4. Assign each student to learn one segment.
5. Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it.
6. Form temporary “expert groups” by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment.
7. Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.
8. Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group.
9. Float from group-to-group, observing the process.
10. At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material.

Described as a “socio-emotional powerhouse” (Gonzalez, 2015), the jigsaw method requires students to learn from each other (rather than from the teacher) and so learning cannot succeed without students getting along. The expectation is that all group members participate equally.

For a task to be successful, everyone must take part, swapping pieces and learning from each other.

As no one else in the group is doing the same job, each student experiences a higher sense of ownership and accountability to the members of their group.

When learning together like this, students usually begin to listen to, respect, and like one another. It improves learning conversations and social interactions. It builds cooperation as students begin to pay attention to each other, ask questions, help each other and teach each other. A jigsaw puzzle forms a picture as all the many separate pieces fit together and all the separate jobs students perform contribute to the whole.

Shared responsibility is a big responsibility and students learn to see the efforts of everyone as equal and gain the benefit of learning from those different from themselves. Is the jigsaw classroom the solution to eradicating animosities and dislikes? Of course not, but this is a powerful approach that has been tried and tested.

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