Jigsaw Teaching

in

Accelerated Algebra 2/Trigonometry

What is "Jigsaw"?

Students team up to learn different topics, and prepare "lesson plans"  in one team, then they re-group and teach their new partners the material.

In our implementation, the "Red Team" learned about solving polynomial equations and inequalities by factoring; the "Yellow Team" learned about synthetic division of polynomials and the rational root theorem; the "Blue Team" learned about imaginary and complex numbers and their arithmetic.  The "Team Learning" took place over two homeworks and one class period (Monday). 

 After lessons were ready,  the class was re-constituted into "cereal" groups (Snap, Crackle, and Pop), with two members of each color.  On Red day (Tuesday) the Red Team members taught their topic to their cereal group, followed by Yellow day (Wednesday) and Blue day (Thursday).  Friday was "after action" day... students critiqued the jigsaw process, chose "star teachers" from each "cereal" group, and summarized their learning (assessment!).

Color teams were provided with lesson plan templates, additional problem sources, and a brief outline of "important" topics for their team.  Students were assigned to read the appropriate section of the textbook and try a few problems before coming to class on the color day (the usual routine I use in teaching); color teams assigned additional problems for guided practice and extension in class.