Professional Learning for Busy Educators

Jigsaw activities are not a new innovation in education. Teachers have been using the strategy for years  because it blends independent work with the power of group work to extend learning. John Hattie even found that it was one of the only activities in his model that helped students acquire and consolidate both surface and deep knowledge.

Kyle Halle-Erby, a 12th grade English teacher at San Francisco International High School likes the jigsaw activity because it helps his English language learning students feel comfortable participating in literature discussions. He’ll often do a jigsaw activity before a literature discussion to help students playing different facilitating roles prepare together before joining a group where they will be the only person with that role.