Enhancing Group Learning Through the Jigsaw Classroom: Innovative Teaching Techniques

1. Jigsaw Learning - Using innovative teaching techniques to promote group learning, cooperation, listening engagement and empathy. Daryl May Senior Lecturer Events Management Subject Group Sheffield Hallam University

2. Introduction Session aims: • History of the Jigsaw Classroom • Concept of the Jigsaw Classroom • Group work issues • Example of using the Jigsaw Classroom • Evaluation of student experience • Future work - challenges? • Discussion

3. History of the Jigsaw Classroom • Originally developed by Aronson et. al. (1978) • Aim was to foster peer cooperation and tutoring • Developed to help address issues created by desegregation of the schools in the US between 1964 - 1974

4. History of the Jigsaw Classroom • Designed to improve intergroup relations • Unsurprisingly most studies have focused on race relations in the Jigsaw Classroom • Other benefits found: • increase in self-esteem • increase in students liking their school • reductions in competitiveness • increase in "perspective-taking" skills (Aronson and Patnoe, 1997)

5. Concept of the Jigsaw Classroom • The jigsaw classroom is a cooperative and active learning technique • Efficient way to learn the material • Encourages listening, engagement, and empathy • Group members must work together as a team to accomplish a common goal • No person can succeed completely unless everyone works well together as a team

6. LTA strategy LTA strategy key principles: "promote a supportive and inclusive learning experience" "enhance students' experiences and improve satisfaction ratings. LTA aim 3: "using student-centred and active approaches to learning, teaching, and academic support; and providing opportunities for students to be researchers, enquirers, and co-producers of and partners in learning"

7. Group work "Group work is becoming an integral part of many higher education programmes, designed to help you gain the skills needed to be effective in the work place" (Learn Higher Groupwork website, 2012).

8. Group work • Allows students to negotiate meaning and manipulate ideas with others and reflect upon their learning (Fraser & Deane,1997). • Can be a positive experience through collaboration (Johnson and Johnson, 1991; Baloche, 1994). • Tensions through competition for grades and group dynamics (Imel, 1991; Johnson & Johnson, 1994). • Efficient way to teach as workloads increase and available time diminishes (Burdett, 2003).

9. Group work Positive aspects: • generating ideas and sharing views • meeting people and building friendships • improved learning processes • sharing of workload • improved grades Negative aspects: • unequal distribution of effort • difficulties of accommodating different work schedules for meeting times • lack of staff support (Burdett, 2003)

10. Stage One For example class of 25 students. Topic is "social science research methods." Decide how many components the topic can be broken down into.

11. Stage One Social science research methods • Interviews • Focus groups • Questionnaires • Non-participant observation • Ethnography

12. Stage One

13. Stage Two Students researching (reading) same topic come together and discuss work they have completed individually: Take That - Interviews Spice Girls - Focus groups One Direction - Questionnaires Rolling Stones - Non-participant observation Beatles / Mr Blobby - Ethnography

14. Stage Three • Original groups now to be divided into five new groups. • Done by taking one student from each group to form another new group. • Newly formed groups now have five "expert" students having studied the original components

15. Stage Three

16. Stage Four • Used to consider the effectiveness of the exercise • Each student should have learned about the session topic • Formative (or summative) assessment activity

17. Evaluation of student experience • Exploratory pilot study • Short qualitative questionnaire • 43 questionnaires collected over three classrooms

18. Evaluation of student experience • Overall very positive response • Effective way to learn the material • Recognition of "interdependence" from students • Enjoyable, different and novel • Motivated by the quiz and helped reflection • Surprised by how much then had learnt

19. Evaluation of student experience • More time needed (difficult to run in a 1 hour session) • Trust and confidence in fellow peers questioned • All material provided at the end, reassured students

20. Discussion If done in completely in the class: • Explain the exercise in detail at the start of the class • Group sizes - usually not straightforward • How to integrate latecomers If done in advance: • Students not attending / complexity of group allocation

21. Future work Further work with a cohort of level 4 students starting Sept 12. Randomised into self selecting or allocated groups. Measure student satisfaction / experience of Jigsaw exercise / group work.

22. References Aronson, E., Blaney, N., Stephan, C., Sikes, J., and Snapp, M. (1978). The jigsaw classroom. C.A.: Sage Publications. Aronson, E. and Patnoe, S. (1997). The Jigsaw Classroom: Building cooperation in the classroom. New York: Addison-Wesley. Sharan, S. (1980). Cooperative learning in small groups: Recent methods and effects on achievement, attitudes and ethnic relations. Review of Educational Research, 50:2, pp 241 - 271. http://www.jigsaw.org/.

23. Thank you Questions / discussion