Jigsaw Puzzle Activity

This activity was done on March 14, 2011. It was a fun activity. It is a way for all the pieces of the Jigsaw puzzle on a topic to be put back together.  It a way for students to interact with peers and to learn the topic. It is good to assign the students roles. What occurs is that the students are teaching other students the topic and the teacher is the facilatator and goes around to each group to make sure that the students are having a discussion and telling each other about each topic that was assigned. It is a great way to see how much the students  have learned from doing research on their own. 


Jigsaw activity is an activity in which  five to eight students depending on the topic are assigned to do research on their topic that the teach assigns them. For example if it is Kingdoms like in this case then the students would be divided into groups of five and each student would be assigned a kingdom. The students have a base group and expert group. Students would get together with their expert group and put the information together and then present the information to their base group which is the group that each member has a different kingdom. By the base group coming together and sharing their information about the different kingdoms is putting the puzzle together of the 5 Kingdoms.  


In order to use this activity in the classroom there needs to be a rubric and a list of things to include based on the topic you as the teacher are focusing on in the unit. If doing solar system or human body systems then students can be broken into different groups of 8 or 9 people and you as the teacher assign the role of what each student is going to look up information on like a planet, or a body system and assign which planet like Mars or body system like circulatory. I will definitely use this activity in my classroom. I could use this activity when wanting to learn about the different planets in the solar system.  I could also use this activity when talking about the human body systems. That is just two topics that could use this activity.  You as the teacher should have a base group and also have an expert group where three or four students have the same planet but are in different groups as a research group. It is good for students to take notes while their classmates are talking about their group. It is also a good idea for the students to ask the other students what the students learned as sort of a quiz. You as the teacher could also give the students a quiz to see how much the students learned about the topic that was presented. Jigsaw puzzle is a different way to get students involved in a topic and to learn from someone other than the teacher like a classmate.


Jigsaw Puzzle would be a great tool to use in the classroom. It would be a great review for students to do as well as a great learning tool. It would occur as a great way for students to learn and a different way for students to learn and obtain information.