Jigsaw

LEARNING SCENARIO JIGSAW FOR READING

Effective reading involves active interaction between reader amd text. That is to say, the reader makes use of his knowledge of vocabulary (semantics), sentence structures (syntax) as well as prior knowledge of the subject area (schema) to get meaning from the print.

To help students read effectively, we should not just ask them to prepare the reading text at home, we should not just explain the whole passage to them, and we should not just get them answer the comprehension questions in the course book. We should, on the other hand, give them a purpose to read. One way of giving them a purpose is to get information for use, whatever that use may be.

Doing Jigsaw Reading is like playing with a jigsaw puzzle. Each student in a group is given part of the story to read. He has to read and comprehend it all by himself in order to report to other members of the group. After each member has reported the different parts of the story, the whole group work together re-arranging the parts to recover the original story.

We can use any coherent passage to create a jigsaw reading text. But it is more interesting if we use short stories our students can read independently, i.e. without the help of the teacher or the dictionary.

We can divide the story up in between episodes. For example, having divided the story into 4 parts, we make copies so that each student is only allowed to read 1/4 of the story. To make the activity more exciting, we can turn it into a competition: Ask students to form groups of four. Give each group Part 1 to Part 4 of the story. Tell them to read, to take notes it necessary, and to report orally to the group after reading. The group that can reconstruct the story back to its original is the winner. 

In this session, i would like to tell you about the learning scenario Jigsaw for reading. From what I observed, the jigsaw method of cooperative learning has several benefits. Instead of being lectured, the students were the ones who were doing the work, making meaning of the subject matter, and proving that they actually learned the material in their presentations.    However, I believe the jigsaw method might have been more effective if the students were allowed to work in pairs or groups rather than individually.  The theme of this session was on reading comprehension. Here the learning scenario jigsaw for reading comprehension.

This one learning scenario of jigsaw (Topic “Animals”) focused on the ability of students to read for main idea. There were 30 volunteer students from MAN 2 Metro for this study. Students were divided into groups of five. There were a total of 5 groups. Each group consisted of one high achiever, three average achievers, and one low achiever. Before learning took place through jigsaw II technique, students were instructed how to follow the activity of jigsaw. Then, the teacher taught students the following steps.

The first one i will present about an expert sheet. In this session,  students sat in a group of five. In jigsaw , this group was called the “home team”. Then, the teacher passed out an expert sheet for each student. In jigsaw , an expert sheet was is the reading material. The topic of the expert sheet was “Animals” consisting of five subtopics: Bats, Ducks, Whales, Elephants, and Walking Fish. These subtopics were called “expert topics”. The teacher went to each team and pointed out which students were to take which expert topic. When students had their expert topics, they were assigned to read by skimming their information in the expert topic for five minutes. This forced them to see big picture on their information.

Secondly, Expert-Group Discussion. The teacher gives 30 minutes to do  the expert group discussion. The teacher had all students with the expert topic “Bats” get together at one table, all students with expert topic “Ducks” at another table, and so on. There were five groups of expert topics. In jigsaw, these groups are called the “expert group”. Then, the teacher assigned a leader for each group. The leader’s job was to moderate the discussion, call on group members who raised their hands and tried to see that everyone participated. Before reading, the teacher gave each expert group a question on “what the main point of the story is”. Then, each expert group was given about thirty minutes to discuss their expert topics. The teacher had students tried to read silently by scanning the information on their expert topics, and then let them share this information with the group members. Group members took notes on all points discussed. While the expert groups were working, the teacher spent time with each group to answer questions and resolve misunderstandings. The discussion leader was reminded to make sure that everyone participated as well.

Thirdly, Team Report. There are 35 minutes to do that. After students had finished discussing their expert topics, the teacher had them return to the table of their home teams. Each team member was given five minutes to present information on the expert topic. The teacher let students try to review everything they had learned about their expert topics from their reading and discussion in the expert groups. Each team member had the responsibility of being a good reporter and a good listener. For example, a team member who had the expert topic “Bats” had to present all the points of Bats as well as listening to the rest of the expert topics (Ducks, Whales, Elephants, and walking Fish) from other teammates. After all teams had finished reporting, the teacher asked students questions to check if they understood information covering all five expert topics correctly. They were then ready to take a quiz.

Fourthly, individual quizzes. The students must have 25 minuutes to do the individual quizzes.   The teacher had students sit at an individual table. Each student was given an individual quiz to test reading for main idea that covered all the five expert topics they learned. The teacher gave students about fifteen minutes to do the quizzes. After that, the teacher had students exchange quizzes with members of other teams for scoring. The teacher and students answered quizzes together. Then, students did the scoring and put their names as a checker at the bottom of the quizzes they checked. After class, the teacher checked each student’ scores again to be sure that students did a good job of checking friends’ quizzes.

Finally, Team Recognition.  Before starting the next lesson, the teacher announced the individual scores and team scores. The highest scoring team was the most successful team and was given animal dolls as a reward. The details of the jigsaw steps that the teacher explained above were only one example of learning scenario used in this study.