Get Jiggy!

This week in class we did a jigsaw activity. Until now I have never heard of a jigsaw activity, but i'm glad now that I know. This activity is good for breaking up a broad topic. Each classmate is put into a group and this is called a base group. From the base group, each group member is given another group to work in called their expert group. The expert groups are separated by subtopics to split up the work. The expert group works together on their given topic to learn as much as they can. Once they feel that they have mastered the topic, each classmate returns to their base group to teach them about their expertise. In our class, the main topic was cooperative learning. Each expert group had a different aspect of one of the 5 PIGS of cooperative learning.

I really enjoyed this activity because it taught me the information I needed to know without being overloaded and having to go in-depth for each subtopic. Every group did a great job teaching the class about their expertise and some groups used great online tools that I will definitely be using in my future classroom.  One of these tools was Socrative. This is an online tool to assess students, there are many different forms that include competitive and noncompetitive assessments. The best part is that it's FREE and EASY to use! Another tool that I was unfamiliar with is ClassTools. This website allows teachers to create many different projects that are easy enough for students to do as well. There are FREE games, quizzes, diagrams and so much more on this great website! I need to start checking out more technological games to impress my colleagues the way they impressed me this week!