The Jigsaw Method is a way of teaching that splits up a topic into subcategories that are then researched by different groups of students. The goal is for students in a group to develop a way to present their topic to their classmates. This forces students to learn about a topic with enough understanding that they can teach it to others. By doing so, this does take more time than the teacher instead teaching about the topics, but the purpose is for the students to learn from a different point of view and also become more knowledgable about the topic that they researched.
In the past couple of weeks that I've been working with the AP CS class, the jigsaw method has been utilized. The teacher split up different coding topics such as loops, lists, and reading files, then assigned groups of about 3 students to each topic. Today, I was able to see presentations of 2 different groups. What was most fascinating to me about this method is how it reveals the level of effort different students put into the class as a whole, without explicitly meaning to.
For example, while some groups had gone the week before and done well, others still had not completed their topics. To be fair, some topics were more difficult than others, so they required more research before the students were able to start creating their presentations. However, there were two equally difficult topics that presented during the class I attended and their presentations were vastly different. While one group had extensively outlined how to write their topic in Python code, the other only had one or two examples ready. Additionally, the less prepared group wanted extra class time to work on their presentation because they didn't think they were ready yet. While working with this group, they had their presentation almost done and one example written out, which to me seems like a small amount of work completed for the amount of time they've had to work on the project.
Another element of the class that surprised me was how some students weren't prepared for short presentations they were scheduled to give at the beginning of class. I think because I've been at Mines for so long, I have a certain level of effort to be put into school that I expect of other students and Mines expects of us, so I forget that in high school that level is lower.
Therefore, I learned that as a teacher you have to be flexible. You have to remember that students are taking a lot of other classes (in high school I usually was taking 7 or 8 classes at a time), so there is a lot for them to keep track of. Many of them also have jobs or play sports or involved in other extracurriculars. Sometimes students forget to do their homework or sometimes they turn it in late or sometimes they don't do it at all because they don't want to or don't have time. That means sometimes a set plan for your class might be completely switched up if students are unprepared or for a number of other reasons.
The connection between the jigsaw method and being flexible as a teacher is that in a way, using the jigsaw method is to relinquish control of your classroom to the students. You have to trust in their abilities to learn about a topic and then teach it to the rest of the class. Additionally, by not having a set schedule of giving your own lectures, you have to account for the fact that it will take the students longer to learn and then develop presentations for the topics. That means you might expect your jigsaw method classroom use to take a week, but you have to be prepared for it to take longer.
Another takeaway from this week's class is the number of new teaching strategies that exist and I'm completely oblivious to. While I had some experience with flipped classrooms in high school (we would watch lecture videos before class then do homework in class), I had never heard of the jigsaw method before. There is still so much more for me to learn!
Sources
https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies/2016/10/the-jigsaw-method-teaching-strategy/
https://www.schoology.com/blog/flipped-classroom