Group A studies the liver.<\/p>\n
Group B, they’ve got the small intestine.<\/p>\n
Group C focuses on the duodenum.<\/p>\n
Once each group understands its organ — its “piece of the puzzle” — they can explain it to their peers. That is: they re-assemble the larger puzzle from the small, understandable bits.<\/p>\n
This strategy has at least two potential advantages:<\/p>\n
First,<\/strong> by breaking the task down into smaller steps, it reduces working memory load. (Blog readers know that I’m a BIG advocate for managing working memory load.)<\/p>\n Second,<\/strong> by inviting students to work together, it potentially increases engagement.<\/p>\n Sadly, both those advantages have potential downsides.<\/p>\n First:<\/strong> the jigsaw method could reduce working memory demands initially. But: it also increases<\/em> working memory demands in other ways:<\/p>\n … students must figure out<\/em> their organ themselves, and<\/p>\n … they have to explain<\/em> their organ (that’s really complicated!), and<\/p>\n … they have to understand<\/em> other students’ explanations of several<\/em> other organs!<\/p>\n Second:<\/strong> “engagement” is a notoriously squishy term. It sounds good — who can object to “engagement”? — but how do we define or measure it?<\/p>\n After all, it’s entirely possible that students are “engaged” in the process of teaching one another, but that doesn’t mean they’re helpfully focused on understanding the core ideas I want them to learn.<\/p>\n They could be engaged in, say, making their presentation as funny as possible — as a way of flirting with that student right there. (Can you tell I teach high school?)<\/p>\n In other words: it’s easy to spot ways that the jigsaw method could help<\/strong> students learn, or could interfere<\/strong> with their learning.<\/p>\n If only we had research on the subject…<\/p>\n A good friend of mine recently sent me a meta-analysis puporting to answer this question. (This blog post, in fact, springs from his email.)<\/p>\n It seems that this meta-analysis looks at 37 studies and finds that — YUP — jigsaw teaching helps students learn.<\/p>\n I’m always happy to get a research-based answer…and I always check out the research<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this case, that “research-based” claim falls apart almost immediately.<\/p>\n The meta-analysis crunches the results of several studies, and claims that jigsaw teaching has a HUGE effect. (Stats people: it claims a Cohen’s\u00a0d of 1.20 — that’s ENORMOUS.)<\/p>\n You’ve probably heard Carl Sagan’s rule that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” What evidence does this meta-analysis use to make its extraordinary claim?<\/p>\n Well:<\/p>\n … it doesn’t look at 37 studies, but at SIX (plus five student dissertations), and<\/p>\n … it’s published in a journal that doesn’t focus on education or psychology research, and<\/p>\n … as far as I can tell, the text of the meta-analysis isn’t available online — a very rare limitation.<\/p>\n For that reason, we know nothing about the included studies<\/em>.<\/p>\n Do they include a control condition?<\/p>\n Were they studying 4th graders or college students?<\/p>\n Were they looking at science or history or chess?<\/p>\n We just don’t know<\/i>.<\/p>\n So, unless I can find a copy of this meta-analysis online (I looked!), I don’t think we can\u00a0accept it as extraordinary evidence of its extraordinary claim.<\/p>\n Of course, just because\u00a0this<\/em> meta-analysis bonked doesn’t mean we have no evidence at all. Let’s keep looking!<\/p>\n I next went to my go-to source: elicit.com. I asked it to look for research answering this question:<\/p>\n Does “jigsaw” teaching help K-12 students learn?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The results weren’t promising.<\/p>\n Several studies focus on college and graduate school. I’m glad to have that information, but college and graduate students…<\/p>\n … already know a great deal,<\/p>\n … are especially committed to education,<\/p>\n … and have higher degrees of cognitive self-control than younger students.<\/p>\n So, they’re not the most persuasive source of information for K-12 teachers.<\/p>\n One study from the Phillipines showed that, yes, students who used the jigsaw method did learn. But it didn’t have a control condition, so we don’t know if they would have learned more doing something else.<\/p>\n After all, it’s hardly a shocking claim to say “the students studied something, and they learned something.” We want to know\u00a0which teaching strategy<\/em> helps them learn the most!<\/p>\n Still others report that “the jigsaw method works” because “students reported higher levels of engagement.”<\/p>\nResearch on the Subject<\/h2>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nNext Steps<\/h2>\n