Thursday, November 6, 2014
Response to Jigsaw
In response to last Thursday's Jigsaw activity, I have mixed feelings. On a positive note, I do really like that it is a social activity. I am sure the experts in my group and the rest of my classmates have heard me say "Each year, I notice more and more that my students do not know how to socilaize." I can't decide whether to point blame at technology or families working more so learners are home more often by themselves. As of right now, I say a mixture of the two. In my experience, students readily tell me that they rarely ever eat dinner together. As a result, I will try this activity with my seventh grade class first. Not that the sixth grade is bad but just maturity and age wise, I feel this acitivity might work better. I also like how five articles got discussed and covered in a sort of non-traditional round tablelike discussion. Now more than ever, I feel like the amount of material we have to cover far extends beyond the amount of time we have actually teaching, covering it. Meeting with professionals from my world, I grow in knowledge because they provide perspectives that I do not possess possibly due to the subject area that I teach. Being that we all are attending this class in order to improve, each one of my group meembers was open and actively listening to my point of view from my article. We also received instantaneous feedback as to how our fellow members thought and felt in regards to our perspective.
The drawbacks I have to this activity are honestly few. Mainly, I believe it depends on the age you teach and the class itself. As stated before in the previous paragraph, my sixth grade students are very good to me but to each other, horrendous. I would have to strategically create groups before hand. I have no problem with this since I already do this in class but I would like to take time and actually think about the groupings. Since time is so precious, I wonder when to do this activity? I'm thinking before an assessment as a way to review. Possibly, I might even do this as a pre-test sort of. What do you remeber about fractions? I could create the groupings by operation. How long to give to the Jigsaw? Like an experiment, I will alter it according to success, how well it is working in my classroom. I will definitely try this activity with my class and see how it goes.
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Danielle, I like your analysis of the activity. I am wondering what you thought of the articles now that you had time to process them. I know you mentioned that time and choice were important constructs to think about when working to improve reading motivation, but I am wondering what your thoughts are on the importance of relationships and how you might employ these constructs in your instruction or what recommendations you might make to teachers who struggle motivating their students to become readers.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you'll give the jigsaw a try. Personally I think it can work at any grade level and have seen it used successfully in fourth and sixth grade. The difference is the amount of scaffolding and modeling you'll have to do at the younger grades. I think it could be modified in a number of ways (for instance creating roles for students) that would make it more manageable. I think you're right in the importance of the social aspect and the skills needed to be an active listener as well as a clear and concise contributor to the group.
Hey Dan! I too like the idea of covering so much material with a short amount of time. I think the Jigsaw is ideal for reviewing a large scope and giving the students the responsibility to share the information. For me, I think it is easier to use the strategy in a humanities classroom. I think it lends itself because you can cover many articles or poems based on theme. In math, I do see the challenge only because you are so limited in time and you want to make sure that you cover your objectives. I think you are right that it would work wonders as a review before a test. It was allow them to feel accomplished and ready before the assessment.
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