You Can't Finish a Puzzle Without Every Piece

 About a month ago, my classmates and I were divided up into three separate groups. In our original groups, we each picked a topic on Cooperative Learning. Being that I chose to do Cooperative Learning Lesson Planning for my original group, I was then put into an expert group with the other groups' members who chose to do Cooperative learning lesson planning. The three of us then worked together to become experts within our topic, so that we could later teach our own groups about Cooperative Learning lesson planning. This method is known as the Jigsaw Method. In education today, the idea of group work is very valued because there is so much evidence to show that students learn best from each other.  
             

Because of the horrid weather and the interruption of fieldwork, we had to postpone the portion of jigsaw puzzle where each expert  taught their topics to the members of their original groups. Today, we finally got to present, and I began my presentation by activating prior knowledge and pre-assessing my peers orally. After seeing how much they already knew, I then moved on to talk about some tips for Cooperative Learning lesson plans, such as, the importance of making sure that your students know what is wanted from them, both socially and academically. You want to make sure that students are being respectful towards one another, being good listeners, using indoor voices, and focusing on their specific role. You also want to make sure that your objectives are understood and manageable for all students, while also ensuring that those objectives are congruent to your activity. Lastly, it is very important to choose your groups wisely. You should never leave this up to chance, and you should make sure that you are putting students together who will benefit one another. 

After this, I went over the five steps of Jigsaw: Choosing a lesson, making pre-instructional decisions, explaining the task and cooperative goal structure, monitoring and intervening, and processing and assessing. You can learn about these more in depth by viewing our Cooperative Learning Lesson Planning Slideshow. {To see our complete slide show, Click here }

After doing this, we reviewed a Cooperative Learning lesson plan template specific to Mount Saint Mary College. We did not have time to watch the video below, but I feel that it implements a Cooperative Learning lesson plan very nicely. I also did not have time for our "Cool Down" to assess how much my peers learned, but it is in my slideshow.