HI Jan, I cannot say it always worked perfectly. (And for myself doing it in grown up teacher groups I personally cannot stand not reading every word - smile!) But it did work for my classes usually. I tailored the tasks each group would do to the type of knowledge or info they needed to extract from the jig sawed parts: main idea, details, points to compare, feelings etc. So the group might need to create a "Quaker reading" (or found poem type deal) with each person contributing their most important (or most vivid or....) detail and returning to read it as a poem. Or the group might need to create a visual "map" or poster of the section and so on. I ALWAYS circulated and they knew I did with my clipboard noticing the types of work their group was doing. And they usually self evaluated. And we often debriefed talking about how the groups went that day. Without that kind of oversight - which I sometimes skimped on due to time (again smile) - group work was not as effective. It takes time and as a teacher I have to believe it's worth it!!!
Another thing I did, more typically academic, but sometimes giving open note tests covering everything that was presented so they really needed to pay attention. They could take notes and I DID TOO and they could see me doing it ....so that I would be sure to "test" only what had actually been presented. That upped the seriousness of the group presentations! I am thinking that one reason group work is sometimes a problem is that it is not interpreted as serious. What do you think? A final story. As a teacher educator I was observing in one of my intern teacher's classroom. They were reading the Iliad. I sat with one group. The students had been assigned different jobs. One person was reading aloud, Another had underlined (I forget for what), one had made a character chart, and one student was sitting there just listening. I asked them about what they were doing and they explained. I asked the student doing "nothing" what she was doing. And she explained to me very seriously that this was really hard reading and she was listening. I asked her if it helped. And she said "OH yes!" again very seriously. That incident has stayed in my head for years. We do not always know what is being learned for sure and especially not without asking non judgmentally or observing very carefully. On 11/4/10 12:42 PM, "Jan" <wr...@centurytel.net> wrote: > > > > Hi Sally, > I'd love to hear more about how the jig saw method has worked for you. > > I have done that, and it usually fails for me. Too many students wait > for others to do the work for them. Parents (of the working students) > have complained to me about the unfairness. > Jan > > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
