Jigsaw

A cooperative structure in which the material is cut into two to six parts and every member of a home group gets one. Everyone first studies their own part alone, then confers in an expert group with the students holding the same part, and returns to the home group to explain their part. Optionally the group closes with a check: notes closed, retelling together what each part contained. The structure is called jigsaw because the whole only appears once every piece has been put back.

With the default times about forty minutes: 2 minutes for dividing the groups and numbers, 10 minutes studying alone, 10 minutes expert group, 10 minutes explaining in the home group and optionally 5 minutes for the check — plus about four minutes for handing out and the two walks. Whoever prepares the structure sets the time per phase. Shorter than half an hour rarely works without damaging the heart of the structure — the explaining phase.

Two to six topics, and the number of parts IS the group size: every member of a home group gets one part, so four parts gives home groups of four. In the preparation you type each topic on its own line and the group size follows automatically. If the class doesn't divide exactly, give one student in a short group two numbers — dropping a part is not an option, because every home group would then miss that piece.

The home group is home: that is where the structure starts, where the explaining happens later, and where every member holds a different part. The expert group is temporary: all students with the same part together, to grasp it and prepare the explanation. The class therefore moves twice — to the expert groups and back — and precisely that movement makes every student the only source of their part in their home group.

Cut the material into parts that sit side by side — not building on each other — and ask roughly equal study time, and provide per part a text or source a student can grasp independently. Out of ideas? Ask Microsoft Copilot: "Divide [topic] into 4 parts that can each be studied separately and together cover the whole, for students aged [age]. Give each part a short title of at most 6 words. One part per line, no numbering." Every line you take over becomes one expert role.

You guard the phases and the numbers, not the content. At the dividing step have every number written down. During the studying answer no content questions — refer them to the expert group; it feels unkind and it is exactly what keeps the structure working. Ask every expert group for the first sentence of their explanation. And stay aside during the explaining phase: let the group ask questions and correct at the end, with the whole class. The grouping setting only shapes the home groups; the expert groups follow from the numbers.

Yes — that is exactly the variant Robert Slavin described in 1980 as Jigsaw II: after the explaining phase comes a short individual quiz on all the parts. Switch the check on for that, or close with a knowledge quiz on the whole. The prospect of a question about someone else's part makes careful listening very concrete — and the result shows you which part did not land.

Yes, even smoothly: the home and expert groups are breakout rooms, the parts shared documents. Keep the study phase silent online too — microphones off, notes in your own document — and run the switching moments tightly, because online nobody "walks back" by themselves. Allow a little more transition time than in a classroom.

Elliot Aronson designed the jigsaw classroom in 1971 in Austin, Texas, when after desegregation students who distrusted each other suddenly shared a classroom. By cutting the material so that every student held an indispensable piece, cooperation stopped being a choice and became a necessity — and both the relationships and the results improved. Robert Slavin added the shared quiz with Jigsaw II in 1980; since then it has been one of the best-researched cooperative structures.