Today during discussion of the final chapter of Rethinking Education (yes!) We "jigsawed". This term, although supposedly previously mentioned by Dr. Boyer, was new to me. In case you're not aware, to jigsaw is to place classmates into a group for discussion with the intent to regroup the students for further discussion with said experts. I really liked it because it forced every group member to be responsible for knowing the subject of their small group discussion and to combine the ideas and apply it. Dr. Boyer pointed out that when you do something such as a "jigsaw" you should title it and refer to it's title when you plan on using it so that you don't have to explain your intentions every time, it will become a familiar practice amongst your students. At first I didn't see the need to entitle the act, but after he explained, I agree that it's a great idea to explain the concepts and motives of their actions so they know why it's a good activity and also so you don't have to waste your time and breath always re-explaining. This I will do in my classroom.
Here's some new thinking for you...
The new 3 R's:
relevance
rigor
relationships
No comments:
Post a Comment