What Additional Resources on Cooperative Learning Are Available

 Jigsaw. Jigsaw is a useful activity when there is a lot of content to be learned or when it is fairly dense. The idea is to divide the content among small groups of learners and have each group read about and become expert on one piece of the content, and then plan a presentation to share their knowledge with the other groups. In this way, each group holds a piece of the jigsaw puzzle, and putting the pieces together provides the whole picture. In a jigsaw activity, learners share the responsibility of learning and teaching among themselves, rather than having the teacher provide direct instruction. For example, the teacher can divide a reading on the federal government into four parts: (1) executive branch, (2) legislative branch, (3) judicial branch, and (4) presidential elections. Learners, in their home teams of four members each, count off one to four. One member then moves to group 1, which will read about the executive branch. The second member joins group 2 to discuss the legislative branch. The third member moves to group 3 to learn about the judicial branch, and so on. The new groups are now the expert teams, each responsible for learning about a specific piece of the content and for preparing a presentation on it. Members of each expert team then return to their home teams to share his/her piece of the puzzle and answer any questions. Following all experts’ presentations, each home team now has the total picture. In this example, each home team has an understanding of the four parts of the federal government.  Survey. Surveys can help learners become acquainted with each other. The objective is to gather information about different classmates and present a summary about the composition of the class. Learners can brainstorm a list of questions to ask classmates, and, in this way, they learn names, favorite actors, personal goals, hobbies, etc. Learners work in pairs or in groups to collect the information from their classmates and record responses on a chart. Teachers may ask pairs or groups to present a summary of the chart to the whole class.  Numbered Heads Together. In this activity, learners work