Snow Day? No way.

Today was our second WizIQ virtual class, and the first snow day for MSMC. The experience was much better this time around; the audio quality was well improved, and I was wearing sweatpants in the comfort of my own room. Although I do not love the idea of bringing school back to my house on a snow day, this was a great experience! I have used Skype before but not in an academic setting, and it worked much better than expected. The entire class was attending and we discussed and organized our plans for the Jigsaw Groups.

During our live chat we briefly discussed Jigsaw groups but we got right to business in forming our groups and getting to work. For our project, we are using the Jigsaw method to learn the 5 characteristics of cooperative learning. After splitting into groups and choosing 1 characteristic to focus on we were all put on the task of completing a powerpoint to become the experts on our topic.

The characteristic I am becoming the expert on is Social Skills and Face to Face Interaction. I am glad I am becoming the expert on this characteristic because it is one that is of great interest to me. My philosophy of education has a contructivist overtone to it and I love the idea of enhancing students social skills through cooperative activities. I feel this is a great way to learn.

My only problem with the jigsaw method is it can be inconsistent with the separate parts. If one group does not put as much work into their presentation of one of the characteristics, the group as a whole will suffer from it. Additionally, some group members can slack off and leave the project to the other members of the group. This is not only hurting the working group, but also the group that the information is to be shared with.