A “Jigsaw Classroom” Technique for Undergraduate Statistics Courses

Abstract

Undergraduate statistics students vary widely in performance, and many are passive learners. Worksheets (problem sets) help students to be more active and to learn by doing. Working individually, however, students may require too much time to complete worksheets in class, when the instructor is available to help. In the “jigsaw classroom” technique described, a worksheet is divided into 2 to 4 complementary steps that are distributed to different groups of students. Students with the same step complete it together and then collaborate with other classmates to finish the entire worksheet in class. Students reported that this jigsaw technique helped them understand a statistical procedure, used class time efficiently, and increased the variety of learning experiences available in this challenging course.

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