CEC FIPP Activity Report
Name Ruth Roach
Date August 31, 2010
Department English
FIPP Partner Chris Richardson
Class title & section # English B, Section 9635
Name of Activity/Strategy Jigsaw
Category: (Please select only one.) (Reminder: You will submit one report from each of
the categories.)
Classroom Activity
Classroom Environment
Classroom Expectations
Feedback & Evaluation
Homework & Out-of-Classroom Learning Experiences
Briefly describe the activity/strategy, providing enough detail so that a colleague can
replicate the activity/strategy.
1. Introduction Appealing implicitly to the intelligence of my college students, I
explained to the class that I attended a workshop which had statistical success
in improving student graduation rates and success in classes (and I shared the
impressive statistics, such as when 50% graduated previous to the program, it
improved to 70%, when 70% it went up to 90% with the program). "I wanted the
students in Compton to graduate," I told them, "so we would be doing the
program that had helped others succeed." In the case of the discussion of
emotional intelligence, I felt the activity should stand on its own merit, without a
need for modification or adaptation, although I plan to use "expert groups" or
jigsaw activities to teach discipline-specific grammar content as well, later.
2. Set-up & Supplies I brought a class set of the story "After Math" (p. 57), and
accompanying handouts (photocopied two-sided to save paper): Components
of Emotional Intelligence (p. 58), Assessing Emotional Intelligence (p. 59), 1.
Managing Overwhelm, 2. Managing Anger/Resentment, 3. Managing
Fear/Anxiety, and 4. Managing Sadness/Depression (pp. 61-64).
3. Directions Students were told that after reading the story, (1) they would need to
rate each person's actions, (2) they would then in groups discuss one character
in particular to rate him or her on a scale of one to ten (p. 59) based on the four
"Components of Emotional Intelligence" (p. 58), and (3) they would study what
could be done to improve the emotional issues described in the story. They did
a two-phase activity after we read the story together with various students
around the room reading aloud. First, they were numbered off (from one to five)
for focus groups to look at one of the five characters in particular. We tallied
their collective individual group totals and averages; then, each group
discussed with the rest of the class their rationales for their scores. Second,
they were numbered (one to four) to become experts in managing one of the
four emotional intellegences (pp. 61-64), adding their own solutions to those
offered if they wished. Then, I told them to assemble into groups that contained
a person who had studied one of each of the four intellegences by holding up
their finger with their own number--either 1, 2, 3, or 4-- and assembling
themselves into groups that had #1, #2, #3, and #4 to share their
understandings. Finally, they did a journal entry to discuss what they gained
from the exercise.
What worked well? There were several positive outcomes from this exercise. On one
hand, students related to the story, stating they related to various characters or all of
them at various times in their lives, and found the solutions enlightening. They were
actually fairly critical of the students' misbehavior, seeing it as counterproductive; I think
the activity gave them the necessary objectivity, rather than having the typical
vulnerability to emotional reactions students would have if they were in the midst of a
similar situation. Students also seemed motivated to assure their own success, rather
than succumb to the same negative outcomes of the students in the story who dropped
out or quit in various ways. Finally, they highly enjoyed connecting with their classmates
through the rotations that indirectly introduced them to each other on the first day.
According to their journal entries, they gained encouragement from each other in
conversations-- support that they were all in this educational experience together.
What would you change? There were a couple of adjustments needed. First, students
should take time to rate all characters first, to provide an important initial consideration
of the group of characters as a whole as to who was most to least functional.Second,
the "study groups" or expert groups should not be too large. Some did not carefully
study the information for their expertise and read only parts of the material when they
got to that group of four and found themselves to be the only one with information. It is
possible some had reading limitations or reading fears aroused by confronting an entire
page of text to study on their own. Therefore, groups could be reduced to groups of two
or four after students go to their four corners and then read the entire page to each
other to provide reading support. Alternatively, the stakes of the assignment could be
raised with a great point value or upcoming test of their knowledge because some
wondered what they would do next, write about it or only discuss it, which suggested
they would be more motivated to have more value attached to it.
Would you use the activity/strategy again? Why or why not? Yes, I would definitely do this
activity again, particularly with this group of students who are not acclimated to college
life and who lack strategies to overcome emotional hindrances or barriers. Students
universally commented positively on this exercise in their journal entries--how they
learned much from it.
Please describe any student learning and/or changes that you observed after the
implementation of the activity/strategy. Students commented on their surveys that this
was a great first day of class! For me, that is a positive way to start a class!