Jigsaw Readings
Author: Tom Siebold is a writer and business consultant in Minneapolis. He is also the owner of Studyingforcollege.com --a site to help college students improve their studying and grades.
Objective (s): To quickly get an overview of the literature on a topic and to initiate a discussion from diverse points of view
How the author has used this activity: This activity format can be used with almost any professional development topic. However, it does require some pre-workshop preparation since the facilitator will have to find provocative readings on the workshop topic. Much of the success of this activity depends on the quality of the readings.
Activity Description: Divide the full group into small discussion groups. Each small group receives a short reading (all should be of equal length and each reading should emphasize a different aspect of the topic). A volunteer in each group reads the reading aloud. Then each group discusses the key points made by the author. After a set amount of discussion time, each group writes a discussion question to be addressed by the full group (make certain that the question is discussable).
Convene the full group. The discussion questions are written on a flip chart or white board. In turn, a selected person from each group leads the discussion on the group’s question. After an adequate amount of discussion time the facilitator asks each discussion leader to explain how his or her group responded to the question. (See Options below for another way to structure this activity.)
With this exercise participants can quickly get a multidimensional view of what the professionals are saying about the topic. At its conclusion, the facilitator can use the discussions as a springboard to his or her own material on the topic.
Options: An option to save time is to have one person from each group use his or her discussion question to facilitate a discussion station. The small group questions are read to the full group and then participants move to a discussion station that interests them. This cuts down discussion time. Participants then engage with two readings--one in their original group and another at the discussion station that they attend.
Although it requires a lot of equipment and preparation, facilitators can replace the readings with training video clips.
Added thoughts or considerations: Timing is really important here. The facilitator needs to cut discussion time before it draws out too long but not cut it so early that the discussions fail to mature.