The NAT Jigsaw Project Experience

Recently, I was involved in an assignment where I was assigned a Native American tribe and had to become an expert on the tribe in order to teach the rest of the classroom about the tribe and then check for their understanding. We used the Jigsaw Method when completing this lesson. The tribe that my group was assigned with was the Tlingit Tribe. We were given this format to use with the main areas that we needed to cover when creating our presentation to teach the lesson. When my group met up together, we decided that each group member would get 2 areas that they would have to research and become experts at to contribute to the presentation. My role was to become an expert on the clothes that the Tlingit tribe wore and the foods that they ate. My other group members also had 2 other areas that they needed to become experts at. Each member had a role and responsibility for this lesson and an equal amount of work to contribute. 

Independently, I took notes and researched both the clothing that the Tlingit tribe wore and the foods that they ate. I learned a lot about these two areas regarding this tribe. We created a PowerPoint on Google Slides to share with one another so that we could each work on the slides together at any time. I condensed the information that I gathered and put it into a short amount of bullet points on the slides. I helped contribute to the pictures and colors that we incorporated into the presentation. I was able to find many pictures that was related to what I found in my research regarding the clothing and food. I also included the Tlingit language into the PowerPoint. For example, "T'A" means Salmon which is considered extremely important to them. My group contributed slides on "Stop and Ponder" where after a certain amount of information is presented to the class, we will bring up review questions so that the students have a better understanding of what they are learning so far. 

The Essential Question of this lessons was how geography influenced the Tlingit tribe. With all of our information gathered together, we realized that the tribe's location impacted their diet, trade, clothes, and habitat. In order to give our students the chance to learn more about the Tlingit tribe and extend the lesson even further, we provided a list of books that students can check out to learn more. The conclusion of our lesson included a Google Forms quiz to test their knowledge on what they have learned. Each member contributed 1 or 2 questions to the quiz based on the information that they became experts at. 

I felt that my group worked very well together. It helped prove to me once again that the Jigsaw Method is extremely effective. Each member contributed an equal amount by becoming experts on what they had to research and contributed to the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint came out very well and engaging for the students. When we presented our lesson, it grabbed the students attention and I felt that the students did very well at the quiz. This is a great activity to do to incorporate the Jigsaw Method in the classroom.