The jigsaw teaching strategy is applicable to all subjects, including the basics of math, science, social studies and reading. Teachers place students in groups of three to five and assign them a portion of the day's lesson, which may include a selection from the text, a handout with information relevant to the lesson or a problem to solve. Within the groups, the students assign tasks to each other that include a reader, a recorder and a presenter. The group studies the assigned text or problem, and after a set number of minutes, presents what they learned or discovered to the remainder of the class. This activity teaches sixth graders to work together in groups, delegate tasks and effectively communicate with their peers while learning the lesson's objectives.
A writer's workshop encourages creative thinking, respect for peers and communication during class, and instills reading skills alongside grammar instruction. Students complete a writing activity -- a poem, short story or essay -- and submit a draft to the teacher, who then makes a copy for every student in the writer's workshop group. This group can contain the whole class or a smaller grouping of three to five students. The members read their work aloud to the group, and then listen as peers share their reactions, insight, suggestions, editing suggestions and constructive criticism.
Book circles combine cooperative learning with active reading. Groups form when students select a book from five or more choices of young adult novels. Students who select the same book become a group. Within their book circle, sixth graders track the pages they read every day, as well as assign a role to each member of the group, such as a summarizer, illustrator, discussion leader, "word wizard" who defines difficult vocabulary words for the group, and text connector to record connections between the passages to themselves, other books or other people in the world. Students meet in the book circle daily to discuss the passages they read through the lens of their assigned tasks. This method of reading and discussion insures group cooperation, accountability and positive peer interaction.
A science laboratory experiment or project provides a hands-on, cooperative learning experience. Sixth graders must understand diverse subject matter that includes proper measurement techniques, identification methods for rocks, trees and animals and classification codes for elements found in nature. Students learn cooperatively in a science experiment by assigning tasks to members in small groups of two to three, and recording data about their experiment to share with the rest of the class. Tasks for a science lab include a presenter, a materials preparer and an experiment performer. All students complete lab sheets with their data findings recorded, and work together to clean up a lab station.