This was created for and used in the Librarians Active Learning Institute (LALI) 2024 practicum. Tricia has since used it in an earth sciences undergraduate class (5 students), and created a modified version of the jigsaw for ProQuest Central in a first-year writing seminar in the earth sciences department (16 students). 

For numbers that aren't even, like the 5 students, I asked the instructor to step in to fill the 6th spot so that the jigsaw could function. It's important to have at least one person in each group that worked on each handout. For the class of 16 students, I still had 3 handouts and kept close to a 3 by 5. For teaching themselves, I had 2 groups of 5 and 1 group of 6, then for mixing, I had 4 groups of 3 and 1 group of 4. The group of 4 had two people who worked on the same handout, so those two team-taught the others in their group. This worked well scaled up, though the classroom can get loud. Scaling beyond 16 may require separating the class into a couple groups and then doing the jigsaw among each group (i.e. 36 students might become 3 groups of 12, and then you break it down from there).

Assignment Pairings:

Pairs well with search strategy, in-depth database/resource demo or usage, guided searching, assessing sources, and literature reviews.

I use this activity every year in the lab section of General chemistry. At this level of chemistry students are rarely doing research work that involves chemistry literature, and don’t necessarily have chemistry research questions or a need for understanding the library research databases for for the class. However, students at this level are engaging with science information in the classroom and outside the classroom, and this is a great opportunity to build skills needed to engage with information in online spaces. 

Since I developed this assignment, Mike Caulfield has developed a new framework based on the Four Moves, called SIFT. At this point I’ve stayed with Four Moves and a Habit because it comes with an open textbook that I can assign pre-class reading from, and because the named concept of lateral reading has been useful for students.

Many thanks to Andrea Verdan, Seattle University Chemistry, for her work on developing this lesson plan and developing the pre-lab quiz questions.

I use this activity every year in the lab section of General chemistry. At this level of chemistry students are rarely doing research work that involves chemistry literature, and don’t necessarily have chemistry research questions or a need for understanding the library research databases for for the class. However, students at this level are engaging with science information in the classroom and outside the classroom, and this is a great opportunity to build skills needed to engage with information in online spaces. 

Since I developed this assignment, Mike Caulfield has developed a new framework based on the Four Moves, called SIFT. At this point I’ve stayed with Four Moves and a Habit because it comes with an open textbook that I can assign pre-class reading from, and because the named concept of lateral reading has been useful for students.

Many thanks to Andrea Verdan, Seattle University Chemistry, for her work on developing this lesson plan and developing the pre-lab quiz questions.