The "Jigsaw Teaching Strategy"

In using the cooperative learning strategy called “Jigsaw” in a kindergarten room of twenty-five students and five computers, I have come up with various project ideas that would help the children learn word processing skills. With the children sitting five to a table, rotation by tables would occur at “centers” time – the computers being one of the centers. Various projects would be worked on, two in a week, in which the children would type in the answers to the area of the project they were assigned to.
Possible subjects: measuring, math calculations, science (eg. parts of an insect or flower), letter and/or number fill-in, reading with simple words and pictures, sequencing, art matching, recognition/definition, etc. This would be Day One. (Note: with the kindergarten day being short, the projects would be very basic aimed at reinforcing simple principles while increasing their computer skills. The project would become more challenging as their knowledge and skills grew).
Day Two: Collaboration of expert groups at the computer area (the children would still sit where they did day one for the rest of the time.) And go back to the original group to share and complete the project by writing down all the answers on a worksheet, then entering it in on the computer.
The next two days would repeat the process with a different project with the fifth day of the week reserved for a different lesson. For the second two days, children would sit in different places (and, again, different places on the fifth day), so there is a mixing of all children in the class. It may be best to start Jigsaw with just one project per week so that the children get the hang of it, then go to two per week, then go to class presentations with one member per each group “sharing” the results of the whole group – reserved for a Friday. In about a twelve to thirteen week period, all the children would get a chance to be a “presenter” to the whole class.
As an advantage, the children would get to know each other and learn social skills – a major purpose of kindergarten. It would be challenging for the teacher to implement, but once the children caught on, they would be great. The computer skills would come automatically from following through with the lessons. The disadvantage, as stated earlier, would be the short kindergarten day. In order to get everyone on the computer in one day, that would be five centers projects, possibly two too many.
The Jigsaw method would be a great way to start off kindergarten with a cooperative, fair and friendly foundation, working together with their peers in a way that would help them to be successful through the rest of their school career.