Make groups and expert groups for a jigsaw activity, then run it step by step.
28 names.
5 groups of 5 or 6. In a group of 6, two people share a piece.
Leaders
One per group, picked at random.
Drag a name to another group, or drop it on someone with the same letter to swap them.Tap a name to move it, swap it, or change its piece.
Paste your class list, one name per line. A column copied from Google Sheets or Excel works too.
Split the lesson into 2 to 8 pieces. Each group gets one person per piece.
Everyone gets a group and a piece. Drag names to adjust, and switch to Expert groups to see who meets where.
Start activity puts each step on the projector with a timer: reading in groups, expert groups, then each piece presented back in the groups. Set the minutes for each step under Time.
You choose under Time before you start. By default it’s 10 minutes to sit with your group and read, 10 in expert groups, and 3 for each piece presented back in the groups, which is 35 minutes with five pieces. During the activity, +1 min adds time and Next moves on early.
The extra people join groups and share a piece with someone, each on a different piece, so the expert groups stay even. With 28 names and 5 pieces, that makes three groups of 6 and two of 5.
A cooperative learning activity, first used by the psychologist Elliot Aronson in 1971. The lesson is split into pieces, and each person in a group takes one. Everyone with the same piece meets as an expert group to learn it well, then goes back to their group to teach it. Every piece is needed, so every person’s part matters.
The original jigsaw method suggests building each group by hand to mix students by gender, race and ability. A random draw is fairer. No student is sorted by those traits or placed by a judgment about their ability, and everyone has the same chance of landing in any group.
Each group gets one leader, picked at random, who keeps the group on task. Each expert group meets at a leader’s seat, so everyone knows where to go. Without leaders, the expert groups meet at different groups’ tables.
Expert groups bigger than six are split into equal parts, such as A1 and A2, so every group stays small enough to talk. The generator handles up to 1,000 names, and the activity sizes the groups to fit the projector.
Press Start activity. Each step fills the screen with its timer and the groups, and a bell rings a minute before the end and when time is up. Press Escape to come back to the setup, and Resume activity picks up where you left off.
It’s free, and everything on this page works without an account. Sign in only if you want to save your class list for another computer.
Yes, in this browser. Your names, pieces and groups are still here when you come back. To use the list on another computer, sign in and choose Save these names for next time.
Only in this browser, on this device, unless you save them as a class. Nothing is sent to our server, and names never go into the page address.
Open a room, show the PIN on the board, and students check in from their own phones.