The Use of the Jigsaw in Hypothesis Testing

The Jigsaw is a cooperative learning technique in which the class is first divided into expert groups that are assigned different but related tasks. New “home” groups consisting of one memb er from each expert group are then formed. Each expert instructs the other members of this new group about what they have learned. In our application of the jigsaw, we use the expert groups to give students the opportunity to study one particular example in-depth. We use the home groups as a way to compare the different examples, and observe their similarities and differences. This gives the students a chance to create their own generalizations. We provide two examples of how the Jigsaw can be used in an introductory statistics class. The first example is for presenting different sampling techniques and a more advanced application is for introducing hypothesis testing. In the latter, we have found it effective to have expert groups use experiments to investigate a specific claim. Our experience indicates that these preliminary concrete activities will provide a smoother transition to understanding the formal and symbolic hypothesis testing framework.