"Chalk & Talk" versus "Cooperative-Expert Jigsaw"

SCHOOL: Houghton Valley

YEAR LEVEL: 5

TEACHER: Monica Mercury

FOCUS AREA: To investigate ways to improve student capability to participate and contribute; particularly student ability to work cooperatively.

'CHALK AND TALK'

To do this children learnt using a 'Chalk and Talk' approach:

• Teacher talks - children listen.
• A brief visual presentation.
• children read some text.
• Children do a follow-up activity about the text.
• Teacher and children have a brief discussion about what they did.

There is no social interaction amongst the students at all - they work independently.

COOPERATIVE 'EXPERT JIGSAW'

The 'Chalk and Talk' method was then compared to a 'Cooperative - Expert Jigsaw' method:

• Children form 'home' groups.
• They are given sheets of information on a topic.
• Children then form 'expert groups' with other students who have the same information as them.
• They read and discuss this information and make notes or draw diagrams to reinforce the new knowledge.
• Children then return to their 'home' groups and take turns sharing what they have learnt with the others.
• Teacher and children then discuss what they did and what they learnt.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

How much information can the students retain and record from using two different learning processes?

Do children learn more through the ‘Chalk and Talk’ method of attaining key information, or do they learn more via the ‘Cooperative - expert jigsaw’ method?

Can the children explain the process of both methods? Can the students say what the most effective method for them is and why?

SUCCESS CRITERIA FOR KNOWLEDGE:

Practitioner: I can take the information I have learnt and compare that country to New Zealand.
Apprentice: I can confidently recall the new knowledge I have learnt in detail.
Novice: I can listen to the information and record at least five facts about the topic.

SUCCESS CRITERIA FOR COMPETENCY:

(Cooperative 'Expert Jigsaw' only)

Practitioner: I can explain how to use an expert jigsaw to someone else and how to use it in another context.
Apprentice: I can listen to information and share what I have seen and heard with others.
Novice: I can listen to information and then record what I have learnt.

LEARNING STORY:

This ‘experiment’ was conducted during several sessions, over a period of two to three weeks.

I split my class into two groups based on an even gender and academic ability ratio - Roopu A and Roopu B.

PART A - "CHALK AND TALK"

In Week one of this project, I conducted a whole-class diagnostic assessment of the childrens’ knowledge of ‘Rwanda’. The initial and summative assessment were; an individual brainstorm with a venn diagram. The students used a different-coloured pen for the diagnostic assessment compared with the summative assessment.

The next step was to conduct, two separate ‘chalk and talk’ lessons. Roopu A started on Day One, (while Roopu B was out of the room), and Roopu B was on Day Two, (while Roopu A was out of the room).

Following that, there was a one-day space of time for the students to think about what they have learnt and then I revisited each group’s original diagnostic assessment separately (one group went out of the room and vice versa) and they added any new information they had learnt or retained. This assessed ‘Student Knowledge’.

PART B - "COOPERATIVE - EXPERT JIGSAW"

In the second week of this project, I conducted a whole-class diagnostic assessment of the childrens’ knowledge of ‘Romania’. The diagnostic and summative assessment was; an individual brainstorm with a venn diagram on the same page. The students used a different-coloured pen for the diagnostic assessment compared with the summative assessment.

The next step was to conduct, two separate ‘Cooperative - expert jigsaw’ lessons. Roopu A started on Day Three, (while Roopu B was out of the room), and Roopu B on Day Four, (while Roopu A was out of the room).

Following that, there was a one-day space of time for the students to think about what they had learnt and then I revisited each group’s original diagnostic assessment separately (one group went go out of the room and vice versa) and they added any new information they had learnt or retained. This assessed ‘Student Knowledge’ and with this method we also assessed ‘Student Competency’

PART C - ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION

In the last week, there was an in-depth analysis and reflection component which evaluated what was done by the students and the teacher.

The class were asked to do a PMI for the ‘Chalk and talk method’ and a PMI the ‘Expert Jigsaw’ method. Conclusions were recorded about which method they felt was the most effective form of learning.

The students were also asked to write a recount of the steps used in the ‘Cooperative - expert jigsaw’ method, which was used to grade them according to the competency success criteria.

The teacher analysed the findings and reflected on what was done, how it was done and what could have been conducted better.

RESULTS:

In terms of knowledge, the following percentage of students demonstrated their knowledge at each of the three levels - Novice, Apprentice and Practitioner

Chalk and Talk: Novice 38%; Apprentice 38%; Practitioner 24%

Cooperative Expert-Jigsaw: Novice 37%; Apprentice 33%; Practitioner 30%

I also counted the amount of knowledge, (the different facts that were known by all the children), that students in each group demonstrated at the outset and at the end of each learning session. The following table shows the comparison:

Chalk and Talk: Beginning: - 57 End: - 140

Cooperative Expert-Jigsaw: Beginning: - 71 End: - 74

At the beginning and then at the end of the topic, I also assessed how many students were at Novice, Apprentice and Practitioner levels for the competency learning success criteria. The following table shows the numbers at each level.

Beginning: Novice: - 20, Apprentice: - 8, Practitioner - 1

End: Novice - 8, Apprentice: - 13, Practitioner: - 8

I also did a PMI with each group to find out what students thought of each teaching method.

Chalk and Talk

PLUS (+)
Really good, I found out heaps more stuff.
Fun! I learnt more about a new country.
I think you (the teacher) explained it really well.
It was very interesting and I learnt new information I didn’t know.
It was cool because we used the big-screen TV! It wouldn’t have been as interesting without the TV!
It was good because you knew nothing about it, but you got to learn.
I have seen Rwanda on a map – it was fun.
It was interesting having it on a TV – otherwise I wouldn’t get it.
I felt sad for the children who were abandoned.
It made me feel really lucky, not being in that situation.
Everyone listened
The presentation was good.
I liked the teacher reading it out.

MINUS (-)
There was not enough time to record information the second time.

INTERESTING
It is an interesting way to learn
It’s easier to remember stuff doing it straight away.
I like how we do the pre-test first, then we learn stuff and after that we did the post-test the next day.
I liked working by myself.
I feel a bit in the middle because it is a good way to learn, but then I was a bit frightened of not remembering.
I felt it was good information and quite fun.
It was exciting to learn about a new country.
It was good way of learning – I was concerned about having to work alone.

Cooperative Expert-Jigsaw

PLUS (+)
We had a continuum which had how much people know.
We had our own paper and information and we only had to remember some information.
This helped you remember information and we wrote it down
The ‘expert’ groups had to discuss things, which was good.
You could share your ideas with others.
We sat in groups to share our ideas.
Groups find out information from each other.
I liked the visual presentation.

MINUS (-)
You did not get as much information
It took longer.
It could be distracting and people could get off track.
Too long and a little boring
The information took too long to read.
We should have had a break in between.
I didn’t like that some people didn’t share properly.
We went from too many things – one to another.

INTERESTING
Some students preferred the traditional method (12 students)

(7 students) enjoyed working in with this method because they picked up more information by writing it down or doing a diagram – this helped them to remember things better.

(8 students) liked it when they were in groups – they felt they helped each other.

CONCLUSIONS:

Roopu A and Roopu B were able to retain and record more information from the ‘Chalk and Talk’ method.

Roopu A and Roopu B were able to record about the same amount of information as their prior knowledge from the ‘Cooperative – expert jigsaw’ method. There was only three more extra facts recorded during the post-test than there had been from the pre-test.

About half of each group preferred to work with the ‘Chalk and Talk’ method probably because they had the skills needed to work alone. The ‘Gifted and Talented’ students were all in this range.

The other half of each group preferred to work with the cooperative method because they enjoyed the social interaction and the ability to share ideas and information. All the children who have remeidal learning needs were in this category.

Using the methods and contexts, I can conclude that the 'Chalk and Talk' way of teaching proved more effective than the 'Cooperative - Expert Jigsaw' way of teaching, where the objective was for students to be able to retain and record the most knowledge and information.

However, this does not mean that the 'Cooperative - Expert Jigsaw' is a totally ineffective way of learning, but that it would be better utilised as a way to reinforce and embed knowledge already known and could be more effective in other contexts.

SIZE DOES MATTER

The students worked extremely well in smaller groups. Smaller class sizes make a difference.