Students Gain Confidence in Extracting Information from Peer-Reviewed Scientific Articles

Jigsaw assignment

Goals –

Students gain confidence in extracting information from peer-reviewed scientific articles

Sharing key information from several papers for the benefit of the whole group (divide and conquer).

General description of a “jigsaw”

Students are assigned to read one section of a scientific paper to read on their own. They know that they will eventually need to share that information with a small group who has not read that particular section so they will need to present that information clearly. Sections should follow natural sections in the text, when possible.

Students will then re-group into a small group where each person shares their “piece of the puzzle”, in order, which brings the paper back to a whole. (thus the jigsaw).

Ideally, have more than one group read the same paper so that, prior to pulling all the pieces together, those students who have read the SAME section of the paper, gather for a brief sharing of the information for that particular section. They share their understanding of new terms and key ideas, thus helping eachother understand their segment fully. THEN they are better prepared to share the information in the jigsaw.

Here is a table of how one might do a jigsaw with 24 students in a class, reading the same paper:

Jigsaw group A / Jigsaw group B / Jigsaw group C / Jigsaw group D
Reads Section 1 / Reads Section 1 / Reads Section 1 / Reads Section 1
Section 2 / Section 2 / Section 2 / Section 2
Section 3 / Section 3 / Section 3 / Section 3
Section 4 / Section 4 / Section 4 / Section 4
Section 5 / Section 5 / Section 5 / Section 5
Section 6 / Section 6 / Section 6 / Section 6

Assign Reading – each person reads their specific section of the paper.

Students are asked to

Identify and circle new terms they don’t know when they encounter them in the reading and try to figure out what they mean. (some new terms can be discussed as a class prior to their reading).
Pick out a list of KEY IDEAS in their section. Some sections may identify research questions, some may define how a study was conducted (Methods), some may highlight important findings (Results), some may explain the implications (Discussion). Write the key findings as a list of complete sentences (or questions).
Identify any confusing points or things that need clarification. Bring those to class the next day.

Before the jigsaw, all the people who have read Section 1 gather for a short sharing and solidifying of the key ideas.

Students meet in “Section Groups” 1s meet with 1s, 2s with 2s, etc. to go over terminology, key ideas and any questions or confusion that came up. Students help each other bring clarity to their section.

THEN students regroup into their Jigsaw groups (A, B, C and D). This time there will be one “expert” for each section. Students share, in order, the key information from each section so that the entire paper is outlined for the group.

For this series of activities, we envisioned choosing some or all of the following three papers:

The Jigsaw Assignment will include the following choices of articles to read, analyze, and then discuss/present:

Aerts R, Cornelissen JHC, Dorrepaal E. 2006. Plant performance in a warmer world: General responses of plants from cold, northern biomes and the importance of winter and spring events. Plant Ecology.

Keppel, Gunnar, et al.2012. Refugia: identifying and understanding safe havens for biodiversity under climate change.Global Ecology and Biogeography21(4): 393-404.

Morelli TL, Daly C, Dobrowski SZ, Dulen DM, Ebersole JL, Jackson ST, Lundquist JD, Millar CI, Maher SP, Monahan WB et al. 2016. Managing climate change refugia for climate adaptation. PLoS One. 11(8):e0159909.

Stralberg D, Bayne EM, Cumming SG, Sólymos P, Song SJ, Schmiegelow FKA. 2015. Conservation of future boreal forest bird communities considering lags in vegetation response to climate change: A modified refugia approach. Diversity & Distributions. 21(9):1112-1128.

Turner, Nancy J., Douglas Deur, and Carla Rae Mellott. 2011. "Up On the Mountain": Ethnobotanical Importance of Montane Sites In Pacific Coastal North America.Journal of Ethnobiology31(1): 4-43.

The three papers (above) are from peer-reviewed journals; all contribute some aspect of plant responses to climate change and how to plan for climate consequences. They are all a similar reading length.

One other possible way to do this would be for first choose ONE paper to work on as a class. This way you can model exactly what you would like them to do with the paper – what to focus on, what to skim, how to summarize, etc. This way students new to how to read a scientific paper would have more modeling and time to digest the process. We suggest using the Morelli et al. 2016 as this introductory paper, if you go this route.