I think the Jigsaw method of cooperative learning is a great exercise. Not only does it allow students to work together cooperatively, but it allows them to work on several other skills as well. During the jigsaw exercise students can work on social skills and communication skills. They will also be working on note-taking skills if they are writing down all the information that they are obtaining. I think the jigsaw method is also a great way of getting a lot of information in a short period of time. I think the jigsaw exercise could be used a million different ways in a history class depending on the topic that is being studied. If a certain war is being studied each group can study a specific battle in depth then they can switch members and each learn about a specific battle. If the student are learning about early America and Indian tribes they could each teach each other about a different Indian tribe.
I think the graffiti method could be used on those same topics but maybe for more of a review, with each group describing each event and then summarizing what everyone has said at the end, and coming up with the important information that would be needed for the test.
