Perception analysis of students and faculty of a recently implemented Interactive Teaching session in Anatomy using ‘Jigsaw Technique’ in a north Indian medical college

Abstract

Introduction: In the new Competency Based Medical Education curriculum, interactive teaching learning has received a major thrust and it is mandated that two-thirds of the teaching schedules must comprise of interactive teaching sessions. Introduced by Elliot Aronson in 1971, the initial purpose of a Jigsaw classroom was to integrate students from different racial backgrounds. Just like every piece of a jigsaw is important to complete the picture, each student plays an important role in the jigsaw teaching session. Aim: To assess the perception of students and faculty towards a recently conducted Interactive teaching learning session using Jigsaw technique for 1 st phase MBBS students in the department of Anatomy. Materials and Methods: All hundred students of 1 st phase students of MBBS consented to be a part of the study. A total of 6 facilitators were part of the session. 2 rooms were used with each room having 50 students and seats prearranged in 10 groups with 5 seats in each group. Colour coding was followed to facilitate smooth conduct of the session. Students moved from their home groups to expert groups and back to home groups. After this the facilitators randomly selected 1 student from each of the 5 colours and asked them to present their sub-topic in front of the entire group of 50 students. At the end of the discussion, the students were administered an online qui z and an online feedback form. The principal author also conducted individual interviews with the other 5 facilitators to gather feedback. Results: An overwhelming majority of the respondents rated the session very highly. Most of the respondents agreed that apart from gaining knowledge about the topic, attending the Jigsaw session also generated their interest in the topic and motivated them to read further about the topic. Respondents also found the quiz very useful. Conclusion: Cooperative peer assisted learning empowers students and has the potential to reduce student dissatisfaction thereby making the students more independent and self-directed learners from an early stage. These benefits make the Jigsaw technique particularly useful in the setting of limited faculty numbers and limited resources because it requires lesser number of facilitators as compared to many other interactive teaching learning techniques. The authors therefore recommend a wider implementation of interactive teaching methods especially cooperative peer-assisted learning methods across the country and in all the subjects of MBBS.