When I was in high school, I recall frequently being divided into groups of four students, each of the four members being given a different section of the textbook to read, and then we would come back together and teach each other the part that we were responsible for. You may know this as the Jigsaw Method.

In this digital age, why not allow students to be more creative than this, use the digital resources freely available online, and create something that they are proud to share with their classmates  – or even a larger, global audience?

Bring on the Student Created Learning Playlists!

Instead of assigning each member of a group a different chapter in the textbook (as described above), depending on your curriculum, you might assign each student within a small group a different sub-topic and then provide them with a few reputable online sources for them to use to build their own learning playlist for their classmates. They will have to think at high levels as they evaluate articles and online games to determine the best and most interesting resources to use for their playlists. They will have to determine questions and activities for classmates to complete in order to demonstrate learning. Students will certainly learn their assigned topic deeply!

William Glasser’s famous research states that:

We learn:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we see and hear
• 70% of what we discuss
• 80% of what we experience, and
• 95% of what we teach others!

This is why we know the most minute details of our curriculum so deeply as educators! We retain 95% of what we teach to others! Utilizing strategies in our instruction that require students to teach others has the potential for a 95% retention rate!

So how can we guide students to teach others by creating learning playlists if they don’t even know the material yet? How can this possibly be used as a tool to learn and teach others at the same time?

My solution to most problems is a Google Template! 🙂

Guide students to create a learning playlist for classmates by providing several reputable choices for them to select from. Your instructions for generating a playlist might be:

1. Find and insert one video from this teacher-provided list that hooks classmates and interests them in your topic.
2. Select an article from one of these teacher-provided websites for classmates to read.
3. Using the explore tool, search and insert an image or icon that will help others remember your topic.
4. Include a formative assessment by creating a 10 question quiz in Google Forms or Quizziz for classmates to self-check their understanding of the most important information.
5. Ask your classmates to create a product that explains the 3 most important facts they learned by completing your playlist (this could be a video, eBook, digital poster, or whatever product you choose).

Provide your students with a rubric letting them know that they will be graded on the questions they ask their classmates – did their 10 questions cover the most important content? Were their answer choices appropriate? Were the correct answers marked for each question really correct?

Providing this opportunity for students to not only CREATE, but to TEACH others encourages thinking at HIGH levels and, if Glasser’s research is right, a 95% retention rate of the information! I also think students will be intrigued to see what their classmates put together for them – improving engagement – especially knowing their products will be viewed by classmates.

Ready to jump in and give it a try? See below for a sample template I created as an example. You would need to change the links to be on your own list of possible videos and websites. Hopefully, this can get you on the road!

Click here to grab a copy of my template to edit and use. You’ll also be able to see the instructions outside the slide canvas and the directions in the slide notes to teachers.

Feel free to change, edit, and adjust! Please share with me if you use some version of this!

In my example, I created a learning playlist that gives an overview of animal groups using the template that I want students to use. I ask students to work through this learning playlist before they create their own on the specific animal group they were assigned. In this way, students get to experience the playlist template and get an overview of the topic before the directions for their assignment to create one of their own.

**It should be noted that this is just an example and NOT a carefully curated list of content for this topic.

Can’t wait to try this with students and here about how you do!