Tarsia Jigsaws

Last year, one of my former student teachers told me about Tarsia, a software program that allows teachers to create jigsaws (and more). He remembered that I created similar jigsaws using MS Word (no small feat) and experienced this joy himself as a new teacher. I wish I knew about this tool several years ago.

Tarsia includes an equation editor for entering matching expressions. Teachers may also enter distractors so that corner and edge pieces are not easily determined. The activity cards are scrambled when outputted, ready to be cut out by students.

Here’s one that I quickly created:
logarithms jigsaw (normal)
logarithms jigsaw (larger)
logarithms solution

In my classroom, I often used jigsaws to review a topic. In addition to providing students with opportunities to practice, these activities get students talking mathematically. As a teacher, I am able to listen to students making mathematical arguments about whether or not pieces fit together and observe them checking and revising their work. Also, eavesdropping on these mathematical conversations will tell me if there are topics that need to be discussed further (e.g., rational exponents).

Formulator Tarsia (for Windows only) can be downloaded here.