Creating online jigsaw puzzles for education

Resources Creating online jigsaw puzzles for education

You may know the humble jigsaw puzzle as a relaxing pastime. Something for de-stressing and unwinding. But did you know their origins were in education?

It makes sense when you think about how visual so much of education is: recognising patterns and shapes that make up maps and famous works of art, as well as problem solving and spatial reasoning.

Online jigsaw puzzles are now easier than ever before for organisations and businesses to customise for educational purposes. And with the digital format, educators have extra settings to more effectively tackle learning objectives.

In this article, we’re going to go into great detail on this subject. We’re going to be talking about why puzzles work in education, software requirements for building educational jigsaw puzzles, and creation tips for more effective learning outcomes.

Why jigsaw puzzles pack a punch in educational settings

The jigsaw’s very origins lie in education. A British cartographer and engraver cut up a wooden board with a map on, and gave it to a local school to help with geography lessons.

It was so effective because it was more fun than other teaching methods, and he was even able to build a business out of it, and for the first 100 years of jigsaw puzzle history, this was their primary function. (Although they would go on to become fun pastimes for their own sake, as well as for marketing around product promotions and marketing calendar events like Christmas.)

But why were they so effective?

Maximising learner engagement

The first thing is that it’s an engaging experience. If you’re trying to put a picture back together, you’re very focused on that picture. You’re thinking about the edges, looking for patterns, and paying attention to subtle details you might not otherwise see if you were looking at it whole.

It’s kind of like looking at the world from space. You miss the details. You don’t see the people or the streets or the mountains or the rivers. (Or more accurately, looking at a picture of it from space, as less than 700 people in history have actually been to space.)

Zoom in and look at it continent by continent, country by country, square mile by square mile, and you’re much more engaged in what the world actually is.

The same logic applies with a jigsaw puzzle, whether it’s for adults or children. You’re getting into the weeds of something and really paying attention.

With a custom-built online jigsaw puzzle, this attention can either be all about the image itself, be it a piece of art or a map, or a diagram, but it can also be redirected to intermediate content screens where more information is divulged through videos, images, and text.

Encouraging critical thinking and problem-solving

Solving educational jigsaw puzzles – in fact, even regular jigsaw puzzles – is solving problems. It’s making the pieces fit together in the right order.

This encourages participants to form a strategy and use their brains, which is useful for developing young minds, and useful for keeping older minds active as part of brain training.

Catering to diverse learning styles and age groups

Educational jigsaw puzzles also cater to a range of learning styles, and can actually cater better to students who struggle with regular, or more traditional teaching methods.

This isn’t learning by book or by rote, this is learning by positive association. Students can enjoy the challenge of the puzzle, get interested in the subject matter, and then intermediate content screens can reinforce and build on the students’ interest.

Requirements in jigsaw puzzle creation platforms for educators

Of course, online jigsaws aren’t necessarily something you can just knock up before a class, or put together when classes aren’t on – or at least they didn’t used to be.

Now you have online puzzle building software, but what features do you need yours to have?

The key really lies in four areas from an educational perspective:

Tips for building effective educational jigsaw puzzles

So once you’ve established your jigsaw creation software, how do you go about creating the most effective possible jigsaw for education?

Here are our 5 top tips:

1. Define clear objectives for your educational puzzle and build accordingly

Every aspect of school fits into and serves some sort of curriculum.

By the same logic, so too should your online educational jigsaw puzzle.

You start with your learning objectives and look for subjects and topics that can be served by the jigsaw format.

Geography, art, and scientific diagrams are the obvious contenders, but there are other opportunities with things like history, and even maths.

The key is to not over-cram your online jigsaw puzzle with key learning points. Remember, it’s a way to spotlight one or two key learning outcomes, and generate enthusiasm around subjects to encourage students to be more engaged.

Less is more.

2. Utilise every gamification lever available in your puzzle creation platform

The beauty of online jigsaw puzzles, particularly those built on enterprise-grade gamification platforms, is that you have far more levers to pull than old-school jigsaws when you’re creating an educational puzzle.

For example, you can enable a leaderboard to enhance concentration and create social interaction which can encourage discussion. (The points are based on how quickly students can solve the puzzles.)

On Drimify, you also have gamification experience builders like the Dynamic Path™ which allow you to build multi-module learning journeys. This could allow you to utilise games like jigsaw puzzles and memory cards, and pair them with quizzes and intermediate content to deliver a more tailored and complete educational experience.

3. Set puzzle difficulty to match your students’ ability levels

If you’re a teacher working with teenagers, four puzzle-piece jigsaws likely won’t be challenging enough to generate any engagement. Similarly, if you’re educating young children, a 64-piece online jigsaw will likely overwhelm them and result in very few completions.

This principle – obviously – follows on from curriculums being tailored to age groups and ability levels. Primary or elementary school kids probably aren’t ready to learn about genocide, and students taking the exams that will decide which form of higher education they will go into are beyond learning about farmyard animals.

4. Test your puzzle before launching your educational jigsaw

There’s almost no crueller or more unforgiving audience than children or students, so test your educational jigsaw puzzle relentlessly before unleashing it on your classes.

In addition to testing that it ticks all the educational boxes and is at the appropriate difficulty level, look out for unnecessary screens which might slow down the pace of the experience and disengage some students.

If possible, have a couple of students to help with the testing.

5. Analyse the data from each cohort so you can keep improving your puzzle

Using an enterprise-grade gamification platform like Drimify will give you extensive data and statistics, and after each cycle or cohort has used your educational online jigsaw puzzle, you can look at factors like engagement rate, completion rate, and time taken to assess if adjustments need to be made.

If you’re using a gamification platform and the puzzle as a module of a larger gamified learning experience, this will give you even more information. For example: if the questions in a quiz related to the jigsaw puzzle’s content are consistently being answered wrong, it might indicate that something needs to be improved with your jigsaw.

Create the educational puzzle that you need to help your classes

Every group of students and every curriculum collide to create unique educational requirements that teachers must fulfil.

Ultimately, when it comes to educational games, you’re sometimes best off creating the tool you need to create best outcomes for your learners.

This is now easier than ever before with powerful gamification platforms like Drimify. Create a free account, and start building the educational jigsaw experience you need straight away.

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