Jenga vs Jigsaw Learning
“I will call you when I decide to make it, you tell me the then.”
I overheard my sister telling this to my mom the other day in reference to a recipe mom was explaining to her. Moving to Bangalore meant learning how to make a lot of nostalgic home food.
Her words stuck with me because of its connection to learning. She wanted to learn the recipe just in time. Such a contrast to most traditional systems that make you learn just in case.
There are two ways of learning - Jenga Learning and Jigsaw Learning.
With Jenga Learning you learn because might be useful at some point. What you don’t really know is when - it could be the very next day, the next year or never at all. You learn because you should know it, you know just in case.
Think of all the things we learnt in school - you learnt for the sake of learning. Like a game of Jenga we kept piling on knowledge without applying it. We all know how a game of Jenga ends and I’m not talking about just the wooden blocks.
Jigsaw Learning is quite the opposite. You learn something because you needed to know it like yesterday. You learn just in time and not because someone is telling you to.
Think of the first time you moved away from home and learnt how to cook, or when you had to learn a new software overnight because of that big presentation. Like a puzzle, you didn’t have the whole picture in place but you kept adding on - piece by piece.
Jigsaw Learning is not just more memorable and motivating but is also more enjoyable.
So the next time you’re learning something new, stop for a minute and ask yourself - is it Jenga Learning or is this Jigsaw Learning?
