Teacher Reflection- Tarsia

 

Tarsia puzzles are a great way for students to practice a current topic and for a teacher to do a quick check for understanding. I would use this strategy in the middle to the end of a unit to have students utilize a fun way to practice the concepts, rather than just paper and pencil worksheets. Tarsia puzzles would also be great to use at the end of the semester for a final review.

 

 

 

 

Some challenges I could foresee with tarsia puzzles are not grouping students correctly to which students start to piggy back off of each other. Another challenge might be that the puzzles are not challenging enough for students. The way I could solve these challenges is by first making peer partners by readiness level so that there is not one overpowering student. Also, to make them more challenging students could have the option of developing their own tarsia and/or making a tarsia that has answers on all three sides so that the student does not know which side is the outer edge of the puzzle.

 

 

 

 

The point of using tarsia puzzles are to get some great practice work in, in a more fun and interactive way. A teacher can easily assess the students by analyzing their final shape. Also, teachers can assess by how students are progressing from one tarsia set to the next. If students are able to progress quickly through the sets they must really have the hang of this particular topic. If students are taking a few days to complete then a little more one-on-one help may be the key to making this practice meaningful.