Puzzling Without the Picture?

My mom and dad enjoy jigsaw puzzles and end each day together with music and an hour’s worth of locking tiny cardboard pieces into place.

They recently ordered three more online and were offered a surprise puzzle at an extreme discount. Who could resist that?

Well, we opened the surprise puzzle today. It came in a plastic bag—1,000 pieces. The mystery? No picture. No box. No idea what we are putting together.

It reminded me of a staff meeting many years ago when teams of two were given small puzzles to put together. Half of the teams had the box, and half got just the pieces. You won’t be surprised to hear that the groups with a box finished before the groups with no idea what their finished puzzle would look like.

A fascinating conversation followed about what we had experienced. Teams with a clear goal worked more intentionally and efficiently. And we all ended the object lesson with a new resolve to make sure learning targets are clear. We believe that no matter what the lesson is, students should know why we are doing it and how they will know they’ve done it.

• I am reading to myself because it is fun and it’s the best way to improve. I’ll know I was successful if I get started right away, find a good spot, read quietly the whole time, and ignore distractions.
• I want my writing to be clear to readers, so I will organize it into paragraphs. I will know I was successful if each paragraph has a topic sentence, following sentences with details that support the topic sentence, and a closing sentence that connects to the main idea.
• I know that understanding place value of two-digit numbers will help me with my number sense. I will be able to tell which digit represents the tens and which digit represents the ones in a two-digit number.

It is such a simple thing. But if we want every student to work with purpose and intentionality, we will make sure they have a clear picture of what they are building toward.