Jigsaw
Democratizing Online Education with Student Engagement Solutions

The success of today’s education system depends on how fast it can adapt to the growing needs of a diverse student population. Many institutions now utilize distance learning programs and online education as channels to satisfy these needs. However, as these programs take teachers out of the real-time reach and rely only on student’s self motivation, the effective learning output can be limited. “While these programs offer information learning, the students miss both the experiential and application learning that is very critical to gaining a full understanding of the materials,” says Josette Fleszar, Co-founder, CEO and President, Jigsaw.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Jigsaw’s virtual learning solutions offer an engaging environment that let students interact and actively participate in class. “Our learning solutions are designed to not just encourage engagement during class but expect engagement. This changes the learning experience for everyone,” adds Fleszar.

The company’s virtual classroom allows teachers to reach students around the world to conduct virtual classes, student projects, student study groups, professional development, parent/teacher reviews and other communications. The tools in Jigsaw provides live interaction and collaboration including activity based learning with the ability to see what the students are doing and gauge what they are learning. Jigsaw’s multi-dimensional learning application includes multi-media features that allow teachers to simultaneously utilize different learning tools and approaches to get their point across to the students.

“Adding to these, our unique personalized learning system lets the students determine what, when and how they want to see data,” remarks Ginger Ackerman, Co-founder and Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Jigsaw.

This encourages learning by allowing students to review data in real-time and move back and forth to recapture a missed point or confirm a point currently being discussed in the educational material—all of which are personalized to suit individual needs. “Our goal is to change virtual education from a teaching environment to a learning environment,” she adds.

Jigsaw also lets teachers use activity based learning to ensure attention, engagement and accountability. “Being able to selectively call students to the whiteboard and collaborative board and let everyone review presentations and documents offers a high level of active engagement,” says Fleszar. “Our accountability tools such as instant pop quizzes, pre-set tests and surveys, active room monitors and named collaborative boards let the teacher review which students are actively engaged,” she adds.

Jigsaw’s solutions have gained huge clientele including Desire2Learn, Haiku Learning, WebWiseTutors and others. The company has helped schools with only a few students who opted for foreign languages such as Latin or Mandarin. Offering classes and teachers to these few students is an expensive indulgence for schools that most can’t afford. Jigsaw helped them pool their resources, align their schedules and offer classes by sharing a teacher across the school system.

Jigsaw’s is currently used in over 34 countries and is bringing learners from around the world together. “We want to expand this by continuing to break down the barriers and allow students to get the best education possible, regardless of where you reside,” concludes Fleszar.

Our goal is to change virtual education from a teaching environment to a learning environment