a team-learning technique initially designed to foster a cooperative learning environment that reduces prejudice and social isolation and improves academic achievement. Students work in groups on a content unit. The teacher assigns specific topics in the unit to each group member and allows students with the same topics to leave their group to study the topic with others who have that same assignment. The students then return to their original groups and teach their topics to the other members. Also called jigsaw classroom. [developed in the 1970s by U.S. experimental social psychologist Elliot Aronson (1932– ) and his colleagues]