Steps for Students to Think-Pair-Share |
Steps for Teachers to Think-Pair-Share |
1. Think/Write about your understanding of the questions or problem addressed from a text.
2. Pair with someone to describe, explain, and/or compare understanding of the question or problem. 3. Share your or the group's knowledge by a discussion and/or visual to the class as a whole to show what you have learned (Gardner, 2009). |
1. Pose a question/problem, usually by writing it on the board or
projecting it. 2. Have students consider the question/problem on their own (1-2 min). 3. Then allow the students to form groups of 2-3 people 4. Next, have students discuss the question with their partner and share their ideas and/or contrasting opinions (3 min). 5. re-group as a whole class and solicit responses from some or all of the pairs (3 min) (Takayama, 2015). |
What is the Think-Pair-Share Strategy?
Think-pair-share is a strategy used for processing information, listening, asking questions, summarizing others' ideas, and paraphrasing. It was first structures by Professor Frank Lyman at the University of Maryland in 1981 (Mohamed, 2015). It is one of the foundation stones for the development of a 'cooperative classroom'. The pair and share both asks students to be interactive and engaged with both other students and a class as a whole. When a student is asked to think of an answer to a problem/question individually from a text, they are expected to comprehend the given text. For example, while reading a story a teacher may ask "Think about why the character was feeling like that, then share with a partner" for students to answer this they need to be understanding the story. Bringing in the pair aspect of the strategy allows students to see how others are comprehending it and have a chance to add to their understanding. Lastly, sharing to the whole group allows the teachers to see who is comprehending it and why or why not. A think-pair-share can be used at anytime of the lesson to gain more knowledge of what the students are or are not comprehending. This strategy is not limited to vocabulary and reading it can be used in all areas of curriculum and is only limited by the creativity of the teacher (Mohamed, 2015). The video below explains how a think-pair-share should be used and why. Alex describes how a teacher should be teaching the strategy. He also explains how the students should move through the process.
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Benefits for using the Strategy Think-Pair-Share
The main aspect that this strategy focuses on is simultaneous interaction (Mohamed, 2015). It encourage many positive things in a classroom. Think-pair-share promotes cooperation, engagement, critical thinking, activates prior knowledge, and builds up confidence. It is easy to use and takes no preparation (McQueen and Matthews, 2012). It also is a great way for teachers to collect quick feedback (Takayama, 2015). Think-pair-share is a way of providing increased wait time so that students are given an opportunity for more time to think before speaking and/or writing (McQueen and Matthews, 2012). Think-pair-share pushes students to be independent thinkers and come up with their own ideas through the understanding of the question and text (Mohamed, 2015). Students can also learn through one another by bringing in different angles (lenses) built from unique personalities and experiences. Seeing one another's different understanding of the text could add or take away one's previous understanding furthering their comprehension. It also builds on their individual accountability because they are expected to come up with their own ideas first.
Tips for Think-Pair-Share1. For odd number of students: teacher can pair up with a student or have a group of three take turns talking.
2. Allow enough time for ALL students to share ideas and talk about the topic. 3. Use a call and respond method to get attention back from group. 4. Call on different students to share with the class each time -Encourage the shy students to share to build on confidence. (Suhs and Gelzleichter, 2015). Writing Standard:_CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.1
Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.1.A Introduce claim(s) and organize the reasons and evidence clearly. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.1.C Use words, phrases, and clauses to clarify the relationships among claim(s) and reasons. |
The following video explains why we should use think-pair-share. The speaker discusses other names used for this strategy, It also gives an example of the students engaging in the activity and how it should look while using this strategy in a classroom. Notice how the teacher distinguishes the "rules" for her students
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Writing goes well with this strategy because it would allow students to back up their idea/concept with critical thinking and thorough thoughts with reasoning on paper.