Think/Pair/Share:
The Office of Professional Learning Strategy Series will supply teachers with the tools, templates, texts and teacher tips to bring research-proven instructional strategies into their practice. The first series will focus on Cooperative Learning.
The ability to collaborate and cooperate in a learning environment is a necessary skill for the 21st century, and improves learning outcomes for students (Prince, 2004). Students must learn to speak, listen, and work together in order to become successful students in higher education, and the job force. Cooperative learning strategies include student discourse techniques, strategies for management, behavior routines for pairs and groups, celebrations, assessment and data collection for individual accountability and meta-cognitive strategies.
In order to bring these highly effective strategies into instructional practice, teachers must explicitly teach the behaviors associated with cooperative learning in a structured and purposeful way. With the end-in-mind, of a highly engaged, discourse filled classroom, we began this series with a structure for teaching partner and team routines- A Looks Like/Sounds Like Chart. To view Step 1 of the Strategy Series, Click here.
Collaborative Learning- Step 2
Tool: Think/ Pair/ Share A Think/Pair/Share is a very simple, yet highly effective tool to structure student discourse. During a Think/Pair/Share, students are given time to think (about a topic, their answer, an idea, etc.), given time to pair (discuss the topic with a partner) and then given time to share (share out with the whole class or large group- typically facilitated by the teacher). Think/Pair/Shares differ from other discourse routines, such as Turn & Talks because they are deliberate in giving students ample time to think before partner discussion and share out after partner discussion. Teachers often couple Think/Pair/Share with Random Reporter. Random Reporter is a way of randomly selecting students that helps to keep all students accountable. Some teachers like to alleviate the pressure of being randomly called on by allowing students to share what their partner said instead of themselves.
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Modeling: When introducing the Think/Pair/Share routine to your classroom it should be explicitly modeled and practiced.
- Model the Think: Use meta-cognitive strategies to demonstrate the thinking process to students. Be explicit- using language like, “I am thinking…,” at the primary levels, teachers may even want to point to their head.
- Model the Pair: Choose a student* or bring in a colleague, to model appropriate student-student discussions. Model to students how to position their bodies to speak with each other, think about how this would differ if students were sitting on the floor, or at their desks, model all the behaviors they may encounter. Demonstrate to students the appropriate voice level to use with a partner, and teach students to use discussion stems such as, “I hear what you are saying, Shane when you say…., however I think….” or “I agree (or disagree) with you about …… because…..”. Although these may seem common sense to you, they should be explicitly taught to students at both the primary and secondary levels.
- *Teacher Trick- It may be a good idea to chose a student who often misbehaves as a partner for the model. Choosing this student as the model for the class can create buy-in for him or her. If the student misbehaves later, the teacher can refer to when the student modeled in front of the class. “Melissa, I know you know how to do a Think/Pair/Share correctly, because you were the model for the entire class, can you show us again the correct way to do it?”
- Model the Share: Show students what a group or whole class discussion looks like. Describe and explicitly demonstrate your expectations for students. Do they “stand and deliver” or can they answer from their seats? How loud do they need to project? Make sure all of this is explained and modeled. Also demonstrate to students how their answers will be graded. If a rubric is used, make sure all the part of the rubric are discussed and explained. You may even want students to grade you using the rubric so that they have a complete understanding of the criteria needed for the different scores.
Tools, Texts & Templates
- Template: Team Score Sheet
- Text: A Review of the Research
- Blog Post: About Think/Pair/Share
- Think/Pair/Share Student Writing Template
- Discourse Rubric
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