If you’ve been in the classroom as an educator for any length of time, at some point you have probably fallen into the “reliable answer” trap. You pose a question to your class, and after giving your students hardly any time to think, you call on the “reliable” student – the one who always raises their hand and will usually have the correct answer. In this process, you are moving the classroom discussion along at a steady pace, and assuming you are getting your point across to your students.
However, in this predictable pattern of classroom back and forth, what you are not accounting for is the amount of time students may need to think and process your questions. In fact, you are probably offering up the answer to many of them before they have even had a chance to think about their response. A great alternative to this traditional call-and-response pattern is a collaborative learning strategy called “Think, Pair, Share.”
How to Use Think, Pair, Share
The think, pair, share strategy is exactly what it sounds like – a three-step collaborative learning strategy. Here’s how it works:
Think
After posing a question to your students, you then give them time to think independently and reflect on their understanding of the prompt. This “think time” allows them to form their own ideas without the influence of what their peers are thinking.
Pair
After a reasonable amount of time, students are then paired up with a partner or small group to discuss their ideas. Ideally, this interaction allows students to feel safe sharing their thinking without the threat of saying something incorrect in front of a large group of classmates. They can listen to the viewpoints of others and adjust their own thinking accordingly. This portion of the strategy also allows students who do not have an answer a chance to gather their thoughts, formulate a response, and feel confident if called upon in the larger group.
Share
Finally, students have the opportunity to share with the whole class. Due to the fact that they have had time to share with a partner, most students now feel much more comfortable sharing their thoughts with the whole group. This step also gives students who may not usually share with the class the opportunity to develop their communication and speaking skills.
Before utilizing this strategy in your classroom, it’s important to model it for your students first, so they are completely clear about how it works. If students don’t feel confident that they are completing the process correctly, then they will be less likely to engage in the strategy and, therefore, less likely to get anything out of the process. Making sure the structure and expectations of the think, pair, share strategy are firmly understood will maximize the benefits of the process while allowing all students to feel comfortable participating.
Why to Use Think, Pair, Share
The think, pair, share strategy offers multiple benefits to both students and teachers. First, this strategy offers every student the opportunity to be involved in the learning and class discussion. All students are engaged in the process, which increases participation as a whole. This increased participation promotes a deeper understanding of the content. Secondly, think, pair, share allows for all students to practice their communication and collaboration skills. Students not only learn how to share their own thinking, but also practice listening to classmates and synthesizing ideas from multiple points of view.
Socially, students are allowed the chance to talk and perhaps pair up with someone they may not have chosen themselves. Another benefit to this strategy is the fact that your reluctant learners may feel more confident in sharing their thinking after getting the opportunity to process their thoughts with a trusted peer. Finally, the discussions students have during the think, pair, share process lend towards higher-order thinking and helps students develop their critical thinking skills as well.
If you, like countless other educators, have found yourself stuck in the rut of call and response interactions in your classroom, I encourage you to try the think, pair, share collaborative learning strategy. You can give your students a much-needed desk break and allow them the chance to do what students really want to do – talk! You may feel apprehensive about allowing this collaboration to happen in your classroom, perhaps you feel that giving students the chance to socialize around learning will lead to chaos–but by structuring the classroom dialogue to focus on a specific topic, you are shifting many of your learners from passive-learners to active-learners.
This strategy is not only student-centered, but also gives the teacher an opportunity to gauge the understanding of all students, not just the students who are volunteering their thinking. Give the think, pair, share strategy a shot and watch your classroom engagement increase, while allowing every student the opportunity to process information appropriately.
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