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Think-Pair-Share

Page history last edited by Joel Gotfredson 16 years, 7 months ago

* Created by Matthew Streit

 

Rationale

This widely-used strategy encourages students to work on a question/problem on their own, and then bounce their ideas off of a classmate/partner before the pairs offer their answers to the entire class.  This strategy takes the positive aspects of cooperative learning while still creating an expectation of individual work beforehand.  In my experience, this strategy works especially well for analyzing word problems on new concepts in a Math classroom.

  

Procedure

Teachers should model Think-Pair-Share at the beginning of the school year.  In my Math classroom, students start using this strategy during the first week of school and continue using it at least weekly throughout the school year.  I use Think-Pair-Share problem-solving most often as a warm-up activity, often with new concepts or with concepts we have not covered for a while (to make it more challenging and involving).  I have found that smaller classrooms, such as my remedial math class, allow for a majority of students to share their ideas.  Here is a sample procedure:

 

 

Set-up:

1)      Students are previously grouped in pairs as part of their seating chart.  You can pair students up as needed, or mix up groups as well.

2)      A word problem should be selected that leads into new content being taught later in class, or the word problem could be used to review previously taught concepts.

3)      Modeling needs to be more structured as students learn the process and realize your expectations of discussion and explanation.

 

 

Classroom process:

1)      Students see a word problem up on the overhead (preferably one without multiple choice answers) as a warm-up activity.

2)      Students work on the problem individually, reading the problem and writing out their steps to solve it.

a.       If students are frustrated or don’t know how to solve it, they are expected to write out what they know about the problem and give educated guesses on how to approach/solve the problem.

3)      After being given significant time (approx. 3-5 minutes, but it depends on the complexity of the word problem), they share their answers and processes with their partner.

a.       The teacher must be circulating through the classroom to ensure that students are working individually at first, and not just stalling until their partner can help them.

4)      Students should compare their work and come up with a single process/answer.

a.       Students then should write out their explanations they will be giving to the whole class, including step-by-step instructions on how to solve the problem (and possibly “why” they chose each step).

5)      After the teacher has circulated through the classroom and given the groups enough time to produce their explanations, the teacher can then call on a few groups to explain their process.

a.       I like to call on groups who got incorrect answers first and progressively have students present as they get closer to the answer.

b.      Multiple approaches to solving a math problem are encouraged, and different pairs should show different ways to solve the problem.

c.       The teacher can also supplement these explanations and different solving strategies.

d.      I also like to have the more introverted student in the pair give the explanation (since Think-Pair-Share allows them often to have more complete explanations than ones they would come up with on their own).

6)      During group explanations, questioning of anyone in the entire class is encouraged.

a.       Students need to stay on task listening to group explanations, and are encouraged to contribute new ideas raised after other groups contribute.

7)      The teacher should reflect on the explanations and transition to the new concept being taught (or review what was previously taught).

8)      Each of these steps can be shortened or extended based on time constraints.

 

 

Other Procedures

This is agreat strategy to use in social studies classes.  Some questions that students could Think-Pair-Share on in my world studies class are:

     A.  Pre-reading/pre-unit: 

          1.What do I know about the people and the culture of Africa?

 

     B.  Post-reading:  (The Pearl, by John Steinbeck) 

          1. Use examples from the book to find evidence to support the fact that Kino was a good man.

          2. Use examples from the book to find evidence to support the fact that kino was not a good man.

 

     C.  During-reading:  (The Pearl, by John Steinbeck)

          1.  What have you read up to this point that gives clues as to the culture of Kino and Juana's town?

(Contributed by Joel G.)

          

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