ONLINE ASSIGNMENT

THINK-PAIR- SHARE

Thick-pair-share is a strategy designed to provide students with “food for thought” on a given topics enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with another students. It is learning strategy developed by Lyman and associates to encourage student classroom participation. Rather than using a basic recitation method in which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response, think-pair-share encourages a high degree of pupil response and can help keep students on task.

PURPOSE

· Providing“think time” increases quality of student responses.

· Students become actively involved in thinking about the concepts presented in the lesson.

· When students talk over new ideas, they are forced to make sense of those new ideas in terms of their prior knowledge. Their misunderstandings about the topic often revealed during this discussion stage.

· Students are more willing to participate since they don’t feel the peer pressure involved in responding in front of the whole class.

· Think-pair-share is easy to use on the spur of the moment.

· Easy to use in large classes.

STEPS

1. With students seated in teams of 4, have them number them from 1to 4.

2. Announce a discussion topic or problem to solve.

3. Give students at least 10 seconds of thick time to think of their own answer.

4. Using student numbers, announce discussion partners. (Example: for this discussion, student 1and 2 will be partners. At the same time, student 3 and 4 will talk over their ideas.)

5. Ask students to pair with their partner to discuss the topic or solution.

6. Finally, randomly call on a few students to share their ideas with the class.

Teachers may also ask students to write or diagram their responses while doing the think –pair share activity. Think, pair, share helps students develop conceptual understanding of a topic, develop the ability to filter information and draw conclusions, and develop the ability to consider other points of view.

HINTS AND MANAGEMENT IDEAS

· Assign partners- be sure to assign discussion partners rather than just saying “turn to a partner and talk it over”. When you don’t assign partners, students frequently turn to the most popular student and leave the other person out.

· Change partners- switch the discussion partners frequently. With students seated in teams, they can pair with the person beside them for one discussion and the person across from for the next discussion.

· Give think time- be sure to provide adequate “think time”. I generally have students give me a thumbs-up sign when something they are ready to share.

· Monitor discussions- walk around and monitor the discussion stage. You will frequently hear misunderstanding that you address during the whole-group that discussion that follows.

· Timed-pair-pair –if you notice that one person in each pair is monopolizing the conversation, you can switch to“timed-pair-share”. In this modification, you give each partner a certain amount of time to talk.

· Randomly select students- during the sharing stage at the end, call on students randomly. You can do this by having a jar of Popsicle sticks that have student names or numbers on them.

· Questioning- think-pair-share can be used for a single question or a series of questions. You might use it one time beginning of class to say “what do you about ---------?” or at the end of class to say“what have you learned today?”

USES FOR THINK-PAIR- SHARE

Note check, vocabulary review, quiz review, reading check , concept review, lecture check, outline, discussion questions, partner reading, topic development ,agree/disagree, brainstorming, simulations, current events opinion, conceding to the opposition, summarize, develop an opinion