january 9, 2024 by laura steinbrink, posted in education

Getting students to talk about your content and share their thinking Is often a struggle, and having lots of strategies in your tool belt is a must. Overusing a strategy can diminish its effectiveness, so having a variety that you can use with planning or on the fly is a must. Many of you have probably heard of or have used the researched-based think pair share strategy, so my addition to that to create “Think Pair Group Share” will be easy to adopt, adapt, and apply to your teaching repertoire.

Key Takeaways:
* Collaborative learning is essential and has many benefits.
* Students need to discuss and share their learning.
* New addition to the Think Pair Share activity helps students in many ways and is easy to implement.

IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA

There are several things I like about this activity. After reading Frank Smith’s book, Learning and Forgetting, I became more conscientious about adding collaboration to the activities I use. As Smith points out repeatedly, paraphrased in summary here by Goodreads, learning is a social process that can occur naturally, effortlessly, and continually through collaborative activities (Goodreads 2024). Students do love to talk with each other, generally speaking, and Smith also points out that “Anything that stimulates our imagination and promotes our enjoyment of an activity is a green light for learning” (Smith 89). While talking to each other is enjoyable, students aren’t as eager for academic discussion, so that is where activities like this, when done thoughtfully, can be so successful for student learning.

I’LL SAIL THE WORLD TO FIND YOU

Anytime I plan lesson activities, I consider ways to add collaboration. Knowing what I do about how we learn is the most natural way to help students move my content from their working memory to their long-term memory. Whatever question, problem, hypothesis, etc., that I want students to think about and discuss during the class period, they can greatly benefit from this activity. Often students aren’t excited about sharing their thinking with the class and teacher seconds after being presented with the question/problem.

IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF LOST IN THE DARK AND YOU CAN’T SEE

After the students have independent thinking/solving/writing time, they still might need some collaboration with a peer and/or peers before sharing their thinking with the teacher and class for various reasons. This allows them to refine their thinking, receive validation, or help them come closer to the right answer if all students are struggling. The beauty of this activity is that you also have the flexibility to structure it so that the share-out time is in the small group instead of the whole class if that suits your needs or the needs of a particular student or students.

I’LL BE THE LIGHT TO GUIDE YOU

Here’s how I run this activity (adjust as needed for your age level and students):

1️⃣ THINK: Give students a question, prompt, or problem that covers what you are working on that day or in that lesson. Allow a set amount of time for students to complete the task on their own. It is important to time it. Time is an effective and creative constraint to motivate students. While students process content at different rates, those students who are slower at processing will still have time during the pair and group time to refine their thinking on the content before sharing it with the whole class.

2️⃣ PAIR: Time this as well. Assign students to work in pairs or allow them to select a partner. Instruct them that they first need to decide who will be Partner A and Partner B. Tell the class that your partner (A or B, you pick) will share first, and then the other partner will share. TIP: It is important to monitor that both partners are actually sharing their thinking. After both students have shared, they can adjust their own responses based on their partner’s suggestions or responses. If we are honest with each other and ourselves, this is how much of the assigned homework gets done, or some version of “I got this for number 12. What did you get?” By incorporating this into the activity, it becomes a natural flow for students, but it does need monitoring, so make your rounds through the pairs to ensure the sharing is actually by both and is your content, not what event they are attending after school, what video game they’re currently playing, etc.

WE’LL FIND OUT WHAT WE’RE MADE OF

3️⃣ GROUP: Next, put students into triads or a group of four. It’s like a repeat of the process from step 2, but now you add in Partner C and or D. It is important to remember that students cannot be with their original partner. Changing up the partnerships into new and slightly larger groups adds an additional layer of benefits, too. All students will need to share individually. If you keep partners together, then one of them will end up not talking or sharing during the group round, and that leads to the opportunity for off-task behavior. This addition to the Think, Pair, Share activity also adds a buffer for students who aren’t sure that either their partner, themselves, or both understood the content or problem/prompt, so this is their chance to find out if they are on the right track or have gone off the rails in the wrong direction.

4️⃣ SHARE: At this stage, you can have each group volunteer to have one student share their responses. I use a blend of the following:

• Randomly call on non-volunteers (I use an online spinning name wheel, popsicle sticks, or shuffled index cards with student names).
• Allow individuals to share a classmate’s response that they liked better from their discussions, etc.
• Call on individuals to share their partner’s or a classmate’s response.
• Call on individuals randomly to share their own responses.

To save time or achieve better results, have students share directly with you (and the group, but not the whole class) as you circulate with the small groups, using the same options from #4.

5️⃣ ASSESS: I don’t generally enter grades for this because I use it as formative assessments to adjust my teaching or to see what misconceptions need to be corrected. However, if you need to enter a grade, have an exit ticket reflection prompt ready in your LMS or preferred platform.

WHEN WE ARE CALLED TO HELP OUR FRIENDS IN NEED

I have used this strategy with all levels of high schoolers, but since Think Pair Share works at all levels, this variation will too. We know the benefits of students having academic conversations, discussing the content, and working independently and collaboratively. Adding the Group activity to the Think Pair Share strategy also breaks up the normal routine, which makes it interesting. By layering the conversations from pairs to small groups to potentially the whole class, student anxiety levels are lowered as well. Adjust this strategy as needed and prepare for engaged learners who will grow better at sharing their learning.

WORKS CITED

“The Book of Learning and Forgetting.” Goodreads, Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/236318.The_Book_of_Learning_and_Forgetting?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=bvd2JnqHYl&rank=3. Accessed 9 Jan. 2024.

Smith, Frank. The Book of Learning and Forgetting. Teachers College Press, 1999.

RECOMMENDED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES:

• Think-Pair-Share
  1. (Lyman, 1982; Marzano & Pickering, 2005)
  2. (Fitzgerald, 2013; Goodwin, 1999; Raba, 2017; Razak, 2016; Sampsel, 2013) https://www.kent.edu/ctl/think-pair-share
• Structured Small Group Activity
  1. Chi, M. T.H., & Wylie, R, (2014). The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational Psychologist, 49(4), 219-243, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2014.965823
  2. Parker, R. E. (1985). Small-Group Cooperative Learning—Improving Academic, Social Gains in The Classroom. NASSP Bulletin, 69(479), 48-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/019263658506947908

HEADING TITLES ARE PARTIAL LYRICS FROM COUNT ON ME BY BRUNO MARS.

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