Think-Pair-Share
Table of Contents
Bloom's Level
Use
Setting
Activity
Technology
Related Strategies
Description
Think Pair Share is a collaborative learning strategy that gives all students an opportunity to formulate individual ideas before sharing them with at least one other person. First, students think about a topic, question, or problem posed by the teacher and generate their own response. Next, students take turns sharing and discussing their ideas with a partner. Finally, students share their ideas with the whole class. This strategy promotes classroom participation, cooperative learning, and formative assessment. It can be used in a variety of activities including discussion, brainstorming, content review, prior knowledge checks, problem-solving, etc. Teachers can incorporate Think Pair Share during lesson planning or for impromptu discussions.
When To Use It
As a learning strategy, use Think-Pair-Share when you want students to:
- engage in meaningful conversations with partners
- take time to respond to questions before sharing or discussing them with others
- practice communication skills such as clear and concise speaking and active listening
- practice vocabulary and conversing in world languages
- review concepts or topics with targeted questions
- read with a partner and respond to questions
- brainstorm ideas and share them for feedback
As an instructional strategy, use Think-Pair-Share when you want to:
- teach students how to engage in meaningful discussion on a topic, including how to justify their ideas and give and receive constructive feedback
- assess student understanding by observing students as they discuss a topic or concept with their peers
- activate prior knowledge before introducing a new concept or topic
- review concepts and skills
- differentiate instruction, especially for students who are reluctant to participate
How To Use It
Advance Prep
Think-Pair-Share can be integrated into a lesson plan or used in the spur-of-the-moment during a lesson. Ensure that your implementation is aligned with your learning goals and objectives.
- If you are integrating Think-Pair-Share in a lesson plan, identify what questions or prompts students will respond to and how much time students will spend working individually, in pairs, and sharing as a whole group.
- Consider how students will be paired, whether you will strategically pair students or allow them to choose their partner.
- Plan to model Think-Pair-Share with students before they engage in the strategy independently. You may choose one or more students to model the strategy with you to demonstrate clear, focused sharing and active listening, including how to ask effective follow-up questions. Sentence starters can help to scaffold Think-Pair-Share discussions.
Implementation
- When introducing Think-Pair-Share, explain the purpose of the activity and the guidelines for discussion. Guidelines may include how long students will spend on each component and whether they will write their responses, plan a collaborative response, or share their partner’s response during the whole-group share-out (which promotes activity listening and accountability).
- Think: Begin the activity by presenting students with a question or prompt that they will think about and respond to independently. Specify the amount of time students should spend “thinking,” typically 1-3 minutes depending on the question.
- Pair: Explain how students will be paired and ask them to share and discuss their responses with their partners according to guidelines for the activity. Circulate to monitor and support students as needed. Pair sharing is typically 2-5 minutes.
- Share: Have the whole class convene to share and discuss their responses to the question or prompt. Each pair can choose one person to share with the group, or each student can share their partner’s response.
- After the class discussion, you may consider having students reflect with their partners about any new insights they gained from the group discussion.
Pros
- Builds confidence and communication skills
- Promotes participation and an inclusive class community
- Supports comprehension and conceptual understanding of a topic
- Develops the ability to synthesize and draw conclusions
- Develops empathy and the ability to consider other points of view
- Helps to differentiate learning
Cons
- Student pairing may require a deliberate strategy to ensure productive discussions
- Students need to be explicitly taught skills for sharing, discussing, and listening
Culturally Responsive Application
Think-Pair-Share promotes inclusion and connectedness in a culturally diverse classroom by providing all students with an opportunity to share their ideas with others and learn from and about their peers. It encourages active listening and respect for other perspectives. Depending on how the strategy is implemented, Think-Pair-Share can build cross-cultural understanding and knowledge as students share their unique perspectives, interests, and experiences. It can also be a collaborative learning exercise where each student brings something valuable to the shared response.
Emerging English Language Support
It gives students an opportunity to converse with their peers, something that can drastically improve language acquisition.
Students with Disabilities Support
It teaches students to share ideas with classmates and builds oral communication skills.
Subjects
All
Why It Works
This strategy allows students to be actively involved in the learning process to remember and understand the subject matter. (REF29) Think-Pair-Share actively encourages and motivate students in thinking,exploring and sharing their opinion and ideas from reading activities. (REF30) Students’ reading abilities improved after the application of Think-Pair-Share strategy (REF31) It also effectively improved student speaking ability especially in short monologues. (REF32)