Think, Share, Pair | Practicalstrategies

Think, Pair, Share

Think, pair, share is an instructional strategy that allows students to formulate answers to difficult questions, then share those thoughts and ideas with other students and the rest of the class. A question is posed to the class, and depending on the difficulty of the question, students are given time answer it on their own. After a predetermined amount of time, students are then asked to pair up with a partner and share their thoughts and findings. Students may also be asked to share their thoughts with the class.

Think, pair, share may be used with students of all ages and content areas and can easily be adapted to a variety of scenarios and teacher preferences, such as number of students in a group, amount of time given, and allowing students to creatively share their findings: posters, charts, maps, etc. Teachers should evaluate students based on what and how the student shares their findings and adapt the strategy as necessary.

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Data Driven:

Students agree think, pair, share is a great way to increase student achievement and critical thinking.

100% say it is a useful strategy

80% say it increases the amount of critical thinking

100% say it is a good strategy.

Teachers have also determined this strategy to be beneficial to their classrooms. Think, pair, share allows teachers to organize content and track students while giving students the opportunity to interact with one another.

Radhakrishna, R. (2012). Tps (think, pair and share) as an active learning strategy. NACTA journal, 56(3), 84.

It is important to note that think, pair, share is not a concrete, non-changing teaching strategy. It can be modified to work with elementary level students and college level students. Younger students may benefit from time to act out or use objects to discover the critical points or content during their pair time. Forcing the students to critically think and formulate words around their hypothesis is a valuable skill to have, in and out of the classroom.

Tyminski, A. (2010). Enhancing think-pair-share. Teaching Children Mathematics, 16(8), 451-455.