1. Teaching Critical Thinking- Think-Pair-Share Clare Kilbane, Ph.D. ckilbane@otterbein.edu http://www.otterbein.edu/home/fac/ckilbane/stpius

2. Think-Pair-Share Purpose: Promotes information processing, communication, and developing thinking skills. Skills That Can Be Built: Sharing information, listening, asking questions, summarizing others’ ideas, paraphrasing.

3. Applications: Before a lesson or topic to orient the class (previous knowledge etc). During teacher modeling or explanation. Any time, to check understanding of material. At the end of a teacher explanation, demonstration etc, to enable students to cognitively process the material. To break up a long period of sustained activity. Whenever it is helpful to share ideas. For clarification of instructions, rules of a game, homework etc.

4. Positive Attributes: –Provides students “think time” –Includes everyone- it is hard to be left out of a pair! –Students are able to rehearse their responses –Students gain confidence in sharing their ideas –The class builds critical knowledge around individual responses

5. Steps The teacher provides a question prompt to the students to which there may be a variety of answers. Students are given time and instructed to think about the prompt individually Students are instructed to share their thinking with their “learning partner” (may be intentionally assigned or for convenience) The pairs share their answers with another pair or the whole class. –If the teacher asks students to share ideas with the class he/she may ask for contributions randomly or by asking for volunteers.

6. How to “pair”

7. Open-ended (divergent) questions invite opinions, thoughts and feelings; encourage participation; establish rapport; stimulate discussion; and maintain balance between facilitator and participant

8. Variations/Accommodations –Put up an overhead with steps –Have students work to come to consensus about their ideas –Have students share their partner’s ideas with the class rather than their own (this might make them listen more carefully) –Have students write thoughts from “thinking” on notecards or another graphic organizer and turn in to teacher (this allows the teacher to monitor individual thinking) –Use flexible grouping (ability, learning styles) –Provide scaffolding for the “thinking” part- laptop/ pencil and paper, additional questions