Hi, my name is Alex and I help to train postgraduate students to teach at the University of Hong Kong. Have you ever been in a class where the teacher asked a question to the students but no one answers? Or how about the teacher is trying to engage the students with an activity, but only a few students participate. A question you might have in your own teaching is well, "How do I get students engaged and willing to participate? How might I be able to facilitate a fruitful discussion amongst more of my students?" To help you with this. I want to share with you a technique that I use in my own teaching called, think-pair-share. Think-pair-share can be used in a small tutorial class or even in the large lecture hall. Think-pair-share was designed back in 1981 by Dr. Frank Lyman, and has been used in elementary, secondary, and higher education contexts across many disciplines. In this technique, students are first presented with the question or problem related to the content being taught. This can be a question testing for understanding, a calculation, or even a discussion question where students need to generate ideas. Think-pair-share is a three-step process that helps facilitate student engagement and participation to answer the question. Let's look at each part. In Think, students think independently about answers to your question for a short amount of time. The length depends on the difficulty of the question and your own time constraints for the lesson. You should encourage students to write down their answers. Next, in Pair, students engage with one or two other students and share their answers or opinions. If appropriate, students can argue and try to convince each other their answer is correct. Students will be more likely to participate in this relaxed and low-pressure environment which will help to build their confidence. As a facilitator, you can walk around amongst the students and pay attention to see what the groups are saying. This will help you facilitate the next part. In share, students share their responses to a larger group or the whole class. Students will be less shy as they've had a chance to come up with an answer in the Think stage which they've shared with another fellow student in the Pair stage. So now, that you have a basic idea of what think-pair-share is, let's look at an example. A question I use to illustrate think-pair-share to postgraduate students is, "Using your expertise in your academic field, how would you help improve the economy and overall well-being of the people in a developing country?" This is not very easy to answer off the top of your head, much less in front of an entire class. I'm going to ask you to take part with our class as they complete think-pair-share. So, the question we're going to do today is, "Using your expertise in your field, if you can, what are some strategies that will improve the economy and well-being of the people in a developing country?" OK, so I'm just going to give you a minute or two to think about that. You can write your answers down on a sheet of paper, right? And then I'll give you a chance to discuss. Go ahead. OK. So what I'm going to ask you to do now is pair up with somebody next to you and share with them what your ideas are. OK. All right. Just find somebody right next to you, and then share with them the ideas that you came up with. OK. All right. Everybody let's bring it back over here. Let's bring it back over here. So what are some ideas that you came up with? Any thoughts? Shortage of teachers, so they can do some online courses. Okay. The more flexibility. Sure. OK. Anyone else have education in mind? Two other people. OK. All right. Anything else? Any other ideas? As you saw, after students had a chance to engage with the question and discuss with a neighbor, they were much more willing to participate. Even for those shy students that may not be willing to answer in front of the whole class, we saw that they actively participated on a smaller scale. It is even appropriate, as you saw, to invite pairs of students to respond in front of the class because they have had a chance to formalize their ideas, and in this case, because the answers are written down, they won't be caught off guard. In our next example, we will see how think-pair-share can be used to enhance technical understanding. We're going to use an example from human biology. Don't worry if that isn't your background. I'm sure you'll still be able to relate. Let's take a look at our question. "It is important that we maintain healthy lifestyle habits. If we exercise, the excess fat will seem to have disappeared off of our bodies. Where does most of the mass of the fat go?" Depending on the amount of time you have in your class and the level of your students, you might want to stop here and use think-pair-share. For a lower-level class, you may want to give some multiple choice answers for them to choose from. We will have five options. What might happen to the fat? First, it gets burned up as energy. Second, it is exhaled. Third, it is expelled in your solid waste. Fourth, it is converted into muscle. And last but not least, you don't know. For the more technical questions, students teach each other, so those who'd understand will explain to those who don't. This question enforces that in a chemical reaction, the atoms that you start off with must still be present after the reaction. That is, mass simply cannot disappear into energy. We may learn this concept in science but it may very well disagree with our own intuition. These kinds of technical concept challenging questions can be used to help guide and correct student misconceptions. Calculation questions can be used, too, as a method to ensure students can perform them. We'll conclude the video with a few benefits of the technique. Think-pair-share is more effective than simply asking a question or starting immediately with a class discussion because it provides the expectation that all students take part. Students are then given the opportunity to think and share their thoughts in a safer environment before proceeding to the larger group. Next, think-pair-share can be used in any class setting including lecture halls or lab demonstrations because you only need to turn to your neighbor. The biggest challenge that I face when using think-pair-share is in finding good questions to use. It is important to design your questions so that they are not too easy where think-pair-share isn't needed, but at the same time, not so difficult that students would not be able to get any ideas within the initial Think phase. If you are stuck, try searching online for some examples in your field. Think-pair-share can be paired with technology. For discussion questions, you can use forum or brainstorming sites such as bubbl.us, spelled bubbl.us, to record students answers in the Pair phase. This will provide a basis for discussion in the Share phase. For technical questions, you can use free online polling websites such as Kahoot!, Socrative or Poll Everywhere by testing the students on their answers twice, first right after the Think phase, and then again after the Pair phase to see if their answers have changed after students have had a chance to convince each other. This is an extension of think-pair-share called peer instruction developed by Professor Eric Mazur at Harvard University. I wish you all the best in using think-pair-share in your own teaching.
