Think-Pair-Share is a strategy that is used regularly to surface prior knowledge and recently learned concepts. The teacher or a student poses a specific idea or question, then in a format that promotes sharing and listening, information is exchanges.

How It Works
1) Think. The teacher or a student poses a specific idea, concept, question, or thought to consider. Students are provided a very short amount of time to consider the prompt.

2) Pair. Students are paired up. They can exchange information in a variety of methods. When initially learning Think-Pair-Share it is very supportive to have specific means of sharing. Examples include:

• student A shares a piece of information while student B listens, then student B shares a piece of information while A listens, and so on for a designated amount of time.
• students collaboratively develop information using a visual map

3) Share. The paired students then share with the whole group to extend the sharing of information further.

Using Think-Pair-Share
We know that students learn, in part, by being able to talk about the content. Think-Pair-Share supports highly effective learning because it structures the discussion. Students follow a prescribed process that limits off-task thinking and off-task behavior, and accountability is built in because each must report to a partner, and then partners must report to the class.

Modeling the Method
Think-Pair-Share is built upon listening to each other's ideas, and how each other thinks. To effectively model, the teacher regularly models Think-Pair-Share with a student to the whole class so students learn:

• how to navigate thought
• how to listen
• how they navigate a variety of situations including when 'stuck'

Surfacing Knowledge
Think-Pair-Share provides participants the time to practice their thoughts with a partner prior to going public with the whole class. This provides time to access prior knowledge, as well as collaboratively develop information and ideas.

Variations and Extensions
There are many thoughtful and progressively higher level uses of the basic form of Think-Pair-Share including:

• Read/Listen-Talk-Write/Map/Perform
• The Question Game

updated 1 March 2007