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Chapter 2 - Option 2:

01/11/2019 11:12 PM | Anonymous

The 7 Core Elements of Instructional Routines (page 28) incorporate an overarching Think-Pair-Share strategy that moves students through individual, partner, and full-group learning experiences.  Discuss your teaching experience with different sized learning groups in your classroom (and please remind us of your grade level).

Comments

  • 01/13/2019 8:08 PM | Nicole Gilson
    This year I have been more focused on the math workshop model (grade 5). My class is more successful in small group settings which allow me to easily differentiate instruction. In the past I have used think-pair-share with groups of 18. Recently, I used this method in science on a reflection of concepts learned. The success of the think pair share was providing more time of the "thinking". Students were given a solid 10 minutes to productively struggle. At that point I paired students up to share their thinking and it really helped students to clarify and justify concepts learned. I realized that I need to provide more opportunities for think pair share with this group of students in a mixed ability format in math as well. Maybe once a week I could do the mini lesson and return to the think pair share with mixed ability partners. I would also include the sentence starters for my students to provide language support.
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    • 01/19/2019 8:17 PM | Luke
      Hi Nicole. I am interested in a workshop model but I am hesitant to incorporate one in my class. I only have 42 minutes per period and we are in year 2 of our new math program. I want to adhere to implementing the program as it was designed and yet I want to offer more to support my kids. What resources have you used to set up a workshop model for math?
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  • 01/18/2019 8:42 AM | Tofer Carlson
    I teach 10th - 12th grade, and tend to default to groups of four.

    Part of that comes from my student teaching - where I was teaching both biology and English in classrooms that were too small to accomodate students in non-grouped settings, or had larger tables instead of smaller desks. My druthers would be to have a number of large tables: 8 - 10 per table, where students could have larger discussions, or be split in halfsies to have medium group discussions and meet back in the middle. The desks we currently have (isosceles triangles where kids sit at the hypotenuse) don't work that way. With our current desks, my preference is groups of three - kids aren't by themselves if someone is absent, and no one is facing an awkward direction if there's stuff going on at the front of the room. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my classes are maxed out, and I don't really have room have groups smaller than four.

    The other side of this as a choice comes from the way I prefer (and strive) to teach, using more of a workshop/problem solving approach than lecturing for the majority of the time. This year I've structured classes (most are 55 minute periods that we see 6 out of 7 days in a cycle) so that we have threeish days of new material (10-15 minutes of activator/discussion, 20-30 minutes new material discussion/group work, 10 minutes for anything we need), a day built in for casual formative work and revisiting stuff that we need to, a lunch block (75 minutes) where we do a workshop where students can prepare for assessments, get extra help, or push themselves a little further, and an assessment when the class meets last block. Having students in singletons doesn't work with this instructional design, so for me it's not something I consider using.

    Every two cycles, I assign students to new groups, which are selected using a randomizer, and then adjusted to spread the kids who are absent multiple times each week, make sure that conflicts/distractions are minimized, IEPs are honored, tweak group dynamics, and contain students of different math comfort levels.

    One of the things I'd like to get better at is having students use individual think time and individual practice time before having them work together. I tend to default into the try this together, see what you can create, and share what your group talked about.
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    • 01/25/2019 7:43 AM | Anonymous
      Hi Tofer,
      One of the hardest things for me in my teaching is to allow enough individual think time; I think I rush this step &/or don't give enough direction/scaffold for students to think (so those that are lost just wait it out until pair/group time). And in my one-on-one work, I also jump in relatively quickly, and don't necessarily give my student time to process/think it through first.

      "Don't steal another student's opportunity to think by talking too soon" is one way I can promote this in a class. (Thanks to Jennifer Wilson & Jill Gough for this idea).
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  • 01/18/2019 9:13 PM | Luke - Grade 6
    Think-pair-share is a useful way to allow kids to explore math as I meet with each table of three or four to monitor for understanding. The "think" part is jump-started by the "making sense of the problem" step that I do as a whole class. It is critical that the problem (math) is broken down enough for all kids to understand. At times, I vary this step of the problem in several ways. First I preview the upcoming problems and sequence of our program to make sure I provide the appropriate content at the appropriate times. I also incorporate "necessary struggles" based on prior knowledge either I think they should know from 4th or 5th grade and/or skills covered this year. My hope is that the kids can build connections and see how useful content, conversation, and personal knowledge are to a group. While my students do share with each other and the whole class, our program uses a similar strategy called Think-Share-Compare. The main difference is the compare part. It is suggested that the teacher circulates among the students and get a sense for the level of understanding and methods used to solve a problem. The teacher then builds a sequence of out of these interactions and presents them to the class for "comparison". As long as there are sufficient differences in how a student or group solved a problem the discussion can be rich.
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    • 01/25/2019 7:48 AM | Anonymous
      Hi Luke,
      "Think-Share-Compare" is a very nice way to promote the idea that there is more than one correct solution method. If you use it routinely, your students will be accustomed to finding/evaluating more strategies and making connections between them, deepening their learning.
      Karen
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  • 01/20/2019 11:48 AM | MINDY GOTTLIEB
    Our text Ready Common Core emphasizes the use of Think, Pair, Share so by by Grade 7 I had hoped that students would be feeling comfortable with this. However on most days I feel as if I am part of a waiting game too see who will blink first. I will walk around the room and note who is talking and trying but during this time most of my students are silent. I have use groupings from 0 - 5 students. As a result I have asked students to conduct a written a private brain dump for 2-3 minutes about the problem to then have something to share with a partner or myself. I have found that if I tell the students I may be collecting their notes I have more participation and success. I do wish my students would make more of an effort to solve problems but many seem non invested or interested in learning. I am wondering if anyone else is finding this and if so do you have successful strategies?
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    • 01/25/2019 7:53 AM | Anonymous
      Hi Mindy,
      Although I'm not in the classroom currently, so can't test this hypothesis, I think that requiring some writing during individual think time (whether or not you collect/grade) can enable more productive thinking by your students. I equate thinking with writing and doing math ("don't just view the math, do the math"). Even copying a diagram helps Ss "get into" a problem. I wonder if using some sentence frames and starters might be helpful here too.

      Anyone else can suggest ways to get students to talk productively in their partner/small group time?

      Karen
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      • 01/28/2019 3:31 PM | Hala Sahlman
        Thanks for the writing tip! I'm going to try that with some of my kiddos. I too have a hard time getting them to chat, and am never sure how long to wait before helping them out. It's a constant battle!! I'll try the writing part for the thinking time and see if that makes a difference.
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  • 01/22/2019 8:29 PM | Laura Larson
    In my 7th grade classroom, students sit in groups of four, more or less facing each other, although all four seats are not necessarily always occupied, depending on absences and class size.

    During class-wide discussions/explorations, sometimes I get the feeling that students have something to offer but are reluctant to be put on the spot. In these situations, I find that having students turn-and-talk provides them with an opportunity to take their ideas on a test drive before sharing them with the class. Most of the time I get more participation in the larger group after a turn-and-talk.

    I would like to incorporate more deliberate individual think time, as I find that it's helpful for students to simply "sit with" a problem on their own before jumping in with groupmates. In early days, when I tried this, even a single minute of time seemed SO LONG, but I like to work toward increasing students' comfort level with the silence. Currently, many of them tend to raise their hand too early (in my opinion) when they could probably come up with ideas on their own if they just used that individual think time.
    --Laura
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  • 01/24/2019 10:03 AM | Anonymous
    When I taught HS full-time, each student was paired with the student sitting next to them – their “homework partner” – to check over daily homework and for other types of collaboration (“turn and talk” but I didn’t call it that). If there was a hwk Q that the pair disagreed on the answer, they were supposed to discuss further together, and then check with an adjacent pair of students to figure it all out.

    What I discovered part way through one school year was that my Algebra 2 students were doing a “vote” on which was the right answer, so if 3 had one answer and 1 had another answer, the 3 declared their answer to be correct, without any discussion of how to do it or what was done right or wrong. This experience taught me that groups have to have a clear mission and I needed to model what they had to do and say. With regard to hwk, I started providing an answer key when possible and telling Ss to work through the steps of a problem where they disagreed, while explaining to each other what they did. Or I selected a few key problems and had Ss narrate them to each other, regardless if their answers were in agreement or right/wrong.

    Overall, I think we as teachers need to thoughtfully implement partner & group work, to be sure our goals are achieved and student learning is happening. There's a lot of work out there about "Visibly Non-Random Groups", "Turn and Talk" (or Stand and Talk) etc. and how to set up group roles and norms for productive work within the group. I'm going to pay attention to how R4R addresses this in future chapters. Please comment if you have a particularly useful resource to share.
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  • 01/24/2019 12:49 PM | Jill D'Amico
    Many times I see Think-Pair-share done more in a whole class situation. Many of the teachers I work with in our K-5 school use a "guided math" model in which students rotate through three stations-many times it is a guided math lesson with a specific learning target, a math game that addresses/reinforces the learning target, and a fluency activity. The guided math lesson is usually given in a small group of 5-6 students (depending on class size). When I read this chapter it got me thinking about how we might be able to incorporate Think-Pair-Share into the small group sessions rather than always thinking about it as a whole class experience.
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  • 01/28/2019 3:35 PM | Hala Sahlman
    In my 7th grade small group special education classes I have a very hard time with think-pair-share. I have one class of two students, and another with 6 (and two additional adults). I want so badly for the students to discuss and share their ideas, but they often just sit in silence or zone out and forget what the question was. I might need to begin creating worksheets titled "Think-Pair-Share" where they are required to write their ideas down. I also find that having additional adults in the room, while mostly helpful, can sometimes be detrimental to this teaching strategy. If I am choosing to wait, another adult might jump in and try to pull information out of one of the students they typically work with. I have had to pull adults aside at times which can be uncomfortable. If anyone has tips for how to get kids talking more in smaller groups please let me know!
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  • 02/09/2019 11:29 AM | Anonymous
    Post moved from Reminders:
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    02/03/2019 10:05 PM | Cesar Llontop

    Option 2
    As I worked with students that are not considered honors, each math lesson incorporates various types of questions that range from basic to advanced. Because I use the CLG (Collaborative Learning Groups) model, students are placed in groups of four based on the scores I gathered on the pre-test given at the beginning of the school year. As I analyze the scores for each student, I proceed to put the groups together in order for each group to have two students who will be able to help others in the group as needed. Due to my classroom routine, my students are aware that working in groups require a math discussion taking place. So, when students are solving questions, I circulate around each group and write a few notes on the good points of the discussion and on the points that need to be addressed through mathematical misconception. This approach has proven to be effectively especially when the exit card question is given at the end of the lesson.
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  • 02/24/2019 12:19 PM | Kerin Derosier
    In my seventh grade math classroom, I have always loved the "think-pair-share" strategy. In the past I really focused on the pair-share portion of this to allow students to process their ideas before sharing out to a class. However, I do not think I gave enough "individual think time" first. I use this strategy daily to get my students talking and comfortable in all types of group settings. I find that if I do not get responses as quickly (or as many) as I would like I can jump to this strategy to give the students more time to dive into the question.
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