Newsletter #10: Think, Pair, Share

Listening: A "Vigorous, Human Interest"

The poet Alice Duer Miller once said, “Listening is not merely not talking, though even that is beyond most of our powers; it means taking a vigorous, human interest in what is being told to us.” Listening is an underdeveloped—but extremely important—skill. Many educators have routines to engage listening. “One, two, three, eyes on me,” and other refrains have become ubiquitous in contemporary classrooms as routines to coach children to stop and listen to the teacher, but have we taught our students to listen to each other?

A Routine for Active Engagement

Project Zero, a Harvard Graduate School of Education initiative, creates simple, research-based thinking routines which can be used to educate children to think, engage and actively listen. Think, Pair, Share is an example of such a routine. “This routine promotes understanding through active reasoning and explanation. Because students listen to and share ideas with others, it also encourages students to understand multiple perspectives” (Ritchhart, Church & Morrison, Making Thinking Visible).

Think, Pair, Share is one of my favorite routines because of its simplicity, utility, and ease of use. 

• Set up: In a discussion, pose a question to students. 
• Process: Give students a few minutes to think. Invite students to pair with a nearby student to share their thoughts. 

You may need to model the routine to show students what active listening and sharing look like. A critical element in this activity is the “think” component. We often pose questions and expect answers immediately. Give students the opportunity to ruminate and stew on a problem: this will help develop better answers.

Think, Pair, Share can be used in so many different settings: examining lines in a play, looking at a sculpture, listening to a piece of music, or reviewing steps in a dance. Think, Pair, Share can be used to discuss the meaning of a new vocabulary word or predict what comes next in a story, a piece of music, or in a dance. Students' success is “far less dependent on the academic skills of the group… than it [is] in the group’s ability to listen and respond to one another’s ideas” (Brigid Barron, “When Smart Groups Fail”, 2003). When we encourage listening, we encourage understanding and inclusion as well as collaboration skills and positive relationships.