Use of Tactics and Strategies

            The use of tactics and strategies can be incorporated within classroom lessons for effective instruction. Although there is not very much research on many instructional tactics and strategies, there is enough evidence from teacher usage, that suggest that they make a difference in student learning.  In our own personal experiences, and from interviewing other teachers in the Peel District School Board, we found that one of the most common combinations of a tactic and a strategy being used is Think/Pair/Share and Concept Attainment.      

Think/Pair Share

            The think/pair/share tactic is a co-operative learning strategy that has been used in various classrooms over many years.  From early childhood to adulthood, it is known that think/pair/share is a good way to create discussions as well as allow for individual thinking.  The low-risk learning strategy of think/pair/share was first developed by Professor Frank Lyman and associates at University of Maryland in 1981.  He used it to encourage student classroom participation.  Lyman is an expert in cooperative learning and critical thinking.  He is known for many innovations that have impacted upon teacher education as well as curriculum and instruction.  Think/Pair/Share has been one of his most internationally utilized cooperative learning techniques.  Since its invention, it was adopted by many other writers in the co-operative learning field.  TPS was designed to give students the opportunity to process information, formulate ideas (develop thinking) and then share thoughts with others (communication).  It works well to replace the conventional class discussion and question and answer session, which generally does not allow for full class participation at one time.  Lyman's hope is to create a paradigm shift in education where student interaction is the norm in classrooms. 

            The procedure begins with the educator ideally asking an open-ended question.  The question can vary in its degree of difficulty, as to apply a taxonomy of thinking (eg. recall, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and/or evaluation).  This allows the teacher to meet the individual needs of the students. The students are first asked to think covertly about the answer to the question.  Depending on the complexity of the question and the age of the students, varying wait times are allotted; from 5-10 seconds to five minutes.  After this time, the students are asked to pair up with a partner and to think overtly and to compare and discuss answers. In the case that there are an odd number of students, three students can be placed in the same group.  Sometimes, TPS is used in groups of four which gives the students the opportunity to learn from more of their peer group (sometimes called think-pair-share-square or think-pair-square).   Again, the time for this can vary, depending on how much information is expected to be shared.  Finally, the students are randomly called upon to summarize their discussions and share answers within learning teams, with larger groups, or with the entire class.  It is important in think/pair/share to do random calls to ensure that individual accountability has taken place.

            Think/Pair/Share can also be modified to include written work as well.  In this procedure, students begin think/pair/share by answering the question in a written format.  They are then asked to share their thoughts with another person. Together they deconstruct the results and then develop a new written answer using the best ideas of both partners.  The students then randomly share the answer with a larger group.  It is recognized that not all students formulate their thoughts in the same way, therefore writing may ensure that the differing learning styles are accounted for. 

Effectiveness

Think/Pair/Share is a great strategy because of the quick, efficient way it can be used in the classroom.  It does not take a significant amount of preparation time to set up the actual environment.  The education only needs to take the time to develop effective questions that will promote learning in the subject area being taught.  Each subject area lends itself to using TPS.  In a mathematical lesson, TPS can be used when approaching a solution to a math equation.  Giving the students the time to think about their answers and then share them is known to produce the desired results.  Another area it can be used in is a reading comprehension activity where students need to critically think about a particular question or issue.  Thinking alone and then working together gives students validation of their own thoughts, as well as exposes them to different ways of analyzing the question or issue.  Listed below are a few ways that think/pair/share can be applied by an educator:

·    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.

·    For the beginning of a plenary session.   (Waugh, D (consultant), (2003), University of Hull, http://www.eazhull.org.uk/nlc/think,_pair,_share.htm)

All of these ways explained provide the opportunity for each student to become engaged in thoughtful discussions that result in a concept being learned or a methodology being explained further from a peer's point of view.

Concept Attainment

Concept attainment is the instructional strategy influenced by Bruner’s cognitive development theory that has had an enormous impact on instruction.  Concept attainment is an inductive strategy that that encourages students to look for patterns and hunt for similar characteristics.  This search for similar characteristics or attributes is the actual process in which helps the students construct the concept.  In concept attainment, the student compares like examples (YES) to unlike examples (NO)  (Bennett and Rolheiser, 2001:  210). 

The rationale behind concept attainment is that it is a process of classifying, encouraging students to think analytically.  Within this instructional strategy, the teacher controls the data set that is presented to the students.  On one side, the teacher presents the YES examples, all these examples are a characteristic of the concept being taught.  On the other side, the teacher presents the students with all the NO examples.  These examples are not characteristics of the concept that is being taught.  After having a chance to examine the data set, the students are introduced to testers.  These are both YES and NO example and the students have to decide which side to place them under. This is the basic mode of the instructional strategy concept attainments as there are also other variations that can be incorporated.  The data set can be presented in picture form, it can be presented in a list form where the odd numbers have something in common and the even numbers have something else in common, etc.  The presentation of the data set is up to the teacher’s discretion and the ability of the students.  The paramount characteristic of concept attainment is that it can be used at any grade level and in any subject.  Other reasons as outlined by Bennett and Roheiser in Beyond Monet include; the inductive process in the concept attainment instructional strategy helps students make sense of large amounts of information.  Concept attainment helps students understand, extend and refine their understanding of the concept.  This instructional strategy allows teachers to cater to various student learning styles.  Concept attainment allows the students many social opportunities where they can work co-operatively to come to a hypothesis of the concept being taught and a conclusion as to where to place the tester (Bennett and Rolheiser, 2001:  243).

Place Mat

A Placemat is an instructional strategy used to assist students in recording their ideas.  In this strategy students are usually divided into small groups of four students.  They are centered around a piece of chart paper, and the chart paper is organized that each student has their own section to record their ideas on a certain topic. First, students brainstorm ideas individually on their own section of the chart paper.  Then, students share ideas to discover common elements, which can be written in the center of the chart paper.  The purpose of the Placemat is to provide students with an opportunity to share ideas and learn from each other in a cooperative small group discussion.  The strategy can be used with a wide variety of questions and prompts.  

Effectiveness

            As with the other Instructional Tactics, Strategies and Concepts, the Placemat incorporates Face to Face Interaction as the students are all centered around the chart paper and in clear view of each other.  No one is left out and all students feel equal as there is no leader or head of the group.  Accountability is built in because each student is responsible for recording their ideas in their section and then sharing with the group.  It provides safety as all students have the opportunity to share ideas with each other.  And, other tactics can be implemented at the same time.  A fish bone can be used to categorize the group findings in the middle of the chart paper.  Furthermore, students have the opportunity to reflect and participate in meaningful learning.  They feel that their ideas are valued, enjoy interacting with others and extend their learning by listening to the ideas of others and accomplish a small group task.

Fishbone

            The fishbone is an Instructional Tactic used to organize information.  The head of the fishbone provides the issue or ideas as the focus of thinking.  Students organize information according to some type of classification of sub-ideas.  The classification categories can be specific and given by the teacher or they can be chosen by the students independently or in a group.  For an example, students can brainstorm all the concepts learned in a unit on a place mat and then as a group they can categorize the information into a fishbone using sub-headings for all the related concepts.  In this activity, they used the Instructional Tactic of a fishbone and Placemat, the Instructional Strategy of Johnson’s Five Basic Elements to Effective Group Work and the Instructional

Concept of Accountability as each student would have been responsible for sharing what they had written in their section of the Placemat.

Effectiveness

            This instructional tactic has students engaged in the analysis level of thinking of Bloom’s Taxonomy and can be used across the curriculum and in all grade levels.  The fishbone can be used on its own or integrated with other tactics.