Think-Ink-Pair-Share
Description
Think-Ink-Pair-Share is a cooperative learning strategy where students are given structured time to think about a prompt, write down their thoughts in response to the prompt, pair up with another student what they have written, and then share some of their conversation with the larger class.
Cooperative learning strategies, like Think-Ink-Pair-Share, help teachers accomplish many goals in the classroom. It increases engagement and provides opportunities for formative assessment and differentiated instruction. Cooperative learning strategies also allow for the collaborative construction of knowledge, provide an opportunity for students to develop and practice communication skills, and prepare students for working on teams when they leave school to join the workforce.
For a Think-Ink-Pair-Share, students need to know:
Who their learning partner will be before they start.
Exactly what the thinking prompt is to which they are responding.
How much time they will have to write their response.
That they are to use all the time they are given to think and write about their responses.
The outcome they need to produce for the class (e.g., a written product, a comment to share with the class, thumbs up) at the end of the conversation.
How they should communicate with each other (in particular, how they should listen and talk).
Quick Tips
Make sure that students have learned the expectations for how to act, talk, and move during the cooperative learning activity.
The teacher has carefully considered the optimal makeup of each group of students.
Consider using sentence stems to ensure students are practicing speaking skills during the Think-Pair-Share.
Resources
Did you know?
Cooperative Learning strategies are a great way to increase oral language through speaking and listening for all students, but especially for emergent bilingual students?
Other Cooperative Learning strategies include Jigsaw, Round Robin, Round Table, and Fold the Line.
Cooperative Learning strategies are also the C in WICOR strategies.
Another version of this strategy that allows for increasingly larger small group collaboration is "Think - Pair - Square - Share."
This strategy is one of the top ten strategies recommended by the Stetson & Associates Group.