The Pair-Share Technique

Whether your lesson for the day is how to conduct an interview, build a Web page or use a camera, showing, not telling, will be your most effective tool. You also want to engage the class, encourage community and make sure that the students really understand what you are teaching. One way of doing this is through a pair-share technique like the one described on the WNET School site.

The following three-step pair-share process will help you incorporate collaborative learning in your own class.

Step 1:

Demonstration Pair. Select a volunteer to help with your demonstration. Show the class what you did; appear to be talking mostly to your partner, even though you're really talking to the whole class. Now ask your partner to do the same. For example, if you've just done a journal activity to open the day, call someone up to the front, then explain what you did, holding up your book so everyone can see. Now ask your partner to share her work. She'll probably do it much like your model.
tip Actively interact and share with your partner to model how we get ideas from each other. For example, in recapping a journal activity, say things like, "Wow, that's a good idea! Can I borrow it?" Then add it to your own work by writing or drawing it in your journal, and let everybody see you do it.
  When you're demonstrating new skills or techniques, use a similar process. If you're showing kids a new piece of software, for example, select a partner to repeat your work in front of the group, in his or her own file, after your demonstration. In addition to its other benefits, demonstrating in this way will help make sure that you don't introduce too many topics at once. Always ask lots of questions during your demonstration, and give good directions.
tip When you're doing a pair-share activity, always start by modeling the deciding of who goes first. Ask the class before you begin sharing your work, "How can we decide who goes first?" They'll say things like "ask who wants to" or "flip a coin" or "ladies first." Take one of their suggestions. It teaches them respect and communication skills.

Step 2:

Model Pair. Now ask two other students to share their work with each other aloud in front of the class. Note that although they are doing it in front of the group, you should encourage them subtly in your instructions to share with each other, even though they're doing it aloud. Listen to them as they explain their work to see if they understood your instructions and the concepts involved. As you select people to model different activities, keep shifting the patterns for how you choose them—sometimes two people at one table, sometimes two people from two adjacent tables, sometimes two people across the room from each other and so on. Doing so will help you build a broader sense of community in the class, get kids to interact with more of their classmates and force kids to pay closer attention.
Step 3: Class Pairs. Now have everyone turn to someone else and share his or her work. Give them one or two minutes then walk around, listening and participating. Keep alert for students who seem to be having difficulty so that you can help them later. If someone has done something exceptionally creative, hold it up for the group. If there seems to be any broad confusion, remodel the activity or technique before moving ahead, and repeat the entire pair-share process, paying particular attention to your directions and areas in which people seemed to have difficulty.
tip Once you've reached the end of a project or a milestone product within a larger project, always have a group share so that everyone can spend more time examining and learning from each other's work.