Wanna know why the placemat method is a fantastic think pair share activity for your students? Let me tell you! Because it makes learning visible! On paper. And I love getting my students to see they are learning things. Plus it’s a great method to gather knowledge among peers and get the best results from a sharing session.
Whenever I get my students to do think pair share just ‘in their heads’ or only verbally there’s always a couple of them that just don’t do it. If I don’t make them show what they’ve shared, it’s apparently not compulsory to them. The placemat exercise forces them to put on paper what they’re thinking, and that’s why it’s one of my favorite think pair share activities there is.
Need ideas for what to have students think pair share on? Check out this free Topic Picker Cheat Sheet to give you some ideas!
What is the think pair share strategy
How does think pair share work? It’s a cooperative strategy in which you first ask students to think about a topic individually. For example, ‘what words do they know that are related to family?’ or ‘What are some reading strategies you can use?’ After they’ve thought about it, they must share what they came up with with one other student. The last step is then sharing the pair’s thoughts with an even larger group, possibly the whole class.
Why is think pair share effective
This strategy is effective because students can first think about the topic themselves, in silence, no pressure.Then when they share, they’re sharing what they thought individually, but they’re also collecting the thoughts of another person, and in so doing, adding to their own ideas. And from sharing with the whole group, the individual will gain even more ideas from all the other pairs in the group.
Placemat exercise: an example of think pair share activity
A great think pair share activity example is the placemat exercise. It works like this:
- Have students in a small group divide a large piece of paper into 4 parts and a square in the middle, like so:
- For the ‘think’ part, each student must write their thoughts on the topic in their own corner. No looking at what others are doing!
- For the ‘pair’ part, students will first each read their own ideas to the small group. When they have heard everyone’s ideas, they’ll collect these ideas, and write them in the square in the middle.
- In the ‘share’ part, the small group will share their ideas that are in the square with the whole group. When they hear new ideas from the other small groups, they will add those in another color to the square.
I love this activity because it makes students participate, because they have to write something down at each step, which keeps them accountable at every stage. They can’t get away with not doing it. Plus, learning is very visible to all participants, because it is on paper for everyone to see. It’s a great way to share!
Other think pair share activity ideas:
Other think pair share type activities I like are in these articles:
Why I love speed dating as a cooperative learning activity
Why these examples of active learning strategies are amazing
