I learnt a few ‘structures’ by Spencer Kagan when I attended his workshop on ‘Teach Less Learn More’ last March. I tried to introduce one of them, Think Pair Share activity, to the class today. I plan to introduce a few other structures over the Semester and evaluate the outcome at the end. I was actually looking forward to see the reaction of my students. I have the advantage of having a small class size of about 40 students for both lecture and tutorials/ design studio. Therefore, I included the activity during lecture in order to get them engaged with the lecture topics. I also prepared a simple worksheet as something tangible for them to write their thoughts on. Then I used a student name selector tool which I bought during the Kagan workshop that flashes their names at random to get them to speak. I found the class more engaged than usual. There was laughter and greater attention to what was taught. One cheeky student questioned why I was ‘mentally torturing’ them since it was an 8 to 10 am class. However another student defended me saying that they are having more fun in class. It was an encouraging and a positive response for me. I shall now implement more of such Cooperative Activities in my class. Below is a reflection of what I carried out:

Active Learning Method: Think Pair Share and Developing Scenario

 

Why did you choose this active learning method?

I learnt about this learning method when I attended a 2 day workshop by Spencer Kagan on using Kagan Structures to implement teach less learn more. Amongst all of his Structures, I decided to start off with Think Pair Share as I felt it was effective in engaging students in the lesson as well as one of the easiest Structures to start with especially with a large class of 40 students.

 

How did you incorporate this into your teaching session and what were the results?

I incorporated this Think Pair Share at two points within an hour long lecture, this stretching the lecture to about 1 hour 20 minutes. There were 40 students in the class. After I covered several slides about a certain topic, in this case about the concept of permeability as applied to urban developments, I handed out a worksheet (see attached). I then pose a question as to the degree of permeability of HDB estates, colonial areas, private estates and cul-de-sacs. I set a timer for 10minutes and told them to pair up with their partner. After 10 minutes, I used software by Kagan which displays the names of students on the big screen at random.

 

The class became quite lively and there were a lot of 2-way interaction going on, both during the 10 minutes think time and then the random name calling. Students cheekily said that I was torturing them on a Thursday 8am lecture because they were forced to listen and participate, not knowing when their names would be called out. Another group of students disagreed because they were enjoying what would otherwise be a mundane, ordinary lecture. They were laughing when the names were displayed and helping their classmates when they got stuck. I made sure that the questions posed were not recalling facts nor too difficult but rather an open ended, discursive one.

 

The second Think Pair Share is also about Developing Scenarios. I was covering a topic called Kevin Lynch’s five aspects of imageability of a city: paths, nodes, landmarks, districts and boundaries. The second page of the worksheet asks them to think about what they recall of Orchard Road especially when a tourist asks for directions. By doing this, the students will be able to relate the scenario of how people recall Orchard Road as a road (path), gathering areas like in front of Lido or Wisma (nodes), landmarks such as Istana and Takashimaya, a shopping district and lastly, bounded by buildings and Scotts Road/Orchard Road Intersection and Cathay.

 

What would you do differently if you had a chance to do it again?

If I had the chance to do it again, I would extend the think pair share to a jigsaw, whereby I would tell the students to change pairs and continue the sharing session before being called out.

 

 

 

Will you ever use this active learning method again? Do provide reasons or your reflective thoughts here.

I would certainly use the active learning method again and I have, for the reasons stated above. The students are engaged, there is a 2 way flow of information and views, the lesson becomes more memorable. Kagan has shown that it has worked with countless other teachers so there is no reason why it should not work if implemented creatively.