Collaborative Pairs

"Collaborative Pairs" is fancy terminology for a classroom where turn-and-talk is encouraged. If you're a teacher who is already nervous about classroom management, collaborative anything makes you cringe and feel sickly. I understand your concerns, but I hope to suggest to you some ideas that might help you yield more of your class time to pair work.

The what and why of Collaborative Pairing is simple enough, but it may not be as simple as it sounds. 

When teachers establish collaborative pairs, these are often permanent pairings where students are partnered according to their strengths and social inclinations. For example, a very shy student might be paired with a very outspoken student to allow that pair an opportunity to balance each other socially in classroom discussion. Or, a strong reader might be paired with a weaker reader who is a stronger writer. These selected pairings are changed according to the teachers' discretion (once a quarter, once every two weeks, etc).

In a more flexible collaborative pairs application, the teacher may switch pairings as often as he or she switches activities. This can be done using the count off method (1-2-1-2) or random name selection, etc.

The MOST IMPORTANT THING is to plan lessons that complement and require collaborative pairing.

What does it mean to plan a lesson that complements and requires collaborative pairing?

In short, your lesson must be structured for two students to engage themselves in challenging, thought-provoking conversation as you teach. In addition, that conversation should result in a print or non-print product that demonstrates students' understanding of and participation in the taught concepts.

You must be comfortable with timing interactions ("Turn and talk for 60 seconds..."), student independence and yielding the power of the classroom to the children. You must also be comfortable with arranging your classroom in such a way that you can walk around the room and monitor conversations and notes for focus and appropriateness.

You must be willing to change. ;)

It sounds daunting, but this can make you and your students' classroom lives better!

First, research has proven that students listen to each other much more readily and intensely than they listen to us. It's a fact of life. As a result, when you're up teaching physical change and you ask pairs to discuss and note (in 60 seconds) the various ways that physical change can be seen in nature, there's a greater probability that those two students' discussion of physical change will be retained. Then, when you have pairs share their answers with other pairs and note those, that's a second level of discussion and notation which (through repetition and socialization) will lead to even greater retention. You're really making bacon when you turn the paired discussion into whole group discussion and emphasize the strongest examples on the board for whole group consideration.

Second, having a partner can make detailed reading tasks (no matter their length) much less intimidating to all students. Though some strong readers prefer to read alone, those are often the students who also like to discuss what they have read--and how they understood it--with others. Weaker readers will have peer support as you circle the room and provide tertiary support. Thus, with the use of guiding questions and the right pairings, students become each other's best resources and you become the consultant, the last person to be called when neither child can find the resolution. You will get much more contact time with each child than you would if you were standing at the front of the room answering questions by the raising of hands.

Some kids don't even raise their hands when they have questions. A moving teacher is more accessible via "Excuse me..."

Third, class notes and written reflections will be more thorough because students will have had the opportunity to dialogue about their thoughts and consider alternative viewpoints. Even as adults, we achieve growth by talking to other professionals about what we think, what we choose, and how those thoughts and choices might affect our immediate or future selves. You're reading this blog because you're thinking about whether or not you should try this collaborative pairs thing, and I'm providing for you some insight on why you might consider it. Though students are not core subject instructors, they can be independent thinkers, and they can provide for each other insights that otherwise might never be revealed. Not even we, the teachers, can inspire some of those Aha! moments. Only another child can spur on certain revelations for certain children.

You don't have to believe me. Just try this for yourself! I don't recommend a cold turkey implementation. There's a lot of information on planning for collaborative pairs classes, activities you can use and assessments you can assign in the paired format. Read up on the process first, choose the activities you like, and then give it a shot.

I promise you'll appreciate the experience if nothing else, and your students will be engaged in the day's concepts in a way that only pairing can provide.

Teacher Circles and Citations,

-Ms. Moss