EFFECTIVENESS OF THINK –PAIR-SHARE TECHNIQUE OVER CONVENTIONAL TECHNIQUE IN PROMOTING SCIENCE EDUCATION AT UPPER PRIMARY STANDARD

Abstract

At the upper primary stage the children are getting their first exposure to ‘science’; then is the time to bring home the right perspective of what it means to ‘do science’. Science education at this stage should provide a gradual transition from environmental studies of the primary stage to elements of science and technology. Scientific concepts to be taught at this stage should be chosen so as to make sense of everyday experiences. Though most concepts should be arrived at from activities/experiments, a rigidly inductive approach is not necessary. The Think-Pair-Share technique is designed to differentiate instruction by providing students time and structure for thinking on a given topic, enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with a peer. This learning technique promotes classroom participation by encouraging a high degree of pupil response, rather than using a basic recitation method in which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response.