Pair Work, a Monitored Learning Strategy

Abstract

The article is addressed to all those who teach and prefer to organize learning activities interactively. Any educator’s success in helping a student reach competency is based not just on quality teaching, but also on a rigorous planning of the envisaged learning. When examining the issue from an educational design perspective, we start from the short list of 21st-century skills: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. We then examine the first step in the conceptualization of teaching based on learning through collaboration: pair work, as reflected in a number of Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking techniques. We identify and detail the four steps in the evolution of a student community: from Think – Discuss in Pairs – Present to One Stands, the Others Circulate. For each activity though which the student builds and develops their collaborative competency, we offer explanations and specify the finer points that need to be taken care of for successful fulfilment.
Keywords: didactic planning, 21st-century competences, RWCT, interactive techniques, pair work.