Teacher Learning Circles
Pair Activities
Individual Activities
The resources below can be used by both TLC facilitators and TLC participants in the design of their learning groups. The activities span a wide variety of structures, those for individual students, pairs of students, small groups, and the full group of participants. These activities can be used as introductions, mid-lesson activities, or concluding activities. These activities are largely based on those from Valle and Connor (2010).
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Quick Writes / Free Write – Participants are given a short period of time to write down their thoughts related to a topic. This can be done at the beginning of a lesson to understand base knowledge, or further along in the lesson to capture their thoughts, reflections, and questions.
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KWL – KWL stands for “Know / Want to know / Learned.” It can be used as an introduction or conclusion to a lesson or during the lesson. It is graphically organized with 3 columns. In the first, participants brainstorm any background knowledge they may have on the topic. Then they determine what they would like to learn. Finally, toward the end of the lesson they write what they learned.
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Think-Pair-Share – First, each participant writes his or her thoughts or response to the posed question or idea. Then, they are paired off to share their thoughts with one another. Finally, after sharing in pairs, everyone is encouraged to share with the whole group.
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Role Play – This requires participants to pretend to be another character or point of view and engage in a dialogue. It can be used in pairs or scenarios to encourage a deeper understanding of the content.
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Classification – The facilitator may select one key topic, and have the participants brainstorm any associated words. Once these are all completed, either during a set amount of time or until participants run out of ideas, the participants are asked to group the responses into classifications. By giving them freedom to group as they see fit, they are able to develop higher order thinking about the concept. This is well done visually with one concept per sticky note.
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Word Toss – Participants brainstorm words or phrases that come to mind with relation to the given theme or question. These could be key vocabulary words, or words from their own experiences.
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Cooperative Learning – This encompasses many forms of group work, all of which require the participants to rely on one another to solve problems, practice skills, or develop plans. For TLC, participants are likely to be grouped by interests, grade they teach, or at random.
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Jigsaw – Each small group will learn about one aspect of a single topic. Once they have finished, each group shares their area of expertise with the rest of the group.
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Acting Scenarios – Participants are given the opportunity to dramatize certain important information or scenarios. The facilitator may choose to write up a short scenario, which the participants are then able to dramatize, or they can be given a general topic to dramatize of their own accord.
Whole Group Activities
