2 Using pair work in the classroom

Mrs Roshni wanted to explore what her class knew about respiration and decided to start with exploring their ideas about breathing in and out. She explains what she did and why.

I really like science and want my class to enjoy it too. Ever since I trained as a teacher and had a science tutor who made it such fun, I have wanted to do the same for my students. It is not always easy because the school I teach in is rural and does not have a lot of equipment and resources for science. But my tutor said that there were enough resources around to make science exciting. He also said that students need to be able to talk about science and do practical tasks. I decided to start by getting my Class VI to work in pairs so that everyone had the chance to do the activities and to talk about their experiences.

We had been looking at the characteristics of living things as that was the next topic in their textbooks, but I did not want to just read the chapter with the students. I heard my tutor saying in my head that they need to investigate things and I wanted to know what they knew about respiration, so I started with breathing.

I asked them to first work on their own, placing their hands on their ribs and breathing in slowly and out again. As they breathed in and out, I asked them to think about what they could feel happening to their rib cage and their mouth and nose, and why this might be. Next, I asked them to do the same with their neighbour, putting their hands on their partner’s rib cage as their partner breathed in and out. This caused lots of discussion, laughter and interest as they tried it several times each.

While they were working I walked around and listened carefully to the conversations. I gave them time to share ideas about what they thought was happening before I asked some pairs for comments. I chose pairs who I knew had some interesting ideas.

Their responses included:

• the chest moves out
• the ribs appear to move up
• the ribs spread out
• you can feel air going in your nose and mouth
• your chest gets bigger
• you suck air in.

Then they discussed in pairs why this happened, and I asked some other pairs for their thoughts. It was clear that most pairs were able to say that it was to let more air in, but they could not explain why the expansion of the chest helped air to enter.

The idea that the air pressure is reduced by expanding the capacity of the chest and lungs, which causes the air to rush in and balance the forces, was not something that any of my students grasped. So I spent the rest of the lesson showing them how this worked and exploring air pressure and balancing forces.

The next step will be to explore breathing further, looking at how other animals breathe to add real examples. This will link with the textbook and help them to remember and understand better.