Dive Brief:
- Grand Island, NY, middle school teacher Mary Howard has found incorporating Socratic-style discourse into her English and social studies classrooms helps students think critically about texts and engage in discussions about them.
- To turn a classroom into a Socratic seminar, Howard writes for eSchool News, teachers should use compelling texts, create guides to help students develop thought-provoking questions, and set up chairs in a double horseshoe shape so an inner ring of students can participate in the discussion while the outer circle observes and provides a backchannel.
- Once the discussion starts, teachers should step back and let students guide the conversation, give the outer circle of students a platform to add comments and questions about the discourse — Howard recommends Todaysmeet.com — and, at the end, assess student learning with a reflection writing assignment.
Dive Insight:
With all of the focus on innovative new teaching techniques to engage students, some teachers like Howard are finding some great strategies may be found far in the past. Socrates forced students to reflect on their own ideas and logic by answering question after question, digging deeper into a given topic. Giving students the responsibility to guide such a discussion is a no-tech way to engage them and develop skills they need for college and career.
Using an online backchannel like Todaysmeet requires internet access and devices, but teachers can get creative about providing that without the digital technology. If true engagement is the goal, the role of tech in achieving that is secondary.