Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Socratic Seminars
This week I observed a student led "Socratic Seminar." Essentially, a student facilitated discussion about the novel, The Alchemist. These 8th grade language arts students dove deeply into this text and were about to articulate their ideas with such depth. One thing that stuck me as I was listening: this format really does provide students with the ability to discover their own meaning in text. As they discuss the author's intent, examples that they relate to personally are presented. As a teacher, these type of discussions are invaluable in building understanding of your student's views of the material presented in class, and in a larger context of themselves in the world. Additionally, socratic seminars are an excellent opportunity to foster community. As students collaborate to find meaning of a text or an idea, they are also connecting to one another as learners in new ways. Students really can "hear" their classmates, and in turn can be "heard." I'm looking forward to putting this learning tool into practice into my own classroom!
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2 comments:
I don't think I am familiar with Socratic Seminars... how do they function? Is the teacher a re-director, and the students are the primary directors of the discussion?
Yes, the teacher functions as a redirector/ summarizer of sorts. Here's more specifics on how the one I observed was set up: The class was broken up into two groups- one of which stayed in the classroom and one which went next door to an all- purpose room. A student facilitator for each group was chosen and then lead the discussion by moving the group through a series of questions developed by the teacher. The teacher moved between each group, listening and making a few comments, almost more of a participant. My MT said that he has done these as well, and has had the students develop questions for discussion. In this case, the students were really engaged in expressing their ideas about the text, that the teacher didn't need to redirect their conversation. Actually, when the discussion veered off- that was great at times, as the students were really grappling with the meaning of this text. The groups seemed to have a collective sense of when they were ready to move on the next question, and I along with the teacher were quite impressed with the deep thinking and respect that was shown by the students.
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