Susan Hall's List: NIHF PLC

• A potent learning model that does just this is the Socratic seminar, a form of structured discourse about ideas and moral dilemmas. The process balances two traditional purposes of education: the cultivation of common values and the worth of free inquiry (Bellah et al. 1992).
  

  • Here is an example of using inquiry in literature studies discussed in our STEM design qualities
• They typically consist of a 50-80 minute period once a week. Students, usually in groups of 25 or fewer, read a common text prior to or during the seminar - a novel, poem, essay, or document. Or, they may study an art reproduction. They then respond to a question the teacher (or other facilitator) asks about what they've read or seen, often voting on initial ideas.

  • This should work with our schedule and student population in the new STEM school. Again, this is related to our design qualities.
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• students perform in a "variety of thought-demanding ways to explain, muster evidence, generalize, apply concepts, analogize, represent in a new way..." (Perkins 1993). In other words, they engage in active learning. The assumption is that when students actively and cooperatively develop knowledge, understanding, and ethical attitudes and behaviors, they are more apt to retain these attributes than if they had received them passively.
  

  • This form of cooperative inquiry defines student engagement.
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• Within the context of interesting issues that capture the imagination of students, the seminar process accomplishes other important educational objectives: vocabulary development, interpretative and comparative reading, and text analysis

  • In keeping with the concept of Backwards Design, this model "unpacks the standards"
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• character development by cultivating ways of working together to question, disagree, negotiate, appreciate different points of view, and solve problems.

  • This idea of cooperative learning helps develop leadership roles.
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• As adults, we know that the kind of moral decisions that engage students and the kind we encounter regularly are not always clear-cut. Most decisions require choices among competing values. A seminar is an important occasion for students to confront such conflicts and actively work out solutions, testing their ideas against writers and their peers.

  • Emotional engagement is a powerful tool to activate student learning.
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• As a seminar leader, the teacher's role is to guide students to (1) a deeper and clarified consideration of the ideas of the text, (2) a respect for varying points of view, and (3) adherence to and respect for the seminar process.
   
   The leader questions, helps paraphrase and restate ideas based on students' responses, and helps students solve problems when they are at loggerheads. The leader also models behaviors that are expected from students - listening, thinking, and interaction:

  • One of the ideas that we want to promote in our STEM school design is the role of the teacher as a facilitator and a participant. My personal experience in this area is one of complete exhilaration! It is an educational high.
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• The teachers repeatedly praise the renewed spirit and authentic experience of being in a learning community, rather than merely talking about creating one. They, like their students, "learn to think critically and analytically and to solve problems that are important to them" (Barth 1990).

  • One of the questions we had when designing our classrooms in a STEM situation is how authentic learning fits in. This is a perfect example.
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• As the process of Socratic seminars spills out of the formal seminar, it alters the whole school's instructional climate. Not only are students acquiring information in a different way, but they also are doing so at the high end of the thinking/reasoning process. Students who trust their own reasoning test better. And students whose schooling is connected to their experiences are more actively engaged in their own learning.

  • In defining active engagement, I think that one of the points we need to make it that students are taking charge of their own learning.
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• Because the meat of seminars are the big questions of life, students, like their adult counterparts, are involved in making decisions about how to live their lives. They are encouraged to practice habits of mind and heart that further the individual and society. As a result, the school fulfills its primary purpose: preparing thoughtful citizens for active involvement in a democratic society.

  • As a media specialist in a "Learning Commons" environment, one of the standards on which I focus is:
    Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society.
    
    This goal also includes the following 21st Century Learner library standard:
    
    Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge.
    
    Library goals are a marriage of classroom and learning commons
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