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The Socratic Method

Tags: education, teaching, socratic, math, learning, method, philosophy, pedagogy on 2008-08-18 and saved by44 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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I believe that a demonstration of a method that can teach
such a difficult subject easily to children and also capture their enthusiasm
about that subject is a very convincing demonstration of the value of the
method.
This was to be the Socratic method
in what I consider its purest form, where questions (and only questions)
are used to arouse curiosity and at the same time serve as a logical, incremental,
step-wise guide that enables students to figure out about a complex topic
or issue with their own thinking and insights.
Many
of the questions are decided before the class; but depending on what answers
are given, some questions have to be thought up extemporaneously. Sometimes
this is very difficult to do, depending on how far from what is anticipated
or expected some of the students' answers are. This particular attempt
went better than my best possible expectation, and I had much higher expectations
than any of the teachers I discussed it with prior to doing it.
I had therefore
already established a certain rapport with the students, rapport being
something that I feel is important for getting them to comfortably and
enthusiastically participate in an intellectually uninhibited manner in
class and without being psychologically paralyzed by fear of "messing up".
This method takes
a lot of energy and concentration when you are doing it fast, the way I
like to do it when beginning a new topic. A teacher cannot do this for
every topic or all day long, at least not the first time one teaches particular
topics this way.
I did this fast. I personally
like to do new topics fast originally and then re-visit them periodically
at a more leisurely pace as you get to other ideas or circumstances that
apply to, or make use of, them. As you re-visit, you fine tune.
The chief benefits of
this method are that it excites students' curiosity and arouses their thinking,
rather than stifling it. It also makes teaching more interesting, because
most of the time, you learn more from the students -- or by what they make
you think of -- than what you knew going into the class.
It is
a very efficient teaching method, because the first time through tends
to cover the topic very thoroughly, in terms of their understanding it.
It is more efficient for their learning then lecturing to them is, though,
of course, a teacher can lecture in less time.
It gives constant feed-back
and thus allows monitoring of the students' understanding as you go. So
you know what problems and misunderstandings or lack of understandings
you need to address as you are presenting the material.
Further, by quizzing and monitoring their understanding as you go along,
you have the time and opportunity to correct misunderstandings or someone's
being lost at the immediate time, not at the end of six weeks when it is
usually too late to try to "go back" over the material.
Or you can tell them you will get to exactly that in a little
while, and will answer their question then. Or suggest they might want
to think about it between now and then to see whether they can figure it
out for themselves first.
Gifted kids may have additional
insights they may or may not share at the time, but will tend to reflect
on later. This brings up the issue of teacher expectations. From what I
have read about the supposed sin of tracking, one of the main complaints
is that the students who are not in the "top" group have lower expectations
of themselves and they get teachers who expect little of them, and who
teach them in boring ways because of it.
The point is to try to stimulate
and challenge all students as much as possible. The Socratic method is
an excellent way to do that. It works for any topics or any parts of topics
that have any logical natures at all. It does not work for unrelated facts
or for explaining conventions, such as the sounds of letters or the capitals
of states whose capitals are more the result of historical accident than
logical selection.
Of course, you will notice
these questions are very specific, and as logically leading as possible.
That is part of the point of the method. Not just any question will do,
particularly not broad, very open ended questions
And it forces the
teacher to think about the logic of a topic, and how to make it most easily
assimilated.
It
emphasizes student understanding, rather than teacher presentation; student
intake, interpretation, and "construction", rather than teacher output.
These are the four critical
points about the questions: 1) they must be interesting or intriguing to
the students; they must lead by 2) incremental and 3) logical steps (from
the students' prior knowledge or understanding) in order to be readily
answered and, at some point, seen to be evidence toward a conclusion, not
just individual, isolated points; and 4) they must be designed to get the
student to see particular points.
Therefore you have to know or to be able to find out what the students'
ideas and beliefs are. You cannot ask just any question or start just anywhere.
It is crucial
to understand the difference between "logically" leading questions and
"psychologically" leading questions. Logically leading questions require
understanding of the concepts and principles involved in order to be answered
correctly; psychologically leading questions can be answered by students'
keying in on clues other than the logic of the content.
There is no magic formula for doing this, but one of the tests
for determining whether you have likely done it is to try to see whether
leaving out some key steps still allows people to give correct answers
to things they are not likely to really understand.
Further, in the case
of binary numbers, I found that when you used this sequence of questions
with impatient or math-phobic adults who didn't want to have to think but
just wanted you to "get to the point", they could not correctly answer
very far into even the above sequence. That leads me to believe that answering
most of these questions correctly, requires understandingof the topic rather
than picking up some "external" sorts of clues in order to just guess correctly.
Further, when they are logically understanding
as they go, they tend to say out loud insights they have or reasons they
have for their answers
Finally, two of the interesting,
perhaps side, benefits of using the Socratic method are that it gives the
students a chance to experience the attendant joy and excitement of discovering
(often complex) ideas on their own. And it gives teachers a chance to learn
how much more inventive and bright a great many more students are than
usually appear to be when they are primarily passive.

eLearning Technology

Tags: elearning, education, blog on 2008-07-20 and saved by29 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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» Welcome to the Eddies! The Edublog Awards

Tags: education, blogging, 2.0, elearning on 2008-07-20 and saved by23 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci « Wandering Ink.

Tags: education, davinvi, lhcs, mexico on 2008-07-20 and saved by19 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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This is how we kill each trait that may yield another Da Vinci:

1. Curiosita (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? Intense and insatiable curiosity; constantly learning due to a desire to ask and answer questions

The Murder: In schools, for the most part, students learn only what the teacher decides they will learn. Student questions will often go unanswered if they lead away from the material (go off-topic), or if there are time constraints on what must be learned that leave no time for these questions in class.
2. Dimostrazione (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? Constant testing of knowledge through experience and persistence; accepting of and learning from mistakes

The Murder: Except in the sciences (and sometimes even then), knowledge is simply given and expected to be absorbed rather than questioned and tested. On tests and labs, wrong answers cost the students their grades, therefore it becomes unacceptable to make mistakes. Mistakes are less about learning experiences and more about losing marks. Questioning societal norms is a very negative thing, even if they don’t make sense.
3. Sensazione (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? Fully noticing and observing things with all senses, but especially sight (seeing things that others miss, seeing the details)
Classrooms and assignments may be incredibly unstimulating to most (or all) senses.
4. Sfumato (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? An acceptance of ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty out of a realization that life is not black and white
The Murder: A student’s answer is either right or wrong, usually with no middle ground tolerated.
5. Arte/Scienza (From “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? Interest in both the arts and sciences and interdisciplinary work that combines them
The Murder: High school courses are most often strictly defined as an “Art” or a “Science”
6. Corporalita (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? Keeping one’s body in good shape
7. Connessione (from “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci”)

What? Acceptance and appreciation for the interconnectedness of everything in life; interdisciplinary approaches and thinking
The Murder: Facts and concepts are taught in specific classes that are independent of each other, and students are moved from individual class to individual class without knowledge of how the two might be connected.
8. Drive, energy, intense focus (from various studies on creative genius)

What? Energy and desire to focus intensely on one’s work and interests (often the same thing); merging of work and play
The Murder: Each class is allotted a certain period of time that is inflexible. Despite the student’s interest in a particular class, they must conform to this schedule.
9. Confidence, willingness to take risks, and tolerance of failure (from various studies on creative genius)

What? Willing to continue on with creative work despite rejection; ability to sell oneself and one’s talents
mistakes and failure are not tolerated in schools and this learned attitude may carry on throughout life. Instead of learning the value of taking risks, students are taught to fear any mistakes that might result.
10. Independence, introversion (from various studies on creative genius)

What? Willingness to spend lots of time alone working and honing skills; acceptance of possible isolation
The Murder: The social climate of high school severely discourages spending time alone, especially when spent “working”, and loners are isolated and considered antisocial and friendless. Refusing to conform and “sticking out from the crowd” is highly discouraged by peers and teachers.