The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Education & Reference

synopsis

Synopsis

Do You Have 21st-Century Skills to Help Your Students Succeed? Do Your Students Have 21st-Century Skills to Think for Themselves? The Power of the Socratic Classroom has the answers you are looking for—answers that will supply the strategies to show students how to succeed into the future. A future that has unknown products, unidentified jobs, and unanticipated challenges. In Socratic Seminar, teachers shift to the role of facilitator, where they help their students develop the collaborative interpersonal skills, the critical and creative thinking skills, and the speaking and listening skills to face the upcoming challenges of the 21st century.

bio

Author Biography

Charles Fischer has taught in public and private schools in a variety of settings, from rural Maine to inner city Atlanta. In the past 20 years, he has worked with a wide range of students from 4th grade to AP English and has been nominated for Teacher of the Year four times. He has his Master’s degree in Teaching & Learning from the University of Southern Maine, and received his B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Binghamton University. His latest book, The Power of the Socratic Classroom, has won four awards, including the NIEA Best Education Book. His first novel, Beyond Infinity, won a 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award bronze medal (YA fiction). His areas of expertise are Socratic Seminar, Active Listening, Inquiry, Teaching & Learning, and Critical & Creative Thinking. He is currently working on a book of poetry, a short story collection, and several novels.

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Author Insight

A Seminar about a Seminar

One amazing way to help students understand what is expected of them in Socratic Seminar is to have a seminar about a seminar. This is truly a metacognitive approach, a meta-seminar. One way to do this is to collect seminar data by using an app like Equity Maps or by keeping a dialogue map or even simple tracking data like tally marks in various categories. The meta-seminar would have students examine the data, make connections, draw conclusions, and set personal and group goals. Another way to do this is to have students watch a recording of another seminar to make observations and create understandings of how to work better as a group. A third way is to have students watch something like 12 Angry Men (there are several versions), which demonstrates group dynamics and decision-making. In any event, a seminar about a seminar only needs to occur once a year to help clarify understandings of the dialogue process and to anchor those insights for the future.

Book Excerpt

The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Presenting and sharing data with the students can help them stay focused on objective criteria. Experienced seminar facilitators often track data, often as some type of conversation map, or by using an app like Equity Maps®. The collected information can be nearly anything, such as: the total number of times people spoke, the number of interruptions, the number of questions that were asked, and the average time per speaker.

The data itself could lead to interesting conversations and future seminars. Having an entire seminar on the group’s data could lead to fascinating reflective insights. Is the data telling us what we want to know? What do we want to know? What are our dialogue goals? Does better balance create better conversation? What is a “good” conversation? Is the data helping us understand the text better? How much silence is good?

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Charles Ames Fischer

The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

A Seminar about a Seminar

Book Excerpt

The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Comment on this Bubble