Socratic Seminar Archives • TechNotes Blog

Tip #2 – Blend in simple, easy-to-use technologies that empower your conversation.

“Ok,” you may think, “I know how to do Socratic Seminar. But how do I work technology into all this?” You can use technology in a variety of ways. One easy way is to establish an online space where conversations can take place. A perfect location for this is a web log, or blog. The blog organizes its latest entries–think of them as multimedia journal entries that allow for text, video, audio–in reverse chronological order, and allows people to leave comments. And these can be moderated to prevent inappropriateness.

Some blog platforms that you should consider include:

In addition to these four blogging tools, consider taking advantage of tools like the new Google Sites or Microsoft OneNote. Each allows for open-ended questions that students can respond to, or develop questions in response to a prompt. You can have these prompts available and roll them out for inner/outer circles to ponder and discuss, or, better yet, have the students create the prompts themselves.

Tip #3 – Take the Well-Worn Path to Success

Why not follow tried-and-true approaches taken by other teachers? If you can find a book author on Twitter, you have a great opportunity for initiating an online conversation. For example, I’ve easily connected with my favorite fantasy authors (Jonathan Maberry and Jonathan Moeller) via Twitter. They might be willing to join in on a conversation with students.

You can also invite other well-known educators, community members, university professors, and/or writers. Each can participate in conversations with your students online. The goal is to nurture a rich, free-flowing, wide-ranging, academically-focused conversation. This allows modeling for students as to how this happens in real life.

Adapt Socratic Seminar for a Blog

Here’s an approach you can take, adapted from the work of other educators online:

Read one chapter a week.

Students in center circle (in the fishbowl) lead the discussion.

Students in the outer circle (outside the fishbowl) listen to the inner circle and have their own conversation via the blog.

Invite adults learners from around the world to discuss chapters and leave comments.

At the end of the process, have the author respond to questions students in both circles have generated.

At the end of each session, have students share their reflections online in the blog or blog comments section. You could even use Flipgrid or LetsRecap to mange an asynchronous exchange with the author. Watch this 38-minute video of Arapahoe students and teachers sharing how they approached this.

Live or Pre-Recorded Author Chats Made Easy

Given the wide availability of desktop video conferencing solutions such as Skype, Google+ Hangouts, Adobe Connect, and Appear.in, there’s no reason why your students couldn’t meet other adult learners and/or author(s) face to face for short discussions (15-20 minutes), discussing key concepts in the text. There are many ways to engage young writers and authors. Blogs and Twitter are simple ways to “shrink the world” and bring people closer together.

Looking for an easy way to connect with authors online? While you can connect for free via Skype in the Classroom, you may also wish to engage an author at large via author chats. The author can then participate with your class in a book study. Or, if you are dealing with a long-dead author, find someone to impersonate that author and conduct regular interactions with your class. In this two-part blog series, you’ll find several tips on how to proceed.

TIP #1 – Take advantage of the Socratic Seminar or Fishbowl Approach

Socratic Seminar (a.k.a. “fishbowl“) may be an approach you are familiar with. If not, here is a quick overview of key elements:

Students are invited to read a text.
An “inner circle” is formed of students, as well as an “outer circle.”
The inner circle actively discusses the assigned text, perhaps stating a question about the reading.
The outer circle watches their corresponding inner circle participant, employing an observation form.

Organizing Socratic Seminar Circles

In Socratic Seminar, you are going to divide your class into two groups. Here are the first two steps of the Socratic Seminar process (we will cover the final two further down in the blog entry).

1) The first group forms the inner circle. The second group forms the outer circle.

2) The inner circle members directions are pretty straightforward. Students are handed a piece of paper and asked to jot down some notes and questions they might have regarding the article/story read for class. They will share one of the questions or statements they have written with the whole group.

Outer circle members are also given another instruction: watch a specific partner and complete the following tally sheet for them.

The purpose of this is to keep them engaged and listening. I have found this to be particularly true since it enables the student to focus on one person, even as he listens to the discussion. For example, students are watching out for the following to occur:

Speaks in the discussion
Looks at person who is speaking
Refers to the text
Asks a question
Responds to another speaker
Interrupts another speaker
Engages in side conversations

Apparently, these individual pages–whether for inner/outer circle–can also be collected for grading purposes.

Getting Ready for Socratic Seminar

Prior to Socratic Seminar, you can prepare student groups to review the text. For example, you can assign different activities to each small group. Some of these activities included the following with these directions:

Venn Diagram: Compare/contrast two characters from the text.
Cluster Activity: Select one representative word from the text and put it in the center of the page. Students brainstorm what they have learned in the article/story in regards to the word.
T-Graph: Divide the paper into two parts with a large “T.” On the right side of the paper, the teacher presents a pre-selected list of five or six quotes directly from the story. Label this side as “Quotes.” On the the left-hand side of the T, students write down their collaboratively-decided meaning of the quote and its importance to the story. This side is labelled “Interpretation.”
PMI Chart: Students collaboratively list ideas/issues/values from the story that they found to be a “Plus” to the story, those that they found to be a “Minus” in the story, and those that were simply “Interesting” from the text.
Vocabulary Collection: Students search for new vocabulary or words to display on a five-pointed star that has been labelled for them. The labels may include the “5 Ws” or five separate categories such as People, Things, Feelings, Places, and Interesting Words.

Starting the Seminar

After everyone in both circles knows their job, you are ready to begin. Let’s continue stepping through the Socratic Seminar process.

3) Each inner circle member shares their question/statement. The facilitator then asks one of the individuals to elaborate on what they said. Again, the choice is up to the facilitator as to who to start with. And then, the discussion begins.

4) After a specified time, the facilitator ends the discussion. She then invites the outer circle to provide feedback to the particular inner circle member they were partnered with. The facilitator is sure to cut short any feedback that does not specifically relate to the Observation Form.

To Be Continued

In part 2 of this two part blog entry, we will explore tips two and three to blogging author chats.

Socratic Seminar

Three Tips to Blogging Author Chats, Part 2

Tip #2 – Blend in simple, easy-to-use technologies that empower your conversation.