The Socratic Method
The Socratic Method:
Teaching by Asking Instead<br>of by Telling
by Rick Garlikov
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The following is a transcript<br>of a teaching experiment, using the Socratic method, with a regular third<br>grade class in a suburban elementary school. I present my perspective and<br>views on the session, and on the Socratic method as a teaching tool, following<br>the transcript. The class was conducted on a Friday afternoon beginning<br>at 1:30, late in May, with about two weeks left in the school year. This<br>time was purposely chosen as one of the most difficult times to entice<br>and hold these children's concentration about a somewhat complex intellectual<br>matter. The point was to demonstrate the power of the Socratic method for<br>both teaching and also for getting students involved and excited about<br>the material being taught. There were 22 students in the class. I was told<br>ahead of time by two different teachers (not the classroom teacher) that<br>only a couple of students would be able to understand and follow what I<br>would be presenting. When the class period ended, I and the classroom teacher<br>believed that at least 19 of the 22 students had fully and excitedly participated<br>and absorbed the entire material. The three other students' eyes were glazed<br>over from the very beginning, and they did not seem to be involved in the<br>class at all. The students' answers below are in capital letters.
The experiment<br>was to see whether I could teach these students binary arithmetic (arithmetic<br>using only two numbers, 0 and 1) only by asking them questions.<br>None of them had been introduced to binary arithmetic before. Though the<br>ostensible subject matter was binary arithmetic, my primary interest was<br>to give a demonstration to the teacher of the power and benefit of the<br>Socratic method where it is applicable. That is my interest here as well.<br>I chose binary arithmetic as the vehicle for that because it is something<br>very difficult for children, or anyone, to understand when it is taught<br>normally; and I believe that a demonstration of a method that can teach<br>such a difficult subject easily to children and also capture their enthusiasm<br>about that subject is a very convincing demonstration of the value of the<br>method. (As you will see below, understanding binary arithmetic is also<br>about understanding "place-value" in general. For those who seek a much<br>more detailed explanation about place-value, visit the long paper on The<br>Concept and Teaching of Place-Value.) This was to be the Socratic method<br>in what I consider its purest form, where questions (and only questions)<br>are used to arouse curiosity and at the same time serve as a logical, incremental,<br>step-wise guide that enables students to figure out about a complex topic<br>or issue with their own thinking and insights. In a less pure form, which<br>is normally the way it occurs, students tend to get stuck at some point<br>and need a teacher's explanation of some aspect, or the teacher gets stuck<br>and cannot figure out a question that will get the kind of answer or point<br>desired, or it just becomes more efficient to "tell" what you want to get<br>across. If "telling" does occur, hopefully by that time, the students have<br>been aroused by the questions to a state of curious receptivity to absorb<br>an explanation that might otherwise have been meaningless to them. Many<br>of the questions are decided before the class; but depending on what answers<br>are given, some questions have to be thought up extemporaneously. Sometimes<br>this is very difficult to do, depending on how far from what is anticipated<br>or expected some of the students' answers are. This particular attempt<br>went better than my best possible expectation, and I had much higher expectations<br>than any of the teachers I discussed it with prior to doing it.
I had one prior relationship<br>with this class. About two weeks earlier I had shown three of the third<br>grade classes together how to throw a boomerang and had let each student<br>try it once. They had really enjoyed that. One girl and one boy from the<br>65 to 70 students had each actually caught their returning boomerang on<br>their throws. That seemed to add to everyone's enjoyment. I had therefore<br>already established a certain rapport with the students, rapport being<br>something that I feel is important for getting them to comfortably and<br>enthusiastically participate in an intellectually uninhibited manner in<br>class and without being...