Digital Socratic Seminar
Perhaps your students are not the most comfortable with an open dialogue in front of a group of their peers. It can most definitely be scary sometimes. Or perhaps, you tried out a Socratic Seminar and you wanted the individuals in the outer circle to participate more. I will share ideas below that might help you and your students with the situations I described above. But first, if you are not sure what a Socratic Seminar is, check out my previous post on them HERE.
Consider using a Google Doc and having students silently type and share their ideas. This eliminates the "everyone is watching me" feeling and pressure that can sometimes be experienced in Socratic Seminars. This can be very busy and sometimes overwhelming when a class of 20+ students is all accessing one document, but it can also be very excited for 20+ students to be sharing their ideas and questions with one another too! |
Last but not least, create a blog and have students respond to one another on that blog, or start their own threads of discussion. The edublogs platform is a safe place to do this where you can moderate content and approve student posts and comments, make it private to just those students invited, and even group students and monitor progress and activity. This would be very similar to what students might be expected to do in an online class in the future, so try it out! |
Todays Meet can be used for the outer circle of a Socratic Seminar to have a backdoor conversation and comments about what is happening in the inner circle! |
The most important part of any Socratic Seminar, or even the use of any new instructional strategy or digital tool, is to get student feedback. Be sure to debrief with your students. What did they like, what did they not like, what could improve the dialogue and conversation?