The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling(garlikov.com)
garlikov.com
The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling
http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html
9 comments
It's also very tough on the student if they don't know where something is going, and it's not suitable for every sort of learning. It's great for reasoning from first principles as in philosophy (where we want to wrestle with deep abstractions but don't need more than basic a priori knowledge to do so).And it's great for building on top of domain knowledge (as in law schools where students read the facts of a case and its procedural history in advance, and then the professor challenges students to explain why a case got decided a particular way). But as a means for acquiring domain knowledge - gathering facts rather than technique, and building those facts into a context - it's quite inefficient. Another problem is that it's not very responsive to the needs of weak students - teachers are likely to put most of their attention on the good students who can sustain long causal chains of reasoning rather than weak (or shy) ones who get stuck or intimidated, and the more advanced the exchange between the professor and a strong student, the harder it can be for bystanders to keep up. One way of testing a student is to bait them with what seems like an easy question that will lead them off point into a dead end; this is potentially humiliating for the student if the teacher is aggressive (which then dilutes the lesson somewhat with negative emotions, both for the student and possibly sympathetic onlookers). If the student is sharp enough to see the trap and deflect or decline a series of invitations to error, the chain of reasoning that links the points of a complex argument together gets 'stretched out' and onlookers may lose sight of the overall direction or (worse) fail to appreciate the potential pitfalls that the teacher is drawing attention to because they are being skillfully avoided.
This may not be simply an issue of patience.
It's tough to put yourself so throughly in your audience's headspace that you can pull off the right kind of leading questions consistently. Sometimes you get an audience that you just can't seem to model effectively enough to pull this off with.
Most of the time the biggest stumbling block is actually getting the audience to actively participate. A lot of (most?) people are used to the standard I'm-going-to-stand-here-and-spray-at-you method of lecturing so getting past that can take some work.
It's tough to put yourself so throughly in your audience's headspace that you can pull off the right kind of leading questions consistently. Sometimes you get an audience that you just can't seem to model effectively enough to pull this off with.
Most of the time the biggest stumbling block is actually getting the audience to actively participate. A lot of (most?) people are used to the standard I'm-going-to-stand-here-and-spray-at-you method of lecturing so getting past that can take some work.
When tutoring I use the Socratic method to find out where a student is stuck. If I ask them a question that they don't know the answer to, I back up a little and ask a different question that should help lead them to the answer to the first. (It helps a lot that I tutor math and programming, two subjects where topics build logically on simpler topics.)
I do like it when the lecturer asks a question genuinely expecting an answer from the class. When it does happen, however, the class takes so long to respond I can't wait to just throw out a likely wrong answer to move the lecture on.
The socratic method has an awful failure mode: you can't teach facts, and you can't teach anything derived from empiric data.
The periodic table of the elements has a lovely underlying theory based on the physical properties of electron orbitals. This cannot be elicited from students who don't know it.
Asking socratic questions about the effects of drugs on human bodies is useless.
Don't trust a socratic-trained engineer to build your skyscraper, or your pizza oven.
The periodic table of the elements has a lovely underlying theory based on the physical properties of electron orbitals. This cannot be elicited from students who don't know it.
Asking socratic questions about the effects of drugs on human bodies is useless.
Don't trust a socratic-trained engineer to build your skyscraper, or your pizza oven.
> The periodic table of the elements has a lovely underlying theory based on the physical properties of electron orbitals. This cannot be elicited from students who don't know it.
Of course you can't give students a periodic table and Socratically enquire how this came to be. What you can do is, through the Socratic method, elicit an understanding of the lovely underlying theory. That's far more valuable than being able to parrot the table from memory without understanding it.
I'm not sure what you mean by not being able to teach from empiric data--experiments seem to me to be a practical implementation of the Socratic method.
Of course you can't give students a periodic table and Socratically enquire how this came to be. What you can do is, through the Socratic method, elicit an understanding of the lovely underlying theory. That's far more valuable than being able to parrot the table from memory without understanding it.
I'm not sure what you mean by not being able to teach from empiric data--experiments seem to me to be a practical implementation of the Socratic method.
Facts are useful but not always the end goal; in Bloom's taxonomy, this is the first/base kind of understanding. Sometimes we can ask questions and elicit the gathering of facts, but not always. Once the information has been gathered, we can use the socratic method to aid in each of the other five types (comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation).
So you're right, sometimes you can't teach the facts. But you can definitely teach anything derived from empiric data... how was it derived in the first place? I think you can provide the data (in class experiments, a trip to the library, real research papers, etc), and then elicit discussion about what it means.
So you're right, sometimes you can't teach the facts. But you can definitely teach anything derived from empiric data... how was it derived in the first place? I think you can provide the data (in class experiments, a trip to the library, real research papers, etc), and then elicit discussion about what it means.
It is only one (very useful) tool in the toolbox.
It can be used to teach facts. Facts aren't just facts, they are the context around facts. You can't just learn that steel has a UTS of 500 MPa with a density of 7.8 g/cm^3, while aluminium has a UTS of 50 MPa with a density of 2.8 g/cm3.
You could ask students which material is used to build planes, and then discuss which material would be better. At some point, you'll need to introduce the exact figures, but that's a small portion of the lesson. There's a reason why the back page of a textbook can hold most of the facts that the other 300 pages teaches - information and knowledge are mutually inclusive.
You could ask students which material is used to build planes, and then discuss which material would be better. At some point, you'll need to introduce the exact figures, but that's a small portion of the lesson. There's a reason why the back page of a textbook can hold most of the facts that the other 300 pages teaches - information and knowledge are mutually inclusive.
It is also a wonderful way to teach your own children, and more importantly discuss issues that frustrate them.
Spitting out answers without having an question makes the answer a useless fact. Understanding is acquired. Understanding can never be forgotten.
I would never have gotten through my teenage daughter's high school years without it. I am a single father so relying on other traditional methods don't work as well as reasoning directly.
She earned a full scholarship to Dartmouth, was a Intel Semifinalist (genetic research), and is now studying Biology with a course concentration in Neuroscience.
I only taught her how to think about things, never facts.
Spitting out answers without having an question makes the answer a useless fact. Understanding is acquired. Understanding can never be forgotten.
I would never have gotten through my teenage daughter's high school years without it. I am a single father so relying on other traditional methods don't work as well as reasoning directly.
She earned a full scholarship to Dartmouth, was a Intel Semifinalist (genetic research), and is now studying Biology with a course concentration in Neuroscience.
I only taught her how to think about things, never facts.
No facts at all?
I'm pretty Socratic in my approach but find it breaks down without elemental factual data to build the enquiry upon. Indeed I find it best for approaching assumed knowledge in order to build an ethos of enquiry.
Why does the moon 'shine' can be deduced by the student in part by the teacher first recalling associated facts; even if these are to be assumed true as part of the enquiry.
I was reading Laches recently - [Plato as] Socrates enquiring as to what children should be taught (fighting,duh!) - and Socrates destroys the others attempts to logically promote their views. Ultimately though they're left with nothing and have to come cap-in-hand and say 'alright bighead, how do you propose we educate our kids'. Sorry, I'm wittering ... I think the point is that I find it lacks as a constructive method, one needs experiment and axiomatically held data to support it.
I'm pretty Socratic in my approach but find it breaks down without elemental factual data to build the enquiry upon. Indeed I find it best for approaching assumed knowledge in order to build an ethos of enquiry.
Why does the moon 'shine' can be deduced by the student in part by the teacher first recalling associated facts; even if these are to be assumed true as part of the enquiry.
I was reading Laches recently - [Plato as] Socrates enquiring as to what children should be taught (fighting,duh!) - and Socrates destroys the others attempts to logically promote their views. Ultimately though they're left with nothing and have to come cap-in-hand and say 'alright bighead, how do you propose we educate our kids'. Sorry, I'm wittering ... I think the point is that I find it lacks as a constructive method, one needs experiment and axiomatically held data to support it.
But couldn't her success be because you've gotten her used to dealing with the way Western education systems work?
I remember wanting to learn everything when I was younger, but was frustrated by teachers' attempts to 'make us think' about things, asking the class questions (most of which I knew the answer to already), and requiring tons of 'coursework'. I came to school to learn, not to work! If I want to design something, it'll be something useful for the world, not something that is being done at the same time by other students in my class, and likely by students in other classes and at other schools too.
I remember wanting to learn everything when I was younger, but was frustrated by teachers' attempts to 'make us think' about things, asking the class questions (most of which I knew the answer to already), and requiring tons of 'coursework'. I came to school to learn, not to work! If I want to design something, it'll be something useful for the world, not something that is being done at the same time by other students in my class, and likely by students in other classes and at other schools too.
One should not forget, in the end everyone was so annoyed that they made him kill himself.
[Edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates#Trial_and_death
"But perhaps the most historically accurate of Socrates' offenses to the city was his position as a social and moral critic. [...] insofar as he irritated some people with considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness. His attempts to improve the Athenians' sense of justice may have been the source of his execution."
[Edit] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates#Trial_and_death
"But perhaps the most historically accurate of Socrates' offenses to the city was his position as a social and moral critic. [...] insofar as he irritated some people with considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness. His attempts to improve the Athenians' sense of justice may have been the source of his execution."
Here's the previous submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2446316
This isn't really what I think of as the Socratic method, which pertains to a style of discourse (whether it be teacher-student or peer-peer) involving questions by one side and answers by the other to investigate nonfactual issues, and which attempts to keep the discourse grounded in solid reasoning.
Of course, eliciting information from students, regardless of what you call it, is a well known and essential aspect of any good lesson plan. It is a real challenge to ask the right questions and stick with it when students aren't making the discoveries you want, and it's tremendously rewarding when it works. But it's not the whole story, and I think it's tempting to get excited when it works and lose sight of the longterm goals for you students. For many topics, it must be followed at some point with practice, and a LOT of it. It can leave some students totally behind. In fact, it's actually still quite teacher-centric, and should be used in short segments and (when possible) replaced by student-centric activities.
Of course, eliciting information from students, regardless of what you call it, is a well known and essential aspect of any good lesson plan. It is a real challenge to ask the right questions and stick with it when students aren't making the discoveries you want, and it's tremendously rewarding when it works. But it's not the whole story, and I think it's tempting to get excited when it works and lose sight of the longterm goals for you students. For many topics, it must be followed at some point with practice, and a LOT of it. It can leave some students totally behind. In fact, it's actually still quite teacher-centric, and should be used in short segments and (when possible) replaced by student-centric activities.
It is. It's just like Meno's slave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menos_slave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menos_slave
There are lots of question and answer situations -- not all of them are the Socratic Method. I prefer a narrow definition: the Method was largely "to elicit admissions, as from an opponent, tending to establish a proposition" [1] and, esp. regarding education, pertains more to the discovery of philosophic Truths. In Meno's slave, the point isn't to teach someone geometry but to prove that teaching is possible, i.e. that any uneducated person could follow logical arguments and learn; the philosophic truth at hand is learning. What is the philosophic truth at hand in this case?
[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socratic+method
[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socratic+method
I've been in a math class at the college level which operated exclusively by the Socratic method of questioning. Within an hour or two it became obvious that the appeal to the crowd didn't work so well, as some people will understand the concept faster than others. As a result, we went around to each student. However, this did result in sometimes trying to get an individual student to say the "correct" thing in order to follow to the next sequence of questions. People were put on the spot, which isn't necessarily bad. Also the class moved as slow as the slowest person and it took a whole lot of preparation by the professor. We had about 20 people, and at that scale it wasn't necessary to concentrate on each question, but only to the general topic. Even at that scale the method was breaking down, both from previous reasons as well as introducing a small amount of "stage fright". However, everyone left the class knowing what was taught, with a minimum of confusion along the way.
There was a relatively recent article in Time about the socratic method not being so great: http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/14/why-asking-questions-might-...
Basically, they recreated one of Socrates' lessons. The students gave similar answers to the 50 questions, but only half figured out the task at the end of the lesson. The students didn't understand the importance or goals of the questions and answers.
That's not to say the socratic method doesn't work. If you read enough research and anecdotal stories about education, you'll come to realize that everything works and nothing works. For every idea in education, research will eventually show that it is ineffective and a waste of time and resources.
Basically, they recreated one of Socrates' lessons. The students gave similar answers to the 50 questions, but only half figured out the task at the end of the lesson. The students didn't understand the importance or goals of the questions and answers.
That's not to say the socratic method doesn't work. If you read enough research and anecdotal stories about education, you'll come to realize that everything works and nothing works. For every idea in education, research will eventually show that it is ineffective and a waste of time and resources.
So the students were fed the original 50 questions from Socrates dialog... This is very different from the Socratic method as I understand it, which relies not on a static set of questions, but on the interactions between the teacher and the audience. That the students answers to the 50 questions were similar the answers in Socrates' dialog is not enough.
A static list of questions is just an ordinary lecture, reworded. The OP's article shows how precious the Socratic method is in giving you an immediate feedback from the students. In this sense it is crucial that questions are formulated based on the previous answers.
The author does that in the article: prepared questions are important to guide the general line of reasoning, but improvised questions are just as important to navigate along this line.
A static list of questions is just an ordinary lecture, reworded. The OP's article shows how precious the Socratic method is in giving you an immediate feedback from the students. In this sense it is crucial that questions are formulated based on the previous answers.
The author does that in the article: prepared questions are important to guide the general line of reasoning, but improvised questions are just as important to navigate along this line.
> So the students were fed the original 50 questions from Socrates dialog... This is very different from the Socratic method as I understand it, which relies not on a static set of questions, but on the interactions between the teacher and the audience. That the students answers to the 50 questions were similar the answers in Socrates' dialog is not enough.
As Plato/Socrates wrote, the problem with books is that they can't talk back and react to you.
As Plato/Socrates wrote, the problem with books is that they can't talk back and react to you.
The method might not be useful in every situation, but is an useful tool.
It brings your audience in the middle of the learning process and, by making the right questions, allows tutor to gather information about tutored's line of thinking.
It brings your audience in the middle of the learning process and, by making the right questions, allows tutor to gather information about tutored's line of thinking.
A lot of professors think they're using the Socratic method, but their problem is they don't have the patience to wait for an answer. Posing questions rhetorically doesn't work, especially once the people you are teaching catch on and stop trying to come up with an answer.
I've tried doing the socratic method when tutoring people - it's extremely frustrating and most of the time I can't pull it off.
How does one gain the necessary patience for this?