Attached is my Master’s Thesis Capstone on the Socratic Seminar.
Socratic seminars are an ancient form of discussion in which students gather in a circle to discuss a text with minimal input from the teacher. Socratic seminars are used in English Language Arts classrooms to improve students’ participation, critical thinking, and active listening skills through a collaborative approach. Research shows that learning improves with regular class discussions. However, there is a lack of research supporting effective methods to improve class discussions in high school ELA classrooms. This study aims to improve one teacher’s class discussions through action research. The research question was: how does a ninth grade English teacher in South Florida use the Socratic seminar method to increase student participation and engagement in the areas of higher order thinking, text dependence, and skills in the area of speaking and listening? The study analyzed the impacts of implementing three Socratic seminars with one class of 24 students in a ninth grade ELA classroom in Florida. The study found that (1) the teacher’s involvement during student-planning time impacted the depth of discussion and use of text evidence during the seminar, (2) Student feedback from the outer circle improved the discussion in real time and had lasting impacts on the subsequent seminars, and (3) the grading process impacted some student’s quality of participation negatively. These indicate that Socratic seminars can improve the quality and depth of ELA class discussions, and highlight a need for more investigation into best planning and grading practices to optimize class discussions for student success.
English Education and Curriculum Design Experience 