life science

Action Research Plan: Socratic Seminar

Focus: To maintain a classroom conversation among several students (6-12) that maintains it focus and that is engaging for each of the participants involved.  I would love the conversation to maintain its topic/focus for at least 10 minutes without teacher facilitation.

Progress (Up to December)… So far I am getting kids used to asking each other questions and I also am playing a game with them so that they want to answer and share questions. I have only done it a couple of days, but so far my students have enjoyed it.

According to my Action Plan I am here: Currently students are now leading the discussion in my classroom. I am walking around actively listening to conversation to ensure they stay on track. I also may need to interject a point or an interesting question if it appears that the conversation has lost its appeal. In the next weeks, I will begin identifying strong students to record in an active Socratic seminar, along with video from a heterogeneous group of girls.

Well its a new year and with our school starting off on a brand new campus, my girls have picked up an even greater sense of urgency to do their best. With that said, we have been moving slowly but surely into more student centered conversations that focus on the standard of the week. Currently we are focusing on interdependence, which is the study of how organisms depend on one another and their environment. So as a class every morning the girls are discussing pertinent information with each other via our classroom opener. During the opener students are asked to explain questions that have been posed to them by other students as well as myself. They are also the ones talking and carrying on the discussion, without my help. I actively listen to the dialogue to ensure that it does not veer too far off topic or at times I will throw in an interesting question, just to get their minds going again! So far we have made progress, not as much as I’d like, but we are getting there!!!

My action research is moving forward. It is not moving at the pace I would like it to, but it is moving. I am working on having an entire class discussion without my input. So far, when we have Socratic styled discussions, I am the mediator. And those times that I have tried not to be the mediator, I have seen the conversation move in the wrong direction. However, my girls do enjoy the idea of being able to discuss information they are learning with their counterparts in this type of forum. Yes, we are progressing!

So I am trying something new in my classroom, known as focused reading. During FR students are given a reading assignment that will reflect what the day’s lesson is on. The FR last approximately 12 minutes, while there is also a few minutes after that we briefly discuss the reading. The FR is seems to give the students a greater pride in understanding what the days lesson will be focused on. For instance, we are learning about the 6 kingdoms of life. Yesterday, my students read 4 pages out of their science book that was geared solely on the 6 kingdoms. After reading and discussing we dove into the work period assignment and that was to discuss various characteristics of the kingdoms. Students that are not usually involved/aware of the topic we are learning were actually participating in the lesson because they had the opportunity to learn some about it, before diving into it. I especially enjoyed giving those students the opportunity to feel more apart of our conversation. I also included a FR today that was geared towards a particular kingdom, Fungi. When our discussion started around it, the students just seemed to be more involved because they had a reference point.

By building FR into my daily lesson, I hope to see more confidence when asking higher-order questions and while working on socratic seminar-type discussions.

From the wiki: http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/workshops/promoting.html Promoting Student Inquiry: This article goes into some more detail about the process and how to engage student while discussing questioning techniques

 I just finished reading the article, “Promoting Student Inquiry” that deals with a three ways to have inquiry in a science classroom. And as much as I liked the idea behind the article, I have a big problem with whether or not these types of inquiry are feasible in my classroom. The article addressed inquiry through three lenses: provide students with an observable phenom and ask questions about it, have students read articles regarding interesting happenings in science, and to have teachers to suggest possible topics for investigation. All of which I would love to do, but I feel like there are some restrictions that will prohibit me from moving forward with two of the strategies.

  It seems like time is so critical to us teachers (especially public) because we are given a particular set of standards that need to be taught within a rather tight time period. For instance, the first strategy of providing the students with an observable phenomenon to ask questions about does not seem feasible with our time restrictions. I feel like and I know that activities that are geared towards student thinking and sharing always seem to take a good chunk of time to complete. And while students have dove into the process of inquiry there are still some very specific ideas that must be generated from that discussion or hands on activity. Furthermore, how do I know if the students mastered the objective of the conversation and if they have not, do I try one more time or do I move onto a new way to re-teach? With approximately 25 students in each class, I find it difficult to assess their knowledge of what they have learned from the conversation…

 I guess my question is can we have a meaty conversation that is directly aligned to the standards being taught, while still allowing them to venture off?

So the items that I scored a 0 or 1 are the following: 2, 3, 4, 14 and 15. My fist low numbers came out of the Lesson Planning and Implementation portion the assessment. I find it rather difficult to assess student’s prior knowledge and then to create a lesson plan based on what I’ve learned. I have approximately 25 students in each class and I feel like there are some fundamental things that all students need to know and if some students are getting it for the second time, its ok, I will be pushing their thinking further. Also, I find more useful to use the prior knowledge with one-one one time or small group time. Also student exploration rarely preceded formal presentation last year, but since apart of the fellowship I have started allowing students to explore the topic before I introduce it.

I guess I see that one of my obstacles with Inquiry based teaching is giving my students (seemingly) free reign of the class because one the questions ask, “The focus and direction of your lessons are often determined by idea or questions originating from students.” My response was 0. However the explanations to the questions are helping me understand. Reading the responses have helped me figure out how I can integrate more principals into my lesson without feeling completely lost!

I did not have any low numbers in Content Knowledge and Teacher/Student Communications & Relationships

My last low numbers came out of Procedural Knowledge. And again, the questions are centered on allowing the students to have these in-depth and rigorous conversations…

I enjoyed reading the science portion about inquiry because I enjoyed the fact that the author included misconceptions and worries many science people have regarding inquiry. I too, felt like asking a bunch of questions would never lead to a decisive answer, which is often needed in science. For instance, my students must know that with asexual reproduction there is only one parent and one identical offspring. If I allow the students to have a conversation around the concept will I have lost students within the conversation, or do I wrap it up with the keys facts that needed to be clarified? However, as I read further the book provided a guide to middles schooler’s use of inquiry. The book shared, “The distinction between full and partial inquiry is introduced. Partial inquiry is when selected abilities and understandings are targeted. Students in this grade range (5-8) begin to recognize the difference between evidence and explanation. The student’s background knowledge base is the principal influence on the design of investigation, types of observations, and methods for interpreting data.” I find this useful because it gives me a better idea of what inquiry should look like in a middle school classroom! Yah!

Focus: To maintain a classroom conversation among several students (6-12) that maintains it focus and that is engaging for each of the participants involved.  I would love the conversation to maintain its topic/focus for at least 10 minutes without teacher facilitation.

So last week during professional development at school, our SRT (School Reform Team) introduced the topic of Socratic Seminars and it sounds a lot like what I would like to achieve via my Action Research Plan!!!

I have already set-up a date and time to meet with them about personalizing it to my classroom!

I am feeling like I am a bit in a rut about the variety of inquiry that is being used in my classroom. I definitely push them through my own questioning, especially during the openings and mini-lesson. During these times, I am pushing their thinking about life science concepts by connecting them to real-life situations that they may have had or will experience. I also throw out a couple of words or phrases and ask them to understand/decipher them however they may, and put them together to create a logical sequence/answer. I also will throw out a scenario that requires them to work through a concept we are learning and ask them to work in groups. Within their groups, they choose one volunteer to share there answer.

Outside of those teacher-led practices, I would like to see more student-led inquiry. Meaning, I want to be able to provide them with the expectations and the materials, if necessary and let them do their own critical thinking… If anyone has any suggestions, please share!

So during our daily opening activity (OA), I asked my students to create two essential questions (EQ’s) on their own. At this point, we have been in class approximately 4 weeks and the students have realized that the EQ’s are not simply knowledge/recall questions; they are usually questions that require inferring skills, synthesis and comprehension. With that said, I read over the EQ’s they created and some were great, so I decided to use some of those questions in lessons to follow. Also, on the day that I assigned them to complete their own questions during the OA, we discussed the importance of the types of questions that I was looking for that would suffice the requirements of critical thinking that is usually captured via the daily essential question.

Thanks for the suggestion Kara, my students also feel more invested in the class because they see their own work on the board!