I focused my attention on the Socratic circles in my last blog post, but since we changed the set-up style I think there is a lot to be discussed. The larger, whole-group Socratic circle seemed more successful than the one we did in the previous week. I think probably the biggest reason for this change was that everyone was involved and contributing to discussion the whole time. Although there were some good characteristics of our last discussion that were lost in the transition, I think this week’s circle better benefited our understanding of the text. Individuals who were in the inner circle the first week didn’t bear the responsibility of keeping discussion going, even when the group was hard pressed for something to talk about. For this reason, I sensed this week that conversation was a lot less forced and that our discussion topic didn’t digress from the reading. The only disadvantage was that individuals didn’t have to contribute as much to discussion, because fitting everyone’s comments in required more listening than talking.
The larger group Socratic circle worked better for our class, but I wonder if a class with a different personality would prefer the inner and outer circles. Most the people in our class feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, so there is little fear that our ideas will be rejected or ridiculed. In a shier or more timid class, they may prefer being put on the spot so they feel it’s required of them to share thoughts about the reading. I think it would be a smart idea to try different forms of the Socratic circle within your own class, in order to find out which one best suit its needs. This week also shows what improvements can be made with a little practice; since we had a broad idea of what was going on, it was easier to have more meaningful, in-depth discussion. I’m excited to try this discussion type in my future classroom!
QUESTION: In our discussion about Dora, there was some disagreement over the teacher’s choice to let a lot of her major grammar errors continue. Is there any specific step you would have done differently in Dora’s grammar and writing learning process?
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I talked about this in my blog, and I think what I really got hung up on was the ‘dots’. Spelling can be gradually learned, and I think it’s something that a person works on throughout their life, so Dora’s spelling didn’t bother me. The fact that her teacher allowed her to use dots to space her words did. If the teacher’s students were eventually going to learn how to use periods in class, and Dora’s dots look very similar to periods why did you allow her to continue to use them?
ReplyDeleteTeaching students using scaffolding like Dora’s teacher did, I believe, can be very beneficial for students and may help them understand what they are learning in a more concise way. I don’t think Dora had the support she needed though. A teacher still needs to support their students as the student investigate new things to keep students from straying too far off the path while looking for the truth—in this case how to write a sentence. Unsuccessful scaffolding however, occurs when a teacher assumed too much about student skills. Dora was learning quite a bit, but when it came to using ‘dots’ her teacher should have stepped in and suggested using spacing instead.
Students are going to progresses when they have been well prepared and well guided. Dora had to unlearn her incorrect use of ‘dots’ before she could successful start to understand periods, which seemed to hinder her learning process. I would have showed Dora the spacing in between some of the words out of the books we had read in class, then suggested she try spacing her words that way, and finally asked her to come visit me again after she had tried it out.