In The News: Better learning through dialogue

Written by: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic

NHS — Teachers Doyle Huelsman and Joy Root piloting the Socratic seminar as vehicle for range of 21st century skills

In order to better facilitate 21st century skills in students, a pair of Newberg High School teachers are introducing an instructional format with roots stretching back more than 2,400 years.

As one of the school district’s innovation teams, English teachers Doyle Huelsman and Joy Root are piloting the Socratic seminar this year in hopes of implementing the teaching practice on a broader scale at Newberg High School in years to come.

The pair made a presentation to the school board at its Dec. 1 meeting, impressing district leaders with a student demonstration.

“One of the wonderful things about Socratic seminar is that it really does hit all five Cs — communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and citizenship — because they set their own rules as well at the beginning of the discussion in class,” Root said at the meeting. “They’ll set up the rules and they have to follow those and communicate according to those rules, collaborate with one another and bring their evidence to the table. It really is that ongoing exploration of an issue.”

Although this type of teaching practice has been employed for centuries, this form was reintroduced in the 1980s.

Huelsman said the main focus of their work with the Socratic seminar at this point is to teach students how to use evidence effectively because that is a core part of instruction across all subjects at the school.

The seminar begins with students working in groups of three or four, analyzing a text together and recording their observations. They are given an open-ended question to answer collaboratively. For instance, in the demonstration seminar, students from both teachers’ classes were asked to evaluate whether “people in power have a greater responsibility to do what’s right,” using evidence from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

One of the ways in which students work together early on is through an online discussion board and shared document, in which they can record specific pieces of text as evidence, as a cited quotation, to which they will have access in supporting their analysis.

“They also write down inferences, observations, predictions, questions,” Huelsman said. “After that they draw on that research to do character analysis and theme analysis. They’ll go through multiple stages of this, looking at things like motivation or how the character sees themselves or other people.”

The online document sharing and discussion serves as preparation for the larger in-class seminar or dialogue, and is effective because it provides a forum where students can work out their ideas in a lower-pressure environment.

It’s also practical in terms of preparing students for college, where they will be expected to interact online in similar ways. But more importantly, according to Huelsman, working collaboratively is simply more effective for learning the content.

“Developmentally, adolescents really need that interpersonal interaction,” Huelsman said. “It helps solidify the learning that they have along the way. If it stays abstract, it’s really difficult for them to get to the application phase.”

As evidence, Huelsman and Root both reported that when done correctly, the preparation results in a naturally energetic and engaging discussion that is both self-led and takes students deeper into the subject matter.

“When I run these in the classroom, it often appears that they forget I’m there,” Huelsman said.

After demonstrating a dialogue with eight or so students, board members and district leaders interacted with students one on one to get their perspective.

Board member Ron Mock was curious to learn how the seminar functions when students aren’t as engaged as the ones at the meeting.

The teachers said that engagement can be an issue when students are first learning the format, after which they can address problems individually, but more powerful is the social accountability inherent to the format. That’s because when students are unprepared, they are given an alternate assignment to work on and are not allowed to participate in that round of the seminar.

By the second seminar, Huelsman reported observing high levels of engagement.

Students are also graded separately on the ability to foster discussion.

“I had one or two kids who didn’t prepare but man they wanted to talk,” Root added. “They’re doing their alternate assignment but want to jump in, so it’s ‘Next time, come prepared and you’ll get that opportunity.’ I feel like they heard that message.”