AVID Socratic Seminar

“If you just stand in front of the class and lecture, you set yourself up for failure.” (DiMartino & Miles, 2004, p. 47). First, I have to have a proper planning of my class for the entire week. Then, I write in my notebook the transitions and activities that want to have each day in each one of my classes. For example, the transition between the lesson and classwork can be a video that will motivate students to complete the job, or a message of inspiration. Another day, I can make is the kind of discussion, questions and answers style. Another day, I can receive my students with music, having an exercise time, and then, having some nutritional snacks before starting the class. In the classwork time, I can allow them to select a type of music they want to listen while working on their classwork. And so on. “Having something going on in the study environment, like music, is better than nothing” (Carey, 2014, p. 51). My goal is that students can have something

One topic that went quite unexplored during the Socratic Seminars was how we all individually incorporated quotes seamlessly into our essays. As a result, I would like point out that there are multiple ways to seamlessly fit quotes into sentences, such as informing the reader about how the character feels about the event, what exactly the character is talking about, and beginning the sentence containing the quote with paraphrasing. For example, I included as an example in my essay, "Secondly, Ashleigh questions her father's plan on page 4 of Ashes, ' "That's a lot of money. What if Mom finds out?" ' " I inform the reader as to how Ashleigh is feeling about her father's plan. It's simple for the reader to see that Ashleigh is skeptical about

A pro to the Socratic Seminar is that it is simply a discussion that makes us think on the spot and draw evidence from a certain text. Everyone can memorize facts and small details but through a Socratic Seminar, it really shows the students understanding, which is something enjoyed watching through the discussions and learning from them myself. A con to this would be too many people are trying to speak at once and some get cut off and might steal each other's point. One other con is when you lack information to present and may end up restating what others in the circle say, though that did not apply too much to me. To better prepare for the Socratic Seminar I could have gone over my claims more instead of just filling out the Socratic Seminar

I totally agree with you, I enjoyed the Socratic Seminar as well. I also agree with you about being on the fence, with electronics in the classroom. I feel like electronic devices, will take away from learning. Likewise, not every student has enough money to be able to pay for electronic devices and by them not having any electronics that will make them feel left

The classroom demographic factor I chose gender ratios. One instructional strategy I could use collaborative groups. My rationale for choosing this instructional strategy when students interact with each other to share knowledge and solve problems it builds collaboration skills and deeper understanding of materials. Students are placed in groups or pairs to fulfill a task or assignment given by the teacher. Collaborative groups create a motivation, critical thinking skills, and active learning as well as learn to work with others and manipulate information to build knowledge. A learning activity I could use is having a student led debate. My rationale for choosing this learning activity because it allows students

Now tell the students it is time for students to reflect on what they just learned. Hand out a sticky-note book including five sticky-notes attached. The first “page” can include a title and their name, but the other four should include four (one each page) quality-rich statements, depicting what they learned. Model an example. These books can include simple images to go with the pictures if necessary, but remind students the main point is for you (the teacher) to see if they (the students) understood the material presented in the lesson. Play the song “Waiting on the World to Change” twice while they complete this activity. Tell them once the songs finishes playing through the second time, the sticky note books will be

2, Game. Teacher spear them to two group. Let each group have one people come finish today topic sentence, then got the corresponding points. (I will focus on the inside instead of the outside). This game make more student exciting, especially third grade student, they move, jump their body.

As I was showing the PowerPoint, I had the students think, pair and share with the person next to them. Once the students had time to discuss with the person next to them, I would have each group share with the entire group. For example, as I was showing real life examples that related to the constitution, I would have the students think, pair and share then give me reasons as to what was wrong in the images. This kept the students actively engaged and actively thinking throughout the entire lesson. During the activity, the students were required to write their own constitution, but worked together as a group to create the constitution. All of the students were actively writing and contributing to group discussions as to what they would add to their constitution. I noticed that after a while, many groups discovered that the school-wide expectations/rules aligned with a constitution. The students then determined that the school rules had a purpose to keep students safe by having specific expectations for them. This showed me that they did understand the objective and the purpose of a

Also, I would ask students to pair up and share their thoughts on pioneer women and how clever they were making quilts for their families to keep them warm. One way a teacher can get students actively involved is to as students how they feel about making quilts. I would also make sure I pair students with ELLs students for listening and speaking activities. The most activity comes when students talk in pairs and listen to each other. In pairs, each student is a talker or listener, so no one is left out of the speaking and listening

Class has definitely shifted over the last two weeks from power point presentations to group discussions and group learning. I am not the biggest fan of this learning style typically but I feel like when talking about the book it is a good option. In class so far we have read the first 6 chapters of Dibs and begun discussing them in class. These discussions are pretty helpful in being able to talk about the meaning behind the words, and our interpretation of what is happening. I like that there are some structured questions but also room to talk about other thinks that we noticed or are confused about. We have also been getting packets to read some tips and tricks for our child play session. These are pretty helpful because all the information

According to the video on Socratic discussions, the main goal of this method is to get students to participate and use critical thinking. The video states, "The primary goal... is to have them think critically about difficult issues." By using critical thinking, it helps them develop good habits in class such as participation, asking questions, expressing their opinion and more. Socratic discussions also allows students to take turns in discussing the topic, giving everyone equal time and respect. It lets everyone feel more comfortable with each other. Most importantly, it helps the students learn. As the video said, students learn to write their own questions and share ideas with one another.

As a classical school, Socratic Seminars are a must for teachers to use at varying frequencies at different grade levels. This instructional method engages students in critical thinking, and fosters an atmosphere of participation using one’s own ideas. In addition, it incorporates higher level thinking skills and questioning. Another teaching technique I would suggest to teachers would be to implement a routine daily warm-up. This strategy not only helps students review information, it also allows them to see how their learning builds on itself. Teaching in small steps with modeling of new material and the use of questioning is important, followed by many opportunities for student guided practice. Cooperative learning strategies such as

I really enjoyed the, What’s the Average activity. During this activity, I learned a unique way of learning mean, median and mode. When I began this activity, I thought I already learned the three averages in the easiest way. In elementary school and middle school, it was hard for me to understand median when it came to two data points that ending up in the middle. I could never understand why the median could not be both data points. Folding the graph paper with all the data points made understanding the concept easier due to the fact I could visually see the location of the median. Another benefit that I found was it would help students understand that the median is always going to be located in the middle of the data. Another way I could use this concept is compare the median to a median in a rode. I could explain to them that the yellow lines on a road represent the median and the lanes represent the data points. Using this will give the students a chance to use their prior knowledge to aid them to understand the concept.

The activities that we have performed today were giving our answers from the Socratic seminars to the assigned forums or tests on the computer. I feel that the Socratic seminars help us as students guide ourselves to an answer and we can break down the question and also help each other come to a consensuses on what we think the answer is.

The curriculum was harder and the Socratic seminars we held were even more challenging. Through a process of listening and speaking, Socratic seminars aimed to encourage discussions filled with distinctive interpretations and unique theories about recent books we have read. What was intended to be an innovative method of learning was rather a direct exploit of my greatest weakness: talking in front of people. I mean I used to break out in a cold sweat when the teacher picked on me to answer questions and my Chinese accent will automatically reappear as soon as I speak in front of the class. However, the seminars were absolutely beneficial to me. It offered a place to discuss without any restrictions; it offered a place to listen and take on the opinions of others; and it offered a place where my opinions were finally appreciated! No longer did I feel as if I was left out of conversations and these seemingly small discussions acted as springboards for me to start expanding my social circle. I simply wasn’t afraid of socializing