Less than $5 Higher Education Classroom Community Lesson

In this Mini Socratic Seminar students will have Socratic dialogue in small groups in order to discuss and plan for a social contract. By the end of this lesson your students will have a deep understanding of what it means to have a cooperative and inclusive environment for learning!

What's Included:

• definition slide
• purpose slide
• advantages slide
• preparation slide
• Mini Seminar directions slide
• 2 slides explaining roles and responsibilities
• slide for management tips
• Essential question slide
• 3 Costa's Level of Thinking reference slides
• 12 Socratic Seminar guiding questions for creating a positive classroom environment

Preparation:

• Share the essential question with students
• Provide time for all students to record the essential question and their personal thoughts/questions.
• Share the opening question which has no single “right” answer, is framed to generate dialogue leading to greater understanding of the ideas.
• The teacher may share all possible discussion questions with students before the seminar or the teacher may share only one question at a time.

Seminar:

• Students are placed in small groups or virtual break out rooms of 5-6 students.
• Teacher poses the essential question.
• Students respond to the question through writing their own questions using Costas.
• Teacher chooses a Socratic Seminar leader for each group.
• The leader facilitates the seminar discussion by guiding group members to a deeper and clarified consideration of the ideas, a respect for varying points of view, and adherence to and respect for the seminar process.
• Students may pose new questions when the discussion is exhausted. New questions posed must relate to students’ ideas and contributions in response to the initial essential question.
• Students write a list of classroom norms with their group.

Click HERE to see our other AVID resources. We also have several great AVID bundle options available down below!

AVID Mega Growing Bundle

AVID Teambuilding Bundle

AVID Writing Bundle