Socratic Seminars in the Math Classroom?  Why Not!!!

At the begging of  last school  year, I set a goal  to implement Socratic Seminars into my classes.  Colleagues and students kept asking “how do you do  Socratic Seminars in Math???”  I  told them I was n ot sure, but I  was going to find a way.  I had taught many students over  the years that had loved these seminars in their social studies and English classes, and I was dead set on figuring out how to do this.  Implementing Socratic Seminars into my classroom was a something I wanted to use to further student-led mathematical discussion in the classroom.  

I started by observing a colleague in the English department, Jordan Kohanim.   Jordan and I  had taught together for about 10 years at two different schools, and she was and is one of the most creative and engaging teachers I  have ever known.  I know this not only from the standpoint of working with her, but also because she had taught my son in high school and impassioned him to join and participate in debate.  Upon observing one  of her Socratic seminars, I was fascinated at the process, and immediately my wheels started turning.  I knew I could implement this discussion process into math; I just wanted to find the right opportunity with content.

Well, then late fall in the school year happened, and I lost sight of my goal for a few months.  Second semester gave me more energy to start thinking about it again.  I decided the right audience for launch was my Accelerated GeometryB/Advanced Algebra  courses, which consisted of 9^th and 10^th grade level students.    Students started their geometry units in their previous honors course, and they finished the rest of the geometry last year with me.  In this process, Georgia students often times end up taking their state test in Geometry well after they are finished with the content; this was the case with our students.    Because students needed to review the geometry content before taking the state test last May, I thought this would also be a great way to “spruce up” review of previously learned topics in a way that embedded several concepts into problem solving tasks.  I also felt implementing with previously learned content would help to develop the process of the seminars into mathematics.

In planning the seminars, I  chose 2 students who I have heard talking about Socratic seminars in other classes and seemed excited about doing them.  I met with them after school and brainstormed ideas with them including what they felt would be improved methods to maximize student engagement; basically, their wish list from having experienced Socratic seminars in  other classes.  Their ideas were monumental in my planning process and  helped the implementation of Socratics in our classroom to  go smoothly and result in great conversations.

How I Structured the Seminars:

Socratic Seminars typically have these types of structures in the classroom with 2-3 circles for participation; I like to call them tiers.  This is similar to the set-up in  my classroom.

Our seminars were set up in 3 tiers with 2 tiers involved in “discussion of the math”.  I have a video of it, but was not able to get it transferred to google photo archive in time for the first Blaugust! 

I decided also to implement 2 more separate roles that I thought would work well with a math Socratic Seminar. (Scribe and Computador)

                Tier 1:  This group is the oral discussion group.  Members of  this group are allowed 

                             to have  their Geometry interactive notebooks  only for reference and no writing 

                             utensils.   There is a lead person designated to this group who leads out discussion

                             and manages the flow of the mathematical conversations taking place.  The group 

                             leaders were nominated and voted on the day before the seminar.

                Tier 2:  This group is the written discussion group.  Members of this group have

                             white boards to share mathematical ideas with the discussion circle and may 

                             also reference their geometry notebooks.   They may only write and share ideas

                             via  marker and white board.   The white boards are held up in order to share 

                             mathematical ideas for the discussion group to  integrate into  the mathematical 

                            discussion.

                Tier 3:  Each member of this group is assigned to one member of the discussion group.

                            The  members in this group record the details of mathematical ideas shared by a 

                            specifically assigned discussion member.   Members of  this group quote other 

                            members and indicate whether or not the shared ideas contribute  to the problem 

                            solving process.   Their biggest job is checking for relevance in the mathematics 

                            being discussed.

                Computador:  One  student is assigned to  the front of the room with a calculator. 

                                       This is the only student  with a calculator and doing calculations  as 

                                       requested by the discussion group.  The  computador is also  recording 

                                       answers on the hard copy of  the problem worksheet.  The                                                                      computador may collaborate verbally only with the scribe.

                          Scribe:   One  student is assigned to front of the room to  draw on the projected 

                                        image of the hard copy of the problem as requested by the discussion group. 

                                       They  may also write clarifying points made by the discussion group.  

                                       In the video, the students are asking the scribe to label parts of the figure

                                       to make discussion easier.  The scribe does not contribute to the

                                       discussion group rather, they provide visual clarity to the problem being                                                discussed.

                                 

  

The  Process

All tiers  of  students are given a paper copy of  the problem to be discussed.  Tiers 1 and 2 have a hard copy of the discussion problem, and they reference their geometry interactive notebooks to be thinking of the process of solving.  Tier 3  students  must read  the problem  in order to  follow along with the ideas that the discussion  member they are  assigned to  shares.   They must know  if  their assigned person is producing valid and quality mathematical ideas that contribute to the problem solving.  5 minutes are given for students to study the problem before discussion begins.

After 5 minutes, the leader of the discussion group starts the discussion of the problem and invites the discussion by other members in the discussion group.  Each member of the discussion group is expected to talk but not over-dominate the conversations to prohibit other members sharing ideas.  Members of Tier  3 are crossing out a  letter of the word GEOMETRY  every time their assigned person talks as well as quoting their responses.

After all parts of the muti-task problem are completed and  recorded by the computador, the seminar is closed.  I collect the evaluation sheets from Tier 3, and ask the group to clean up materials for the next class. 

The Preparation

Since second semester began, the students had been reviewing geometry remotely through keeping  an interactive geometry notebook of notes and  assignments distributed by our Accel Geometry PLC.   This notebook was  intended  for  use in the seminars, to prepare for their Milestones EOC, and to keep in the future for SAT  and ACT preparation in  coming years.   The students have also been working on review problems since we returned from spring  break as well as constructions of geometric figures in the computer lab that  went into their geometry notebooks.  They were busy!

I designed the first seating chart (they never saw this of course) into the following categories:  strong-skills/dominant, strong-skills/quiet, proficient-skills/dominant, proficient-skills/quiet,  developing-skills/dominant, and developing-skills/quiet.  This helped me to really think about what students  really talk versus students I need to  prompt more at all levels.  I  then drew from this list to  integrate even amounts of each of those six  classifications into each  of  the 3 tiers for the first seminar.   Because we did 3 Socratic Seminars before the EOC, each student was able to rotate to each role by the time we were done. 

Reflection

This was one of the most amazing things I have done in my classroom!  I was amazed at all of the conceptual understanding  and connections  that were encompassed by the discussions in the seminars.  The students truly worked together to problem solve and did a great job of listening to others contributions and integrating them  into the process needed to solve the task.  The first tier also utilized the white board contributions of the 2^nd tier and even referenced their  class mates by name to give them credit.  From discussing things like unit conversions, special right triangles versus regular triangles, and which measurement  to us for each situation, I loved that the seminars provided a  way for the  students to  pull the  geometry concepts together to make sense of how they a used in out in the world rather  than just in textbooks and  review materials.  The problem I have uploaded here involves a barn and a silo, and there were also great conversations about the materials for a barn and whether or not the silo is ever completely filled to the top.   I was so intrigued by the curiosity they showed in the problem-solving process, and it is something I will continue to do in my classroom this year.

The Barn Task Download  

On next blog I will discuss how a more informal Socratic seminar developed in my support class after the geometry seminars in the other classes.  This was equally amazing in a different way.  I will also talk about ideas for building and improving on the seminars for this year.

Recovering from "Hitting the Teaching Wall"

Last blog was about reflecting on my years as a teacher and what I have learned.  I would like to build my reflections more on something I said regarding student learning.   I said that sometimes no student learning took place despite my best intentions.  On this blog, I am going to reflect on the fact that there were also times when little or no student learning took place because of my lack of intentions. 

It was not purposeful of course, but my teaching soul had fallen into a very dark place.  There was probably a good 2-3 years where I was too tired and/or felt hopeless in making my classroom meaningful.  I am not saying I did nothing to plan or deliver instruction, but it was definitely lacking the creativity and drive I had experienced in the past.  This is a hard thing to reflect upon, but I think it is very important to share as I think many teachers probably go through this on some level in their career. 

In Georgia, we have implemented 3 new math curriculums since 2008.  Any curriculum change involves a lot of work and transition, but 3 changes in 8 years left no time to fine-tune and enhance resources before having to change again.    At first I enjoyed the challenge of the change in finding ways to help students approach and learn content in in a curriculum that definitely demanded more of students in math.  I think we did need a jump in standards, but I am still not sure if it was too much or not.   I do know my students walked away stronger than they had in the previous curriculum that had been in place for a long time, but that was just in time for the curriculum to change a 2^nd time.    I think if we had not continued to change curriculum, I would not have hit the “teaching wall” so hard.    What did happen though was two more rounds of curriculum change along with lack of resources, and I wore out trying to keep up and teach.  

For my colleagues and I, this time of change and constant scrambling to find resources, re-order pacing and delivery of concepts, and create new assessments all the time wore all of us out.   I also believe all of this isolated us from one another in a sense.  It is true that we worked closely in PLC’s in an attempt to share the load upon us, but we had little time or energy left over to talk much about teaching strategies and ideas or even observe each other to get ideas.    We did have professional development in our schools, but it was mostly mandatory and often was not helpful.   Most of the PD provided was not content-rich, and time to implement and try new non-content specific strategies in math seemed impossible on top of everything else on our plates.   We were stuck in a vicious circle that we are still trying to come out of.  I know we all wanted to do more and be more creative, and sometimes we did, but we were also in survival mode.   Looking back, I am proud that we accomplished as much as we did with limited resources for many years, but it came with a price to all involved. 

The ultimate victims of this type of change are always the students, and that affected me a lot.  This made me feel hopeless as an educator, and there were many points where I did not believe I could be an effective educator again; that I would never grow again.   Because of this, I lost energy or desire to connect with other math educators outside of my district as I had done in the past.  Attending professional conferences takes money and time away from a classroom, which is not easy to make happen when you are loaded down, worn out, and feel like you have nothing to show for yourself professionally.    It was hard to think about thriving with new information when I was barely surviving in my own classroom.    I became disconnected from a group that had inspired me so much as a pre-service and new teacher for so many years; it took a huge toll on my desire to want to teach.  I wanted to walk away from teaching more than once in this time, and in the spring of 2015 I almost did.  During the 2015-2016 school year it was still debatable for me whether I would return the next year, but it became less so as I re-connected with the math education world in a more global sense. 

Early in 2015, I finally went to a PD session at school that stuck.  It was given by two of my school colleagues that introduced us to using Twitter professionally.  This was a breakthrough for me, but not an instantaneous fix.   It was a general faculty volunteer participation session, so they did not know specific Twitter resources for math; this I would find on my own.  Still, they got me on Twitter, which eventually led me to the MTBoS, and I am thankful to them for that. 

Being communal by nature as a math educator, my next motivation is to help other math teachers in my district become a member of this community.  I want them to experience the great PD resources and professional learning choices it provides for teachers.  Best of all, all of this can be accomplished on a self-paced and continuous basis.  It is not always easy to meet with other teachers in our district let alone get to professional development conferences.   Just as we are expected to differentiate learning for students in our classrooms, so must our learning experiences be as teachers.  Just as we are expected to personalize learning and choice for students in our classrooms, so must we have the same learning opportunities in our professional development.   

I firmly believe that we, as teachers, cannot create a valid model for practices such as differentiation or personalized learning if we have not been afforded the chance change up and choose learning that helps us to connect our knowledge and improve our practices.  We need meaningful PD in our own schools, our district, and globally.   I believe focusing on instruction and helping students learn is what most of us endeavered to do when we entered the classroom, but we just did not focus on the names of the practices; we let our passions drive us.    Over time these passions need to be renewed and sustained, and that means to share ideas and practices with each other and gain global exposure to other math educators.    

Through MTBoS I have re-learned that many issues in math education remain the same no matter the district, state, or mandated curriculum.  Math teachers must have the chance to immerse in a community that can deliver a common core math education to our students    I firmly believe that online resources such as MTBoS can serve to do just that and hopefully help to cushion and protect us in those times where we do still “hit the teaching wall”. 

Welcome to my first blog! 

I began my teaching career in Minneapolis, and I am currently a math teacher in the Atlanta area.   I not only love teaching math, but also collaborating with other educators to find new ways to help students understand and learn math.   I have recently been inspired by many math educators around the country that have started blogging and talking about how reflective and helpful it is in the process of teacher learning and improving instruction.    I would like to start my blog by sharing a few reflections from experiences as an educator and math teacher the past 12 years.

Even though I have primarily taught at the high school level, I believe math is a challenging subject to teach at all levels.   Math has been the one subject I have watched go through a lot of change in curriculum (particularly in Georgia) and pedagogical methods.    Myself, I believe some math topics lend themselves to more directed instruction (though direct instruction for me also involves interactive discussion), and I also believe some math topics are better approached through student discovery.  I have learned collaboration and discussing mathematics should be a staple of a math classroom no matter what learning strategies are taking place.   My classrooms throughout the years have taught me that students learn in many different ways on different days and some in different years as I looped through courses with them.   Important to note are the days where not much student learning happened at all despite my best intentions,    Above all, no matter the math topic at hand or the group of mathletes I am working with, I believe all mathematics should be learned at a deep conceptual level that affords a continuation of prior learning and limitless connections to future learning.   I also know that making this happen in my classroom means developing instruction that is enhanced by finding great resources to draw upon.  Given this, I have come to know over the years that this requires a scavenger hunt that can be either invigorating or exhausting depending on the resources a teacher has at hand.

I have found the most success in my classroom by using a variety of instructional methods that can accommodate and challenge different ways of learning and by making learning a safe experience.   I am a huge proponent of students, and myself for that matter, making and exploring mistakes in my classroom.    I firmly believe there is an invaluable depth of learning experienced when a student learns from previous work that was not correct.  At the same time, when a lesson does not go as planned, the teacher learning becomes powerful for all involved presently and in the future.   Teaching to me does not and cannot exist without constantly learning.  As much as I have taught over the years, I can honestly say all of the students who have sat in my classroom have taught me twice as much if not more than I have taught them.

Teaching is about building a network and a toolbox of resources.  Each year is about constructing a learning environment and often requires different tricks and methods than the year before.  I have spent most of my teaching years developing my own materials, learning from their outcomes, and then either revising or tossing them.  I am a lifelong learner as an educator and know that my collection of resources will never be static or a “finished work”.   I have worked with great colleagues in schools I have taught in and professional learning communities such as NCTM, MCTM, and GCTM.  I credit these people with giving me lots of new ideas, advice, and support even when I did not feel I could give anything back.   Most recently, I have been blessed to have become a part of a new type of math education community through the Math Twitter Blogosphere (MTBoS).

MTBoS is a professionally engaging community of passionate math educators, who most importantly, are still in the classroom just like me –“trenchers” is what I like to call us   I found this community through a series of steps that started with a teacher led, volunteer based professional learning session at my school; an example of the scavenger hunting for resources I talked about earlier.    Further, my teaching soul was in a really dark place when I began the search that led to this community.  Of all of the professional development I have had in my career, I find teacher-led learning and choice in professional development to be the most influential in my teaching practices.  My hopes are that many more math educators can find and become a part of this community, and I would like to help as many do this as possible.   More about this next blog. 

I am excited to be starting my blog and curious to see the path it takes me on as a teacher and educator.  I am thankful to those in the MTBoS community who have inspired me to take this journey.  I am looking forward to trying some of the new ideas I have found on MTBoS and sharing my experiences with others in my district.

I look forward to working and sharing ideas with the MTBoS community for many teaching years to come.

Thanks for reading!