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Re: Socratic Method



Please pardon this cross-pollinating response to:

Phys-L <http://lists.nau.edu/archives/phys-l.html>,

PhysLrnR <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/physlrnr.html>,

Physhare <http://lists.psu.edu/archives/physhare.html>,

AP-Physics
<http://lyris.collegeboard.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?site=collegeboard&enter=ap-physics>

In his Phys-L post of 28 Nov 2002 19:35:33-0600 titled "Re: Socratic
Method" Jack Uretsky wrote:

URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY
Please note that when I adopted revised versions of Dick Hake's
delightful labs for use in a community college I carefully called
them "Dialogue Labs". . .Uretsky 1993). . . and not "Socratic
Dialogue Labs".

This was because, some years before, I had been exposed to three
years of purported "Socratic" teaching in a prominent law school and
came away with the feeling that I had been exposed to one of the
world's best-paid collection of con artists.

In the classic Socratic Dialogue, an example is reprinted in a Swartz
editorial in TPT some years back, you purport to lead a student to
discover, through adroit questioning, information already known to
the student. The swindle as recounted by Plato, is to ask questions
that put the desired words into the student's mouth so so all the
student ends up doing is assenting to leading questions.

That is not what the dialogue labs are all about. What they are
about, as I see it, is asking students questions that require them to
think, observe, discuss, analyze and verbalize conclusions.

One of my favorites is a question about why water doesn't fall out of
a filled bucket that is being rotated in a vertical circle at the end
of a rope . . . [SDI Lab #3 available at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi> with a Teacher's Guide at
Galileo Project (2002)]. . . When the students ask for help I stand
in front of them, probably talking about free-body diagrams, "absent
mindedly" placing a coin in the palm of my hand and slapping the coin
down on a desk top. By this time the students are accustomed to my
devious tactics, and pretty soon one of them will grasp the hint and
start explaining it to the others. That is the real pay-off, because
students listen to each other.

But Socratic? Why do you think they force fed him the hemlock?
URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY-URETSKY

Jack may have missed or may have rejected my arguments in (Hake 2002):


HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE--HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE--HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE
The Socratic method has been sadly neglected by physics instructors .
. .[and Physics Education Researchers - e.g., the exclusion of SDI
from Redish & Rigden (1997)]. . . , despite its demonstrated
effectiveness. Possible reasons are:

(1) the competing allure of the quick high-tech fix (rather than slow
deep-thought redesign) of science education,

(2) the degree of understanding and commitment required of instructors,

(3) unfamiliarity with and MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE METHOD.

That method, employed so successfully (see Table II and refs. 20-22,
34, 35, 43d of Hake 1998b) is NOT derived from the CLASSIC Socrates
of Plato's "Meno," as implied by Morse (1994) and Swartz (1994,
2000). . .[and has no connection whatsoever with the infamous law
school travesty as depicted in "The Paper Chase" (Osborne 1983))]. .
. , but rather from the HISTORICAL Socrates as researched by the late
great classical scholar G. Vlastos (1990, 1991).
HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE--HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE--HAKE-HAKE-HAKE-HAKE

BTW, for a recent paper on SDI Labs see Hake (2002b).

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

REFERENCES
Galileo Project. 2002. A leading resource for teaching materials on
the Web; online <http://galileo.harvard.edu/>/ "Socratic Dialogue
Inducing Labs/ "Resources for SDI"/ "Teacher's Guides" where "/"
means "click on."

Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66: 64-74; online as ref. 24 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>.

Hake, R.R. 1998b. "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory
mechanics courses," online as ref. 25 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. A sadly unpublished (PER HAS
NO ARCHIVAL JOURNAL!!) crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a):
average pre/post test scores, standard deviations, instructional
methods, materials used, institutions, and instructors for each of
the survey courses of Hake (1998a) are tabulated and referenced. In
addition the paper includes: (a) case histories for the seven IE
courses of Hake (1998a) whose effectiveness as gauged by pre-to-post
test gains was close to those of T courses, (b) advice for
implementing IE methods, and (c) suggestions for further research.

Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Re: Socratic Method,"
PhysLrnR/Phys-L/Physhare/AP-Physics post of 14 Nov 2002
14:32:54-0800; online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0211&L=phys-l&F=&S=&P=15118>.

Hake. R.R. 2002b. "Socratic Dialogue Inducing Laboratory Workshop,"
Proceedings of the UNESCO-ASPEN Workshop on Active Learning in
Physics, Univ. of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2-4 Dec. 2002; also online
as ref. 28 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>.

Osborne, J.J. 1983. "The Paper Chase." Warner Books.

Swartz, C. 1994. "The Classic Socratic Method." Phys. Teach. 32(3), 138-141.

Swartz, C. 2000. "Buzzwords and Newspeak," Editorial, Phys. Teach. 38(3): 134.

Morse, R.A. 1994. "The Classic Method of Mrs. Socrates," Phys. Teach.
32: 276-277.

Redish, E.F. & J.S. Rigden, eds. 1997. "The Changing Role of Physics
Departments in Modern Universities: Proceedings of the ICUPE." AIP.

Uretsky, J. L. 1993. "Using Dialogue Labs in a Community College
Physics Course," Phys. Teach. 31(8): 478-481.

Vlastos, G. 1990. Private communication to R.R. Hake, September 17.

Vlastos, G. 1991. "Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher" (Cornell
Univ. Press, 1991), esp. Chap. 2, "Socrates contra Socrates in Plato."

Vlastos, G. 1994. "Socratic Studies" Cambridge University Press.