While at practicum this week I had the amazing opportunity to watch a Socratic seminar that was run as a fish bowl. This sounds quite strange to someone whom has never seen a classroom in which these practices were in place. When a discussion is run in a fish bowl it means that there are two circles of students. An inner circle (the ones having the conversation) and an outer circle (the ones observing the conversation), thus creating a fishbowl effect in which some students are being observed from the outside. The socratic seminar component means that the students prepare answers and discussion points before coming to class. The students we observed had just completed reading the book The Chosen, a story following two Jewish boys growing up in the United States in the late 1930's. The students were given four questions relating to the book earlier in the week. The students did not know if they would be in the sacratic seminar run on Thursday or Friday and they also did not know which 2 of the main components of the program is developing a school wide acronym that highlights the important aspects of the program. The acronym at Nicollet is F.I.R.E. a four questions would be asked during their seminar. Ms.Christy selected half the class to go Thursday and we were able to observe the entire conversation. The students who were selected to have the conversation made up the inside of the fishbowl, and the other half of the class sat in a circle behind them. The students observing were each given one student to assess during the conversation. They were to write down how many times the student they were observing talked, what they said when they spoke, and any other observations they saw. Each time a student spoke they were given one point. For full credit a student needed to talk 5 times. This really kept the conversation moving. The students also had a very good conversation, because they did not need to answer the question asked. They could elaborate on something someone said or they could ask follow up questions. I was really impressed with the conversation I saw happening. The teacher only asked the question and then sad nothing else until half way through the period when she interjected with the second question. The students talked the entire period and I feel that all of them had a deeper understanding of the text because of the conversation.
Our students are learning about this too! They just learned what a Socratic Seminar is and the components of it, and next week they are actually going to do one. Our students will be using the fishbowl technique too, and the teacher has already assigned who will go on which days and who their partner will be. They are doing theirs on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we won't be able to see it in action, so I am excited to hear about how it goes. I think it is cool because we have been discussing this a little bit in our U of M class.
In terms of questions, I don't think our students are given questions to answer. They have a discussion leader who is supposed to keep the conversation going. Each student is supposed to have their "ticket" ready by their discussion date that includes open ended questions that they can discuss with their group. They will also be observed by another student, who tallies the number of times they talk, just like your students. I like how your students had a minimum number of times they needed to talk--I'm not sure if our students have to do that. It's pretty cool that you got to observe a class actually do a Socratic Seminar--I bet you learned a lot from it!