Customer Reviews

Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book over the summer on a whim and really enjoyed Matt's writing, his suggestions, and his format for socratic seminars. I have been to training on socratic seminars, but this book helped me more than anything. He gives you little steps to take on your way to a full blown successful seminar. His ideas help get your kids asking questions, discussing, thinking, and writing at a higher level. My discussions have improved in class, and even the kids who usually don't participate have gotten involved in discussing and sharing their thoughts.

I'd read Michael Strong's "Habit of Thought" book, and was looking for more help in bringing socratic learning methods into my classes at my university. Despite coming from a high school english literature context, I found this book enormously helpful. I've been using the ideas in my graduate computer science class for over a month, with adaptations (e.g., using long research articles), and it has been very successful. The rubrics and forms included with the book are excellent as well. My students have become much better discussants and seem to be really enjoying the experience.

This is an excellent book! Loved the easy style in which it is written, practical/useful content, step-by-step examples... It has been a great source of inspiration which is already helping me make a difference in my jr. high classroom. My students are catching on to the concept and are showing great enthusiasm for Socratic Circles.

A teacher friend of mine recommended this book to help with creating Socratic Circles/Seminars. It's fabulous! The author writes smoothly and easily for anyone to understand and follow. He has terrific examples and gives worksheets and reproducibles to help teachers. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's new at conducting Socratic Seminars. It definitely helped me better than anything else.

I have just finished my student teaching in High School History. I wish I had read this book before I finished. It makes an excellent case for using Socratic Circles both to uncover content and to teach and practice collaborative working skills. Using this method, the work of analyzing and discovering content is done by the students, with guidance from the teacher, which is my teaching goal. And I have heard a great deal about the need to teach the skills of collaborative work, and I have heard and seen firsthand the pitfalls of group work, but useful advice on how to make collaborative learning really work is hard to find. This book is the only one I have read that provides enough detail and enough structure to have a hope of being effective. The author describes, step-by-step, how to do Socratic Circles, and gives concrete advice about what to do when things don't go as planned. The greatest strength is that he discusses how to incorporate Socratic Circles into the curriculum on a regular basis over an entire course, rather than as an occasional exercise, giving students the time to practice, critique, and develop these skills over time. I rate it 4 out of 5 stars because I have not had the opportunity to use it, but I plan to do so as soon as I get my own classroom.

Ulitmately I found this a useful book. I like the concrete tips on how to manage all aspects of the circles - from preparation of environment through assessment. That said, it took a while to get concrete. While reading the book I felt like I was sifting through a LOT of justification/rationalization for the use of Socratic Circles. I spent chapters thinking, "Get on with it already!" The first 3ish chapters are spent selling the idea of Socratic Circles - this might be helpful if you teach in a school that is resistant to this sort of approach, but for me it was a bit too much 'preaching to the choir'. I felt like I was in the presence of a salesman desperate to make his commission. Stop telling me why I need the product, show me how to use it.

Once the author got around to WHAT a socratic circle is, how it works, what it looks like in action, the book is good.

This is a great book for someone interested in implementing socratic circles in their classroom. It is easy to read and understand and gives solutions to possible problems that may occur. I still recommend gathering ideas from teachers who've tried Socratic circles, but this book is a great start. There are useful forms in the appendix that are ready to use.

I bought this book to educate myself on how to facilitate effective dialogue for my students. It did not disappoint! The author covered all of the facets of how to implement good dialogue between students. The book was easy-to-read and thorough. I'm a science teacher and found it very applicable to my subject area. As a result, I presented ideas from it to my colleagues.

Love the book and the seller sent the item in a timely fashion. No complaints here.