Last summer a coworker and I went to Fresno State and observed Debate lessons in geometry. It is a method similar to Socratic seminar. Here is a summary of what it is about.
What does a debate lesson look like?
Each debate begins with a key question that forms the basis of a Discussion facilitated by the instructor. After presenting a question to the Class, students have a few minutes to write down their responses and work on answering the question individually, then they have a few minutes to talk among themselves, and finally we begin the class discussion. During the course of the discussion students work to form a consensus to the answer the question. The instructor keeps track of participation and enforces the rules. After students reach a consensus, the instructor either agrees or disagrees. If the teacher disagrees the class returns to the debate. The teacher may underline part of the class conclusion they disagree with, pose a question, or point out a flaw before returning to debate. After the students reach a satisfactory conclusion the teacher's reveals their own answer they came up with prior to the debate and students are given additional notes.
What are the classroom rules of debate?
1) One conversation.
This rule means that the conversation is not between individual students, but a discussion involving the whole class. Side conversations are not allowed regardless of their nature. If the discussion stalls, then the students are given a few minutes and asked to get up and walk around.
This rule means that the conversation is not between individual students, but a discussion involving the whole class. Side conversations are not allowed regardless of their nature. If the discussion stalls, then the students are given a few minutes and asked to get up and walk around.
2) There must be at least one person at the board at all times.
3) Don’t erase anything on the board.
4) The teacher has no opinion until the class reaches a consensus (unanimous).
What are some examples of questions posed to students?
Here are some of the questions that we used in the first unit of our geometry class. We planned a couple weeks of debate to train students on the lesson style.
What are some examples of questions posed to students?
Here are some of the questions that we used in the first unit of our geometry class. We planned a couple weeks of debate to train students on the lesson style.
How do you make a good 3-D drawing of a box?
What are the most basic building blocks of geometry?
What is a point? What is a line? What is a plane?
What does it mean when we say points are collinear, coplanar?
Conjecture: You need at least takes 3 points in order to be able to reproduce a line.
Conjecture: You need a 3 points in order to reproduce a plane.
What is a line segment, ray?
What is an angle?
What do we mean by angle measure?
Why does a right angle measure 90 degrees?
