Beyond the Textbook: Socratic Seminars and the Transformation of Social Emotional and Cognitive Development for Special Needs Students

• In Event: Visions for the Future: Transforming Practice and Process in Teacher Education

Abstract

In an effort to enable social studies teachers to expand their methods to include and integrate Socratic seminar (SS) into their classrooms. This paper describes the roots of SS and inexperienced participants in the pedagogy of Socratic seminar and seeks to enable secondary social studies and history teachers to implement SS with special needs students. By learning to prepare an argument and engage and challenge their peers, students of every ability level have the potential to think of themselves as ‘scholars.' This work evolves out of an interest in SS to improve areas identified for these teachers on the Effective Learning Environments Observation Tool (ELEOT). This paper aims to provide practical steps and considerations for teachers to make SS more accessible, thereby promoting inclusivity and fostering essential life skills among low-income, high-needs students.

Authors

• Susan Schramm-Pate, University of South Carolina

• Kenneth E. Vogler, University of South Carolina

• Georgia Belesis, Concordia University Chicago