This is great stuff, Nate. Where did you find it?
>P.M. The most outstanding feature of what we see Misha and you doing in the
>physics classroom (and Valerii Ryzhik in geometry class) is the use of
>what, for lack of a better term, we've been calling a "Socratic method"
>approach. Is this in use anywhere in the US?
>
>I.L. Our humanities teachers are using the Socratic method most of time.
>Problem-based learning is something very close to it too, and is taught in
>many places. I haven't seen it in physics though.
>
>P.M. So in some sense you're teaching physics and math more in the style of
>the liberal arts. Misha, have you seen this style used in physics anywhere
>in the US? How would you propose making this teaching style available for
>emulation by interested teachers outside of Russia?
>
>M.I. I have visited American high schools in Chicago, California, New York
>City, New Jersey, Boston, and, of course, Arkansas. I've had meetings with
>teachers and teacher educators at Caltech, Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley,
>Yale, MIT I have not seen anything like what you're calling the "Socratic
>method" in physics or math. Besides personal contact, workshops for teacher
>training, and so on, I think that we can try to transfer teaching styles
>through video and (eventually) by CD-ROM and the Internet.
>
>P.M. Irina, can you distinguish between problem-based learning and what,
>for example, we see Misha doing during class (Socratic method)?
>
>I.L. Problem-based learning is more structured than the Socratic method.
>Any problem-based learning should start from a Socratic-type discussion to
>set the problem to be discussed. In problem-based learning the problem is
>given at the outset, usually by a teacher.
Howard Barrows, one of the developers of PBL has argued (_Practice-Based
learning: Problem-based learning applied to medical education_, SIU,1994)
that PBL tutorial interaction should be quite different from Socratic
dialog. He wrote:
"Although many clinical teachers feel that they use the popular "Socratic"
approach in their clinical teaching, this is not the same as the tutors'
approach in practice-based learning. Superficially they may seem quite the
same making it difficult for some clinical teachers to appreciate the
difference. The Socratic approach involves questioning that is intended to
bring forth from the student an understanding that the teacher wants him or
her to express. An understanding the teacher is sure is latent in the
students' mind and can be delivered and shaped through dialectic discussion
using, for example, posed statements in question form, counter examples or
carrying out a student's remark to an absurdity. In this process, the
student is well aware of the teacher's opinion of the correctness of her or
his statements and attempts to follow the teacher's thinking. Facts are
frequently given by the teacher during this type of discussion and an
exposition is provided for the student at the end. This is a powerful
teaching method, but it is very teacher-centered and does not address the
goals of practice-based learning. By contrast, in the tutorial discussion
the student is probed for his or her ideas and asked to explain or justify
them and encouraged to recognize whenever she or he is uncertain or
confused. The tutors' probing attempts to reveal student thinking and
depth of understanding without allowing the student to know what the tutor
thinks. The probing also attempts to allow the student to assess his or
her performance and knowledge in relation to the patient problem and to
recognize learning issues that need to be satisfied." (p. 112)
I would also like to say that, as is true in any broad-based movement like
PBL, the method has been appropriated and is practiced in a variety of
ways. In some implementations of PBL, the method is very structured as
Lyublinskaya observed, but in others this is not the case.
I think it would be very useful to try and sort out the differences and
similarities among these different participation frameworks. Some other
candidates might include Collins' Inquiry method, tutorial dialog as it has
been described by Barbara Fox, and, perhaps, some of the classroom models
described by Minstrell and Hatano. ---Tim