Adapting Socratic Seminars for Elementary

Socratic seminars are common in middle and high school, but at Barbara Morgan STEM Academy in Boise, Idaho, fourth-grade teacher Ricky Clark sees their value for much younger learners. His elementary students are well-versed in using a modified version of a Socratic seminar to build up their speaking skills and get practice in giving peer critique.

As with Socratic seminars in higher grade levels, the structure includes an inner circle and an outer circle. In this adapted version, the inner circle is given eight minutes to have an academic discussion. Clark has a list of prompts that he has developed with the other fourth-grade teachers on his team, and throughout that time, he moves students on to a new topic about every two minutes. The short chunks help keep the conversation on track and allow multiple opportunities for different students to participate.

At the same time, students in the outer circle have been assigned a person from the inner circle to observe. While the inner circle answers the prompts, students in the outer ring use an observation circle feedback sheet to note things like engagement in the discussion, eye contact, and relevance of the contributions. There is also a section of the sheet that asks if their designated participant missed any opportunities within the discussion. Once the eight minutes is up and the discussion is over, the outer circle shares their feedback with the inner circle, including what they did well and where they could improve.

Clark loves using Socratic seminars in elementary school because they bring benefits to everyone in the classroom. “I believe they’re building their confidence in having discussions. They can articulate their thoughts, they can become engaged, and they can give that feedback,” he says. “They can be critical and still be nice, knowing that it can be constructive.”