Conducting Socratic Seminars: Focus on Primary Source Documents from US History

Details August 5, 2013through August 7, 2013 American Enterprise Institute Washington, DC Advance Registration Deadline: July 15, 2013

Description

Conducting Socratic Seminars: A Leader's Workshop with a Focus on Primary Source Documents from US History

This Socratic seminar workshop is taught by nationally recognized Socratic seminar trainer John Zola. Participants in the program will develop skills as Socratic seminar discussion leaders. Unique to this program is a focus on using primary sources from US history, drawn from The Constitutional Sources Project (www.ConSource.org) and www.WhatSoProudlyWeHail.org.

Socratic seminars are teacher-led classroom discussions that promote higher-level thinking, more careful reading of texts, and increased skills of classroom and civil discussion. They are appropriate for any social studies disciplines and are successful with students from elementary through high school. The workshop will combine the learning of skills necessary to use seminars in your classroom with a focus on significant documents from US History. Teachers of any social studies discipline, however, are welcomed and encouraged to enroll in the workshop.

The Socratic seminar training workshops are, by their very nature, highly participatory and interactive. Each day begins with a seminar in which all participate. The texts for these "adult" seminars are drawn from founding and other important documents in US history and government. By participating in actual seminars, participants are able to experience what their students might experience and learn the process "by doing." The other hallmark of seminar trainings is the repetition of "micro-seminars" in the afternoons. These are seminars on smaller texts that are lead by the participants in small groups. Conducted in a "jigsaw" manner, each participant leads a seminar after having time to prepare to do so with fellow participants. The "hands and minds on" aspect of this is extremely powerful as participants do the actual work of preparing for and leading seminars. The remaining elements of a seminar training revolve around making participant and leading behaviors explicit, identifying the elements of good seminar texts, exploring issues related to assessment of seminars, and determining the best ways to implement seminars in the participants' home setting.

Faculty

John Zola spent 32 years as a high school social studies teacher and served as Director of School and University Partnerships at the University of Colorado School of Education. He conducts in-service trainings on civic education and Socratic seminars in a variety of locations in the US, Central Europe, and Asia.

Fee: $405 members/$455 nonmembers (includes lunch and course materials)

Gradute credit is available at an additional cost. Please contact conference@ncss.org for more information.

Conference Registration