Rising student disengagement in secondary schools is a pressing concern, and educators are seeking innovative strategies to create environments that foster student ownership of their learning. On a recent site visit to Suffern Central High School, my colleague Dr. Latia White and I got to see how teachers are embedding new ways of interacting so that students can build connections, create relationships, and form opinions using evidence. These strategies not only deepen engagement, but also cultivate student agency by positioning learners as leaders in the classroom.
As a part of the Center for Inclusive Innovation’s project, “Community Socratic Circles to Build Teacher Capacity for Culturally Responsive Teaching,” a cohort of 30 educators have been working to build their capacity for student-centered dialogue, focusing on issues that students care about through student-led discussions called Socratic Circles. These professional development sessions have focused on various topics, including ways to structure Socratic Circles, discussing opposing opinions in respectful ways, and engaging in activities that build student belonging. We also lead teachers through teacher action research cycles that focus on developing teacher capacity to use data to drive decision-making and reflect on their practice using student feedback to improve their instruction in the classroom.
This iterative approach has led to teachers experimenting with different strategies in the classroom that enable more collaboration and deeper engagement for students from various backgrounds. In our observations, we saw students engaging in several supplemental strategies highlighted below:
When students work with and process information by discussing, organizing, and sharing it together, they deepen their understanding. As learners become experts on a certain topic through analyzing multimodal texts—in groups or individually—and share their understanding with different students, they practice their literacy skills during content area instruction. Research has shown that student understanding of content material is higher after participating in jigsaw reading activities.
Sentence frames, or stems, provide language support for students’ writing and participation in academic discussions as a scaffold for students to start and structure an explanation. Sentence frames help all students develop more fluent composition, especially by allowing students with varying English proficiency to use more complex syntax and academic vocabulary.
Gallery walks are ways of showcasing content and materials as multiple “exhibitions” for students to view and interact with as part of larger learning goals. When learners participate in gallery walks through these stations—either individually or working in small groups—learning becomes more tactile, solidifying deeper understanding. By seeing, sharing, and responding to ideas with their peers, learners develop social awareness and relationship skills and sharpen communication skills. Gallery walks allow educators to display a wide array of content that may not be showcased in a typical lesson, which sparks curiosity, increases learner engagement, and focuses attention. Teachers can also use gallery walks to showcase student generated work and content and provide opportunities for their peers to respond, provide feedback, or build on their ideas.
Asking questions or having learners create their own questions before introducing a text activates interest, increases motivation, and helps them assess what they already know about a given topic. This process can also help teachers understand any misconceptions or gaps in learner background knowledge, particularly when introducing new concepts. When learners ask and answer pre-reading questions, they draw connections to what they already know and understand the purpose for reading a text, ultimately leading to increased comprehension.
These engagement strategies we witnessed in practice at Suffern Central High School build students’ capacity to enable themselves and their peers to drive conversation as teachers shift from direct instruction to become facilitators of learning. These are the building blocks of creating engaging and meaningful classroom Socratic Circles. In our observations, we saw students discussing complex topics like whether learning a new language affects your identity, the pros and cons of concussion headbands in women’s soccer, and the ethics of using a found answer key according to ancient religion Zoroastrianism. In each of these conversations, students not only explored diverse perspectives but also took ownership of their learning by applying critical thinking and supporting their arguments with evidence.
We look forward to seeing more teachers engage in Socratic Circles and use the tool to facilitate community dialogue around issues that students are passionate about. This spring, students at Suffern Central High School—supported by their teachers—will identify key issues that matter to them and their community for discussion in a Community Socratic Circle.
Use these resources to deepen your understanding of, and capacity for, Socratic Circles:
