Proposal
For
Critical Inquiry
Shenendehowa Central Schools
September 2008
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
-Socrates
OBJECTIVE:
To offer a high quality, challenging and rigorous humanities curriculum for highly able sixth grade students that strengthens critical thinking skills and nurtures creative, autonomous thought within a reading program using Socratic Seminars and a problem-based model as the instructional foundation.
TARGET POPULATION: Shenendehowa 6th Grade Students who meet identification criteria.
SITE: Shenendehowa Middle Schools
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
During the first half of the year (Sept-Jan.), students will be trained in Socratic Seminar protocol to develop critical thinking skills, deepen understanding of abstract concepts and construct new knowledge within a multi-disciplinary context based on 6th grade ELA curriculum and concepts. In the second half
( January – June), students will take newly discovered concepts or ideas a step further by identifying and selecting an area of interest to study, conducting research, creating products and a presentation to be showcased on a designated day. (Accent on Acadia, Koda Café and Gowana Spotlight.) Experts from outside fields may be invited into classes when appropriate.
CONTEXT/CURRICULUM:
A Socratic Seminar is an instructional delivery approach to understand information or discover new ideas by creating a thoughtful dialogue in regards to a specific reading, text or other media context. Teachers or leaders guide student dialogue in a rigorous, challenging way in order to gain deeper understanding of complex ideas or abstract concepts as opposed to promoting memorizations of facts.
Socratic Seminar texts or other media will be carefully chosen for their richness of ideas, issues and values and their capacity to stimulate and extend (from several different disciplines) thoughtful dialogue. More importantly, text or other media will align with the English Language Arts standards and concepts as identified by Shenendehowa ECC. Text or other media for discussion may come from the Great Books Foundation, Shenendehowa curriculum text, teacher selected material or a combination thereof.
A Socratic Seminar is usually based on pre-determined “essential questions” as posed by the teacher or students (once they acquire more experience with the seminar format). A good opening question leads participants back to the text or other media to speculate, cite evidence, analyze and compare or further clarify issues. A good seminar is evidenced by participants leaving with more questions than answers. Basically, a seminar consists of four elements:
Ø The text - ( or video, book, artwork, journal article, etc. ) can come from any subject area
Ø The question - reflects genuine curiosity and is “open-ended” in nature
Ø The leader or teacher - offers the initial question but switches back and forth between leader and participant.
Ø The students - study text in advance, listen actively, and share ideas using evidence from the text for support.
Ø From September to January, students prepare for weekly or bi-weekly seminars by engaging in pre-seminar activities (reader response, vocabulary study, writing, webbing, researching, reading the assigned text) then completing post-seminar assignments (journal writing, narratives, research authentic follow-up projects). Activities can be hands-on, project-based or writing assignments. Seminars can take place every week or every two weeks depending on schedules, student work load and the nature of pre-seminar assignment. Students will be asked to use computer or video technology and online discussion boards to explore or extend topics before or after the seminars.
Ø From January to June, based on themes or concepts discovered during the first half of the year, students will determine topics for further research, select an area of interest and produce an abstract and a research paper for public presentation on a specific day. Presentation day will follow the building schedule for student presentations.
IDENTIFICATION:
A child study committee, within the Shenendehowa School District, is established for the purpose of accumulating, monitoring and evaluating identification data. The committee membership is comprised of the following representatives: Academic Administrator, administrators, Critical Inquiry Teacher. Eligible students will be determined by accumulating some or all of the following
Ø SCAT scores ( 70 or higher on VERBAL portion only) (08-09)
Ø Test of Cognitive Ability or Aptitude
Ø New York State ELA (high 3 or 4)
Ø Reading Level
Ø Renzullis characteristics
Ø Classroom performance
Each item will be assessed a point value and recorded on a matrix. Some items can be weighted more heavily than others. Guidelines will be determined for purposes of program entry.
The committee will determine each spring the number of students eligible to participate for the following school year. Should the number of participants exceed the number of slots available, a waiting list will be established and monitored by the committee or a designated representative.
SCHEDULING:
Instruction in this program will take place during the 40 minute Reading periods offered Monday-Friday. If possible, identified students will be consolidated within the team structure (currently there are three teams per building) at Shenendehowa in order to facilitate scheduling and classroom instruction/management. The Critical Inquiry teacher will collaborate with Middle School teams for curriculum and planning purposes during the Team Collaboration period.
CURRICULUM ASSESSMENTS:
Students in the Critical Inquiry program will be assessed within the framework of the Shenendehowa grading system. The teacher will use a variety of rubrics, written assignments and presentations. The Critical Inquiry teacher will assign students grades using the Shenendehowa grading procedures. Students will be responsible for completing homework assignments within the program.
COMMUNICATION:
The Critical Inquiry teacher will communicate with parents and teachers via newsletters, personal notes and conferences. A “ Frequently Asked Questions” sheet for Critical Inquiry has been created to assist with open house presentations. See Appendix A for FAQ sheet.
Parent orientations sessions will take place during tri-building open houses.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
Successful Professional development might occur in several stages:
Ø Collaborative meetings to plan for 6th grade alignment with ELA curriculum
Ø Ongoing professional development
Ø New teacher orientation
EVALUATION:
A carefully constructed action plan has been devised to help evaluate the effectiveness of the Critical Inquiry program.
Ø Tasks or Actions
Ø Due Dates for Completion of the Actions
Ø Evaluation or Evidence that the Task or Action was accomplished successfully.
The action plan contains targeted and specific actions or tasks to assess the effectiveness of the program from a variety of perspectives; professional development, identification, curriculum, communication, collaboration, academic improvement, assessments, etc. Program evaluation has been built into the action plan so that assessments are ongoing and collected throughout the year from teachers, students and parents.
STANDARDS/GOALS:
The Critical Inquiry program meets or exceeds the standards for New York State.
New York State Standards-ELA
Ø Standard # 1: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.
Ø Standard # 2: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response and expression.
Ø Standard # 3: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for critical analysis and evaluation.
Ø Standard # 4: Students will read, write, listen and speak for social interaction.
Shenendehowa Strategic Goal: Instructional Programs
Goal: To develop and implement high quality education programs aligned with the Profile of a Shenendehowa Graduate consistent with the Essential Content and Competencies, and the District’s Values and Beliefs, recognizing that children develop and learn at different rates and in different ways.
CRITICAL INQUIRY PROGRAM GOALS:
Ø Encourage the development and expression of scholarly attitudes and work habits
Ø Develop intellectual discipline by exploring unabridged literature and related subjects, such as art, history, geography and etymology
Ø Practice written expression of ideas in various styles with an emphasis on persuasive writing.
Ø Practice in critical thinking through inquiry and problem - based learning
Ø Encourage intellectual risk-taking
Ø Nurture friendship, respect, and exchange among intellectual peers and age-mates
RATIONALE:
Socrates, a Classical Greek philosopher, was a true believer in the practice of the “dialectic” method of learning. He called this method dialectic, meaning the art or practice of examining opinions or ideas logically, often by method of question and answer. He was convinced the best way to obtain reliable knowledge was through the course of conversation. Later on the American educational community discovered a variety of instructional applications for the Socratic Method thanks to Mortimer Adler and the The Paideia Proposal written in 1982.
RESEARCH:
Socratic Seminars have been reported to increase higher order thinking and conflict resolution skills for students. When text is relevant for students, teacher training is targeted for key areas and every effort is made to align seminar topics to general curriculum themes, teachers can expect to see an increase in cognitive and social functioning in their students.