Skip to main content

NBA Socratic Seminar

I "stole" this idea from Elliot Zetzer, who teaches CCP at an all-boys school and was searching for a way to motivate his students to contribute to his discussions in a Socratic Seminar. Elliot's take was MLB, which I will include here. Currently I have a hoop in the room, so I changed it to NBA. I've found this works well when encouraging discussion of a common classroom text, such as novel, poem, article, story, etc. 


Elliot admitted his boys were motivated by their stats, which he would calculate daily. This sounded like a lot of math to me, so I adapted it to the NBA. I have a hoop in my room where we shot our disinfectant-soaked towels during COVID. 

At its best, this is what it looks like in my room - split the class into two teams, usually right down the middle. Name a team captain for each team. Flip a coin or have a shoot-off for first possession. Inbound the ball to the captain. From there they can "shoot" (speak), or pass the ball to a teammate. To avoid one person being a ball hog, you might want to make the rule that "everyone on the team must shoot once before anyone can shoot twice." The graphic below shows how I "score" contributions -

I will let students shoot the ball after they speak for a chance to win an extra point. The ball gets inbounded to the other team's captain and repeat. If you want, you can introduce a "shot clock" to stimulate discussion if it's taking too long for students to speak. 

You can dream up incentives for the winning team, All-Stars, etc. It also helps if students write before they speak.


 


Comments

  1. Mr. FitzgeraldSeptember 10, 2024 at 11:02 AM

    I love this idea. I remember thinking I should steal it a while back. I really ought to steal/tweak it. The part I dig the most is the detailed criteria for meaningful contributions to the class dialogue. I am always hesitant to define or over "ref" a discussion as it can feel inorganic. Without clear criteria though, it is easy for some students to make low effort guttural noises for contributions and for other students to Russell Westbrook-out.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Purpose

I am imagining a space where we can get a clearer idea of how we teach as individuals, including but not limited to lessons, narratives on our approaches to classroom management, assessments, reflections on craft and theory, places to share our best ideas, vlogs, or a maybe just a book we enjoyed.  I imagine this could be a useful resource for teachers of all experience levels.  I imagine it could give a clearer idea to one another and a hypothetical new member of our department what admin means when they say, "You're all so different, yet your individuality is your strength." In my experience, blogs can be powerful repositories and memory vaults. A living "H" drive, so to speak. Unlike other, more modern forms of social media, bloggers have to have patience that the seeds they plant will be useful if only to the writer themself, who, months or even years from now, will have a living artifact from the past to admire, draw inspiration from, or chuckle at. A blog ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Fishbowl

  Speaking and listening skills…where does one begin?  We teach this all the time, in every lesson, right? We tend to console ourselves by adopting this mindset to alleviate the need for yet another standard to measure.  Reading and writing abilities are undoubtedly the most important in an ELA classroom…aren’t they?  I would argue that socializing, holding productive conversations, having civil disagreements, and listening purposefully are equally crucial.  Now more than ever, students need direction in these areas.  If we continue to brush it off as skills used daily and in every lesson, we are doing a disservice to future generations.  This leads me to the “fishbowl discussion.”  Like Irving's Old Scratch, it goes by many names. It is known as a  Socratic Seminar, Inquiry-Based Teaching, or Debate.  I prefer the term ‘Fishbowl’ for this student-led discussion, which fosters diverse perspectives and purposeful listening.  Here is ...
2 comments
Read more

Musical Musings 2

 As I mentioned in my first Musical Musings Post, I love working with music. I should probably start this  post off by acknowledging one of the perks of working with music: I like knowing what is "in." I can strengthen connections with my students by sharing songs. I usually find a couple of songs or even a couple of artists to jam out to as a result as well. It is a solid perk. I am in the process of developing a small music-based unit. It is currently a three-week unit that plays equally well with 4 and 5-day weeks. Each week has the same format: teaching modeling, student research, drafting, and edits, and then student presentations. It hits a wide swatch of our standards. I focus on Language Standards with their writing and Speaking and Listening Standards for their presentations. Each week will have a Standard focus unique to it. Week One focuses on tracing how ideas develop and change across artists and uses cover songs and hopefully the original. It focuses on ODE Spea...
1 comment
Read more