INNOVATIVE TEACHING STRATEGIES

Faculty Development

Innovative Teaching Strategies

This page highlights some of the innovative teaching strategies that Neumann faculty are employing. You are invited to try some of these pedagogical practices in your classroom.

Description of Innovation Teaching Strategy:

Silent Socratic Dialog

Purpose: to engage in deeper discussion about issues than an oral discussion allows Instructions – no talking

• Respond to a given prompt, by free-writing for 3:00 minutes (or until the moderator stops you).
• Give what you wrote to the person on your right.
• Read what you were given and reply in writing for 3:00 minutes. The moderator will let you know when there are 30 seconds left; complete the thought you are writing. At the end add a relevant question, and give your reply to the original author.
• Read the reply and question you were given and write a reply for 3:00 minutes; add a question at the end of your reply. Return it to your partner.
• Continue for at least one more round; three or more rounds will give you deeper results.
• Now you can talk – discuss your “silent dialog”

Course: Eng 320: Romantic & Victorian Literature

Instructor: Jim Kain, M.A., Assistant Professor of English

Impact of Strategy on Teaching and Learning:
The strategy resulted in much more lively and engaged discussion of the literature we were reading. The discussion following the silent dialog was deeper and more critically focused right from the start than regular open discussions.

The students said that they enjoyed the process and couldn't wait to get into a class discussion following their silent ones.