Over 20-years-ago as a public school teacher Stanley Pogrow, Ph.D was an energetic and excited math teacher. Despite his affection for his students and his skill as a teacher there was always one obstacle he could not overcome – the blank stare students gave him whenever he asked an abstract question.
“Whenever I asked an open-ended question, the students would just stare at me. This seminar is for any teacher who has asked a question in advanced form and just had the student stare blankly at you. I set off on a journey to find out why students did this. [This seminar] is where you’ll learn what that stare means,” Pogrow said.
Pogrow said that if educators want to eliminate the blank stare from classrooms, they need to revamp their teaching policies. The method isn’t new; it dates back to the ancient Greeks and Socrates’ teaching method of learning through questioning. Thirty-five to 40 minutes of Socratic discussions will, over time, help students develop higher order thinking skills.
“We can’t improve [students'] performance by just relying on teaching and re-teaching standards based context and relying on remedially test approaches,” Pogrow said. “The stare means you are asking me to think. The research shows that the stare means students do not understand what “understanding” is due to a lack of experience in talking with adults about ideas. [The question is,] can we use the school to change that? The answer is yes.”
Pogrow said you can spend money on technology, conduct student interventions and hire experts but it comes down to what teachers can do to make up the current understanding gap students have. He said it’s not enough to just ask questions in your classroom.
When students do not understand abstract thinking they have trouble retaining new content, they do not know how to generalize and they cannot apply what they memorize.
“We’ve worked with half a million students across the country over decades. This isn’t a theory,” Pogrow said. “The understanding gap is a, perhaps the, primary cause of the achievement gap. Students have tremendous reservoirs of untapped intellectual potential.”
Pogrow has been conducting research on his higher order thinking skills program for over 20 years in over 2,600 schools.
The research shows that by reducing time spent teaching basic skills and substituting higher order thinking skills general thinking conversations to develop a sense of understanding produces a deeper understanding and better verbal communication skills.
“Regardless of national tests or state tests we see gains in testing. [The research has] been showing this for 28 years. We see gains in social development, self concept and verbalization,” Pogrow said.
“The HOTS program is a specialized intervention; whereas, the Socratic questions will be beneficial to use in [all of the] classrooms. But it is far more powerful if a school-wide policy is in effect to show what real conversations looks like,” Pogrow said.
The Socratic teaching approach is to teach by asking. Pogrow said it will promote consistent and sophisticated answers and improve student verbalization.
Pogrow said to use the Socratic method teachers should use predictive questions before reading, have students write questions for comprehension, use strategy games and always ask why.
Strategy is a Socratic technique that can be found most commonly in games.
“Games require students to use strategy, reflect on what works and what doesn’t work and verbalize,” Pogrow said.
“Teachers ask recall questions far more than predictive questions. But predictive questions are more important to develop a sense of understanding. Good readers are unconsciously making predictions,” Pogrow said.
Pogrow said the best educational institution isn’t an Ivy League school, but the dinner table.
“[The dinner table] is where kids listen to all these kind of questions and answers with their parents and many kids don’t have this at home. That’s what develops their sense of understanding. So instead of getting out of lunch room duty, get involved. Have lunch with them and start these discussions,” Pogrow said.
Pogrow said if teachers employ the Socratic questioning method independently or using the higher order thinking skills program, teachers will be amazed at the progress students make academically, socially and emotionally.
“We have to stop beating ourselves up for the students’ lack of performance. We control our own destiny,” Pogrow said.
