Week:-4 (Critical Thinking for Language Studies)

What is Socratic questioning and how does it differ from other types of questioning?

Socrates:

This article is about the classical Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens. Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher. He was credited as one of the founders of western philosophy. Socrates did not write philosophical texts, the knowledge of the man, his life, and his philosophy is entirely based on writings by his students and contemporaries. Foremost among them is Plato; however, works by Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes also provide important insights. His notable ideas of Socratic Method and Socratic irony.

What is Socratic Method?

Socratic most important contribution to Western thought is his dialogical method of enquiry, known as the Socratic Method, which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and was first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father and fountainhead for ethics or moral philosophy, and of philosophy in general.

What is Socratic Questioning?

Socrates is a Greek philosopher with a teacher. A Socratic approach to teaching is based on the practice of disciplined, rigorously thoughtful dialogue. Socratic Questioning is a disciplined questioning that can be used to take your thought in many directions and for many purposes. Socratic Questioning used thought and many ways including such as; 
to explore complex ideas, to get to the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts, to distinguish what we know from what we don’t know, to follow out logical implications of thought or to control the discussion. 
Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined, deep and usually focuses on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues or problems.

Socratic questioning, the teacher is a model of critical thinking who respects students' viewpoints, probes their understanding, and shows genuine interest in their thinking. The teacher poses questions that are more meaningful than those a novice of a given topic might develop on his or her own. The teacher creates and sustains an intellectually stimulating classroom environment and acknowledges the value of the student in that environment.

Socratic questioning helps students to think critically by focusing explicitly on the process of thinking. During disciplined, carefully structured questioning, students must slow down and examine their own thinking processes (i.e., reflective thinking).

R.W. Paul's six types of Socratic questions:

(1) Questions for clarification,

(2) Questions that probe assumptions,

(3) Questions that probe reasons and evidence,

(4) Questions about viewpoints and perspectives,

(5) Questions that probe implications and consequences,

(6) Questions about the question.