Helping Students to Think Like Scientists in Socratic Dialogue-Inducing Labs

Abstract

Socratic dialogue-inducing (SDI) labs1,2 are based on Arnold Arons' half-century of ethnographic research, listening carefully to students' responses to probing Socratic questions on physics, science, and ways of thinking, and culminating in his landmark Teaching Introductory Physics.3 They utilize “interactive engagement” methods4 and are designed, in part, to help students think like scientists, e.g., to: (1) appreciate the need for operational definitions; (2) use and interpret pictorial, graphical, vectorial, mathematical, and written representations; and (3) consider dimensions, thought experiments, and limiting conditions. After giving some SDI lab examples from those categories, I conclude that the SDI lab attempts to help students think like scientists have been relatively successful.