The Socratic Dialogue and Teacher Education

This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol 26, Issue 4, Author(s): Dubravka Knezic, Theo Wubbels, Ed Elbers and Maaike Hajer, “The Socratic Dialogue and Teacher Education”, Pages 1104-1111, Copyright Elsevier (May 2010).

This paper argues that the Socratic Dialogue in the Nelson and Heckmann tradition will prove a considerable contribution in training teachers.
A review of the literature and empirical research supports the claim that the Socratic Dialogue promotes student teachers' interpersonal sensitivity while stimulating conceptual understanding.

The article provides a new definition of the Socratic Dialogue and introduces the idea of common concept formation.
A concrete Socratic Dialogue in the context of teacher education is discussed by way of illustration.

Finally, the authors suggest a manner of integrating Socratic Dialogue in teacher education and propose a line of further research.