Discussion, the Socratic Method, the Seminar and the Tutorial
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Syllabus topic 2, "Methods of Teaching - Merits and demerits"
Pages 106 to 109 of 543
In one line
Three methods put the talking in the student's mouth rather than the teacher's: the Socratic method questions a student until the position they are defending either holds or breaks, the seminar has a student present work to the group, and the tutorial takes two or three students at a time and works on what they have written.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: the discussion or Socratic method proceeds by systematic questioning of the student by the teacher, so that the student is led to examine, refine or abandon a position; the seminar method requires a student to prepare and present a paper on an assigned topic to the group, which then discusses it under the teacher's direction; and the tutorial method takes a very small group, usually with written work prepared in advance, and addresses each student's own difficulties.
What the three have in common
The student produces the material. In all three, what the class works on is something a student said, wrote or defended.
The teacher's role shifts. From exposition to direction: choosing the question, keeping the discussion honest, and saying at the end what was settled.
Preparation is a precondition, not a hope. Every one of the three collapses into a poor lecture if the students arrive unprepared, and this single fact explains almost all their failures in practice.
And they are small-group methods. The Socratic method can just about work at thirty; the seminar at twenty; the tutorial at three. Above those numbers the method is being simulated rather than used.
The Socratic method
How it works. The teacher asks a student a question, takes the answer seriously, and then asks what follows from it, or what happens when a fact changes, or how the answer sits with something the student said earlier. The class watches a position being tested.
Merits. It exposes reasoning rather than conclusions, so a confident but wrong answer is corrected publicly and usefully. It rehearses being questioned, which is what a lawyer experiences in court. It keeps the class alert, because anyone may be next. And it reaches the misconception that a lecture never finds, because the student says it aloud.
Demerits. It can humiliate, and a method that frightens students produces silence rather than thought. It serves the few students questioned far more than the rest. It is very slow. It depends heavily on the skill of the teacher, since a badly run version is an interrogation with a predetermined answer. And in a class where students are unwilling to speak, which is common in Indian colleges for reasons of language and hierarchy, it does not start at all.
Discussion, the Socratic Method, the Seminar and the Tutorial
The seminar method
How it works. A student is assigned a topic, prepares a paper, presents it to the group, and the group discusses it while the teacher directs and corrects.
Merits. The presenting student learns the topic far better than by hearing it, because teaching something is the strongest way of learning it. It produces research and writing, which is Modules III and IV of this paper in miniature. It trains presentation and answering questions. It covers ground, since different students take different topics. And it produces a written product that can be assessed, which is why it survives.
Demerits. The students who are not presenting may learn very little, and the method's coverage is only as good as the weakest presenter. It is slow: one topic can consume a session. It rewards the confident. Preparation is uneven, and a poor paper wastes the group's hour. And without firm direction the discussion drifts into opinion, which in law is worth nothing without authority.
Its place. The seminar is the natural method of a master's degree, and MU's LL.M. group papers are where the reader will meet it.
The tutorial method
How it works. A very small group, one to four students, meets the teacher regularly, usually having written something in advance, and the hour is spent on what those students actually wrote.
Merits. It is the only method that addresses the individual student's own difficulty, because the material is their own work. It gives feedback in time to be useful, which no terminal examination can. It cannot be attended passively. And it builds the habit of writing, which is what a dissertation later requires.
Demerits. It is by far the most expensive method in teacher hours per student, and that single fact decides its availability. It needs a teacher who can read written work closely, and reading fifty essays a week properly is not possible. It is easily degraded into a small lecture, which is what usually happens when a college adopts the name without the ratio.
The condition all three depend on
Rule 11 and Schedule III, taught at chapter 170. Small-group teaching is a staffing ratio before it is anything else. A college with eight full time teachers and two thousand students cannot run tutorials, whatever its prospectus says, and an honest answer says so.
Rule 12, taught at chapter 170 and chapter 360. If none of the three carries marks, students will not prepare, and unprepared students destroy all three. Continuous internal assessment is what makes them possible.
This is the pattern of the whole of Module I and it is worth stating explicitly in an answer: a teaching method is not adopted by deciding to adopt it. It requires a staffing ratio and an assessment that rewards it, and where either is missing the method exists in name only.
Discussion, the Socratic Method, the Seminar and the Tutorial
A worked example
An LL.M. group of eighteen in the criminal law group. One topic: whether the right to free legal aid is real at the stage of remand.
As a Socratic exercise, the teacher asks one student whether the right exists, then whether an accused who does not know of it can use it, then what follows if the magistrate says nothing, then what the remedy is. The class watches the right dissolve and reform as a duty on the court.
As a seminar, one student prepares a paper on the duty to inform, presents the authorities and the practice, and the group tests it.
As a tutorial, three students each write two pages on the same question and the teacher takes the three pieces apart in an hour, showing each writer what their own argument was missing.
Same topic, three methods, three different products: a class that has watched reasoning happen; a student who now owns the topic and a group that has been briefed on it; and three writers who know what is wrong with their own writing.
And note the cost. Eighteen students, one hour, one teacher for the first two. Eighteen students would need six tutorial hours for the third. That ratio is the whole argument.
Distinctions
| Socratic | Seminar | Tutorial | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who prepares | The teacher's questions | One student's paper | Every student's writing |
| Group size | Up to about thirty | About twenty | One to four |
| Main product | Reasoning made visible | A researched paper and a briefed group | Individual correction |
| Chief risk | Humiliation and silence | Non-presenters learn little | Degrades into a small lecture |
| Cost per student | Low | Moderate | Very high |
Quick revision
All three put the material in the student's mouth, require preparation as a precondition, and need small groups.
Socratic: systematic questioning; exposes reasoning and misconceptions, rehearses being questioned; but can humiliate, serves the few questioned, is slow and needs a skilled teacher.
Seminar: a student presents a prepared paper; the presenter learns most, it produces research, writing and presentation skill and yields an assessable product; but non-presenters may learn little and coverage is only as good as the weakest paper.
Tutorial: one to four students working on their own written work; the only method that addresses the individual difficulty and gives timely feedback; but the most expensive in teacher hours and easily degraded.
Two preconditions for all three: a staffing ratio under rule 11 and Schedule III, and an assessment that rewards preparation under rule 12.
Test yourself
1. What single condition do all three methods share, and what happens when it is absent? Preparation by the students in advance. Without it each of the three collapses into a poor lecture, because the material the method works on is what the students bring.
Discussion, the Socratic Method, the Seminar and the Tutorial
2. Give two merits and two demerits of the seminar method. Merits: the presenting student learns the topic far better than by hearing it, and the method produces research, writing and presentation skill along with an assessable written product. Demerits: students who are not presenting may learn very little, and the coverage of the topic is only as good as the weakest presenter's paper.
3. Why is the tutorial rare in Indian law colleges? Because it is the most expensive method in teacher hours per student, so it depends on a staffing ratio most colleges do not have; adopting the name without the ratio turns it into a small lecture.
4. State the general point about method adoption that this chapter makes. That a method cannot be adopted merely by deciding to adopt it: it requires a staffing ratio and an assessment that rewards it, and where either is missing the method exists in name only.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.