ABSTRACT
Often a lesson requires learners to reflect on their learning task, to stop and think about what they are doing, how, and why. One way educators can foster this kind of metacognition is to utilize the Socratic Method; ask learners probing questions to get them to examine their own thinking and assist them in an inquiry process. When there are not enough educators skilled in facilitating Socratic dialogue available to help all the learners in a learning environment in a timely manner, we propose using Web-based Socratic tutoring software to assist with the workload. We designed such a system and evaluated its effectiveness. The system, known as Sask, utilizes the Socratic Method via human computer interaction techniques to make the experience feel like a conversation with one’s educator. It also includes an authoring system designed to help educators quickly and easily build the tutors, called Mentors. In a quasi-experimental study the Sask system had a statistically significant effect size of 0.69 on students’ post-test scores. This implies that the unique interactive design of Sask Mentors can make such Socratic software effective tools for improving a learning environment where human educators already engage students in inquiry dialog.
