ABSTRACT
Discussion via student questioning has origins that date back centuries; this method indeed has been traced to classic teachers such as Socrates (469–399 bc). Socrates purportedly did not believe that the lecture was an effective method of teaching and instead relied upon probing questions for the purpose of stimulating critical thinking and deeper levels of understanding. While this form of questioning has its supporters, it also has its critics, who see it as a veiled form of the banking method of education where the teacher deposits the information into the empty vaults of student minds (Freire, 1970). Therefore, although Socrates is credited as being one of the first to use a discussion-oriented teaching strategy, the way he applied questions led us to include his method in our chapter on lecture techniques.
