APPLICATION OF THE SOCRATIC DIALOGUE ON CORRECTIVE LEARNING OF SUBTRACTION

The purpose of this research is to construct a corrective learning sys tem using the Socratic dialogue as a guide to correct mistakes in stud ents' knowledge on the domain of subtraction. Since the cause of stude nts' mistaken concepts relates to the formation and evolution of menta l models, the correction of mistakes cannot be effective if a teacher relies on simply telling the student the standard solution. Instead, t hey should make the student consider the mistakes and contradictions t hey themselves discover in the correction process; The Socratic dialog ue applies a dialectic method to present questions to the student and lets the student reconsider his or her own thinking. In this research, we shall make an inquiry into the fundamental reasoning principles of the Socratic dialogue and use the production rules to express the pri nciples that will be used for the learning of subtraction. The effect of;Socratic dialogue on the learning of subtraction has been evaluated by an educational experiment. The experimental results show that the approach of the Socratic dialogue on learning is indeed of great help for students. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.