Example of Socratic Methodology

<h4 >Methodology in operation</h4>

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<li >The teacher and student agree on the topic of instruction.</li>

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<li >The student agrees to attempt to answer questions from the teacher.</li>

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<li >The teacher and student are willing to accept any correctly-reasoned answer. That is, the reasoning process must be considered more important than pre-conceived facts or beliefs.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method#cite_note-19" >[20]</a></li>

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<li >The teacher's questions should expose <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy" title="Fallacy" >errors in the students' reasoning</a> or beliefs, then formulate questions that the students cannot answer except by a correct reasoning process. The teacher has prior knowledge about the classical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies" title="Fallacies" class="mw-redirect" >fallacies</a> (errors) in reasoning.</li>

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<li >Where the teacher makes an error of logic or fact, it is acceptable for a student to draw attention to the error.</li>

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An informal discussion or similar vehicle of communication may not strictly be a (Socratic) dialogue. Therefore it is only suitable as a medium for the Socratic method where the principles are known by teachers and likely to be known by students. Additionally, the teacher is knowledgeable and proficient enough to spontaneously ask questions in order to draw conclusions and principles etc. from the students.

Within such a discussion it is preferable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogically" title="Pedagogically" class="mw-redirect" >pedagogically</a>,[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" >citation needed</a>] because the method encourages students to reason critically rather than appeal to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority" title="Authority" >authority</a> or use other fallacies.