"There were two important types of teaching in the scholastic method. First there was the lectio, which is closest to today 's lecture, and which consisted of a lecture by a lecturer who explained and examined the text chosen to study. This was followed by an argumentative discussion similar to our seminars today.
Disputes had a clear structure, moderated by the teacher, and it was carried out systematically in several stages:
The dispute was preceded by a statement or a controversial question, the so-called quaestio, which could be answered yes or no, for example: Is the earth a sphere? Students were aware of this work or issue in advance and had appropriate time to prepare for the discussion: they had to gather confirmatory or contradictory arguments. The arguments were presented one after the other, arguing, first by the arguments of one and then the other. The teacher identified which student was allowed to speak and checked the logical validity of the arguments presented, thus acting as a kind of discussion arbiter.
However, in contrast to our current culture of discussion, there was no goal for students to stay in one position. Rather, it was necessary to find out together which arguments were logically convincing and whether the pros and cons were more convincing, so that the quaestio ultimately had to be answered in the affirmative or in the negative.
Strictly under the guidance of a lecturer, students practiced developing and arguing logical arguments. Either the student could have a discussion with the lecturer, or several colleagues gathered and presented arguments for or against. In this way, a good, systematically directed discussion was created, which, by logic, had a clear qualitative standard of motivation and always led to an answer to the question posed at the beginning.
If you look at the course of our seminars these days compared to those ancient discussions, our seminars would often lag behind. Thus, in the course of these days, it may happen that in classes with 30 students, half are unprepared and only a small proportion of them feel addressed when a teacher asks a question. The problem under consideration is always discussed by the same students, so the seminar discussion is dominated by few voices. If there is a lively discussion every time that more students participate, individuals are often interrupted, deviate from the topic, or even have no opinion. In addition, some teachers do not even encourage their students to discuss, but only want to hear about the participants' "opinions" or "readings", which hinders the discussion.
And especially in online seminars, there are additional challenges: for example, conversation dynamics are often not what they usually occur when it is possible to maintain eye contact with fellow students and teachers or to understand body language in a seminar room. In addition, many students tend to get distracted faster when a discussion doesn’t work for them properly on their own computer screens.
All these problems can be solved using the scholastic method.
This has a particularly high potential for digital courses: a good and intensive introduction to the topic and a clear issue to be discussed in the seminar discussion can ensure that 90 minutes are used for a real discussion. In addition, before the session, it can be determined which students should support the thesis and which on the contrary. If the teacher actively moderates the discussion, he or she can decide which student should express his or her opinion and when, thus avoiding the same people interfering or talking all the time.
The number of discussion participants can be small or divided into discussion groups for students to change during the semester. Applying the scholastic approach would also provide students with important skills that can be useful not only in discussing a conversation, but also in preparing homework or in solving problems at work when it is necessary to defend a position convincingly. Students could learn to create logically coherent arguments and test the arguments of others for their logical validity, react quickly to statements, consider opposing arguments to their arguments, and express all of this accurately and understandably.
The scholastic approach originally evolved among the "artes liberales", the seven liberal arts (grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) that formed the basis of each course of study, but often also addressed theological issues. "
When applying this method to modern experimental research, it is worthwhile to find out first what common scientific problem our work is dedicated to, what a specific scientific question this work answers, what methods and what specific experimental information is collected for answering, and what from this information supports our answer to the question and what - contradicts the answer.
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