The responsibility for developing these skills then shifts from the student to the teacher as questioning becomes the guiding force. These myths must be dispelled. Socratic questioning and discussion is, in fact, structured, has distinctive goals, and has ways to achieve these goals, as described below. Teachers must be better prepared in their discipline and the unit of instruction, because the students may, in their discourse, take a different path for discussion than what the teacher had planned. In a short sentence, Socratic questioning requires students to make assumptions, distinguish between relevant and irrelevant points, and explain points.
Socratic instruction can take many forms.
These are the elements of critical thought. Socratic questioning, however beneficial, must be learned-both by teachers and by students. It involves more than eliciting one-word responses, and it requires students to make assumptions. The following taxonomy, created and reported by Paul, explains the Socratic questioning format. These categories are as follows.