Case Study: Socrati Socratic Seminar

Does participating in professional development on Socratic Seminars result in higher reading comprehension scores than implementing this dialogic strategy without professional development?
My hypothesis is, that the teacher who receives professional development on implementing the Socratic Seminar will see higher reading comprehension scores than the other teacher. By receiving explicit training on how to effectively and meaningful use this strategy the teacher will be able to guide their students to a deeper level of understanding. The teacher that implements this strategy without the professional development will attempt to guide their students to a deeper level of understanding, but it may be more difficult without understanding exactly how to use the Socratic Seminar to do this.
Definition of Terms
Professional development: Professional development in this study refers to a specialized training for teachers to improve their professional knowledge, competence, skill, and effectiveness at implementing the teaching strategy Socratic Seminar. This would consist of at least one one-hour workshop provided by a reading specialist.
Students are required to listen to others ideas, think critically, and articulate their point of view and their responses to the thoughts of others. This teaching method is a research based best practice for reading education (Gambrell & Morrow, 2015). Teachers first employ appropriate reading activities to provide students an opportunity to analyze the text. Next, the teacher must prepare the students to participate in the discussion by teaching effective listening strategies. The teacher’s role during the seminar, is to ask questions that promote higher-order thinking. Afterwards students understanding can be assessed through a summative