Research-backed ways to design reflective, brain-building questions for incarcerated adult learners

Have you ever been explaining something—an opinion, a plan, a story—when someone stopped you and asked:

“But what do you really mean by that?”

Not to challenge you.
Not to prove you wrong.
Just enough to make you pause.

Suddenly, you’re no longer repeating what sounds right. You’re clarifying it. Testing it. Sometimes, even revising it as you speak.

That moment happens all the time in real life—at work, in conversations with friends, in moments of conflict or self-reflection.

In learning science, that moment has a name: Socratic questioning.

It’s the shift from saying words to examining meaning. From passive explanation to active thinking.

What Is the Socratic Method? (And Why It Belongs in Your Course)

Socrates, aka the original GOAT of discussion threads, asked questions not to collect answers, but to deepen thinking. His whole approach boiled down to: Let’s dig under your assumptions and see what’s actually holding them up.

No lectures.
No PowerPoints.

Just carefully chosen, mildly uncomfortable questions that made people stop talking and start thinking.

In a live conversation, a question like “What do you really mean by that?” works because it interrupts autopilot. It forces clarity. It moves people from borrowed language to their own reasoning.

Digital learning changes the rules.

On a self-paced platform like Edovo, that same question—dropped in without support—can feel vague, annoying, or even unsafe. Especially for incarcerated adult learners, many of whom associate school with being judged, corrected, or wrong.

So the question isn’t whether Socratic questioning works.
The science is clear: it does.

The real question is this:

How do we design Socratic questions that deepen thinking without triggering frustration, shutdown, or blank-page panic?

When designed well, a Socratic question does three things at once:

• Moves learners out of memorization and into meaning-making

• Triggers active retrieval, strengthening memory

• Creates a productive pause that leads to insight, not shame

But it only works when questions are anchored, scaffolded, and grounded in lived experience.

That’s what makes a Socratic question Edovo-ready. And that’s exactly what we’re about to unpack.

What the Science Says (Briefly, Because You’re Busy)

Still with me? Cool. Now pause for a sec and ask:

“What happens in the brain when I ask a question instead of stating a fact?”

When learners are invited into a meaningful question, the brain responds. Active retrieval engages. Dopamine increases. Semantic encoding deepens (Craik & Tulving, 1975).

Translation: questions don’t just test memory. They build it.

The most effective questions don’t look like tests at all:

• They aren’t always graded

• They aren’t always answered

• They aren’t followed by a “correct” response

Instead, they’re woven into the experience, inside videos, alongside images, embedded in text, or placed before reflection.

This design aligns with core adult learning theories:

• Transformative Learning (Mezirow): questions challenge assumptions and spark reflection

• Social Learning (Bandura): prompts model curiosity and emotional regulation

• Constructivism: meaning isn’t delivered—it’s built

Research consistently shows Socratic-style prompts increase reflection, metacognition, and learner autonomy (Yang et al., 2005).

In environments where people are used to being told what to think, that shift matters.

(If this section made you pause, rethink, or reframe something, good. That’s the Socratic Method doing its job.)😉

Let’s model it some more, shall we?

Before we talk strategy, try this on for size:

When you hear the word justice, what pops into your mind first?

1. A definition you memorized?
   
2. A moment you lived through?
   
3. A feeling you still carry?
   

Notice what just happened. You didn’t “get the right answer.” You started sorting meaning.

Now compare these two questions:

If you paused, you already know the answer.

B doesn’t ask for academic language. It asks for experience. Memory. Emotion. Meaning.

That difference matters—because many Edovo learners aren’t avoiding learning.
They’re avoiding what learning has meant to them in the past.

For some, school taught one rule: don’t engage unless you’re sure you’re right.

A definition reinforces that rule.
A Socratic question breaks it.

It shifts the task from being correct to making meaning. There’s no single right answer. No hidden trick. The learner controls how deeply they engage.

That invitation changes everything.

A closer look at why this works for incarcerated learners

Let’s not pretend this is easy. Many Edovo learners…

• Haven’t been in school for years

• Associate learning with shame, not curiosity

• Feel uneasy writing about personal beliefs

• Aren’t used to being asked their opinion

Nonthreatening Socratic questions lower the pressure to perform and raise the invitation to think.

Instead of “Show me you know this,” they ask: What do you notice? What does this mean to you?

That shift:

• Offers a way back into learning without academic gatekeeping

• Replaces judgment with curiosity

• Builds agency one reflection at a time

Used well, Socratic questioning says:
Your thinking is worth space.

And that changes how learning feels.

“But I can't talk to learners, this will never work!”

Bonus: Your “Socratic starters” cheat sheet

Use these as-is or tweak them for your topic. The key? Make it personal, make it purposeful, and make it open enough for reflection.