Challenge Week Two

1. Write a blog post about an education question/ challenge/wondering that you have or are facing. You don’t need to have the answer/solution.

My question: How can I use SOLO more effectively to enhance development of the Key Competencies within my curriculum areas and beyond ... I use SOLO in my junior (Y9/10) classroom with each unit, and do relate it to these areas for the students.

Source

For this term, I have created/adapted a variety of SOLO templates to come up with this for our Habitat Hero's unit.

Relating To Others
Share ideas and listens	I need help to recognise and use listening skills	I sometimes listen to what others are saying	I listen to others most of the time and can respond to what they’ve said and may share a personal viewpoint.	I listen to others without interrupting and notice different points of view.  I can respond in appropriately (right time/context/situation)	I reflect on what I listen to and am prepared to change my own opinions.
Co-operating with and accepting others	I need help to interact with and accept others.	I can sometimes interact with others and accept other people’s differences.	I recognise and accept everyone is different and can work with others to produce an end result.	I make an effort to accept and co-operate with others.  I am aware how my words and actions will affect others.	I can reflect on how successfully I interact with my peers and adults.  I can effectively co-operate with others, accepting our differences.
Language Symbols And Text (LETTERS/REPORTS/SUBMISSIONS)
Uses technologies to access and provide information	I need help with digital technologies	I sometimes use digital technologies	I use technologies in appropriate situations	I effectively use a range of digital technologies to enhance my learning.	I can decide which digital technology will enhance my learning and I can use it confidently.
Selects appropriate LST to communicate verbally	I need help with speaking	I speak in class when asked, but reluctantly.	I can express ideas verbally in an appropriate manner with some confidence.	I can confidently express relevant ideas in a class situation   and can explain how they relate to a variety of situations.	I can confidently express my ideas in both classroom and wider situations.
Uses appropriate LST in written work	I need help with written work.	I can write sentences and paragraphs.	I can express ideas in my chosen written with some confidence and accuracy.	I can express relevant and connected ideas in an appropriate written format with confidence and accuracy, linking a variety of forms together if and when needed.	I can confidently and effectively express connected ideas in an appropriate written format.

I am not sure if this is exactly SOLO to the letter, but it is a starting point for me and my students.  

Please share what you are doing and helpful pointers cheerfully accepted :-)

Board Work

Often as teacher's we put up the Lesson Objective for the day.  These lesson objectives may come in the form of "Today I will be able to ..." or "Today we will learn about ... " or "I can ... "  I am going to try a different system after seeing a photo on Twitter.  We often put them up on the left or right hand side of the  board and get students to copy them into their notes or exercise books.  The goal of this is to make sure we and the students know what the purpose of the lesson is, the reason we are doing things and for them to have a reference point for achievement for that particular day or lesson.

One of my students painted the SOLO images (second image) during our Burger activity (first image) and they were too large for the burger.  Not wanting to waste them, I thought they would be the perfect fit for my board and my goal to change the way I use learning intentions.

Burger Activity - breaking down our knowledge of essays/language techniques/word classes and SOLO - love our school, we were nearly out of time, so I asked the next teacher if I could keep them as I had a non-contact ... no problems!!!

SOLO board - will aim to scaffold learning activities through this.  I will still have some more standard learning intentions that link specifically to curriculum context where applicable.

The SOLO learning intention board is a work in progress for me.  I will use it where I can, and hopefully students will find it clear to see what to aim for and for their own self-assessment of their learning.  Today it was as simple as the Extended Abstract image had "Apply and Understand Activities" beside it, so students could aim to get to those activities on their Google Doc, and if they could complete those (with showed understanding through individual conferences with me) then they knew they were at that level.  

It's all about learning - and I'm still excited I get to learn alongside my class!

May Challenge

I'm not a huge sketch person, but am going to take up the "Sketch a Day in May" challenge from Steve Mouldey.  If I'm honest, it won't be every day (I'm already a day late) and it will be a mix of what I own sketches and the sort of sketching is happening in my classroom.

I am lucky that I have a couple of whiteboard tables in my room.  These arrived in week 4 Term One, and it took about six weeks before the novelty for some of drawing crazy body parts the minute they had a pen to wear off.  It has been great to see that some students will now grab a whiteboard pen if they are sitting there and want to  brainstorm.

The sketch on the left was from a student who had read through an article and did this as her interpretation of the instructions I had given (skim/scan/notes)  I was so excited!  It was amazing to see that she was putting down the ideas in a way that  best suited her and seeing where they led.  The image on the right was from a whole class activity where they had written down their own ideas,  ideas from the article and some facts/opinions they knew that related to our topic.  We then the ideas down around our discussion topic and each student explained their hexagon(s) to the class.  

I am loving using the hexagon template.  This is based on Pam Hook's SOLO work and I am currently using it for note taking and idea gathering.  While I might not use it perfectly or in the way intended perfectly yet, it is proving a great thing to have.  For my slower and more kinaesthetic learners, it is something they can cut out and is proving to keep them focused for that bit longer.  I look forward to using this more in this research/report unit.

Starting with SOLO

One of my inquiry goals this year is to investigate (and implement) ways to improve the literacy of my Junior classes.  The school I am at has had some PD prior to my arrival on SOLO taxonomy.  I started investigating this about 8 weeks ago, and quickly found a strong model of understanding that students could identify with and that I thought was going to be useful in my classroom.

This model for learning, named "SOLO Taxonomy (structure of observed learning outcomes) provides a simple, reliable and robust model for three levels of understanding – surface deep and conceptual (Biggs and Collis 1982)." Source

It has  been great to not only be able to use the Pam Hook website and books that our staffroom has, but also to engage with other English teachers around NZ who have had actual classroom experience with this through the Secondary English list.    A source that I would not have sought out first, but ended up being useful was Pinterest - just goes to show you, don't discount the odd places.

So, all excited and inspired, on the first day back in term I had a go with my Junior classes.  We had briefly touched on the concpts of SOLO at the end of last term - so we recapped the levels of thinking before starting on some activities.   Over the holidays they had been assigned a novel, so they took the main characters and events and then connected them to each other using the sides of the hexagons.  It was a great way for them to start to see how characters and events intertwined.  Later in the day I used the hexagons again to link ideas and concepts together from feature articles.

Breaking down the concepts - (love my whiteboard tables!)

Seeing what ideas link

Senior class using hexagons to get ideas from a feature article and linked the articles ideas with their own prior knowledge.  The group then shared their ideas and putting them together for a collaborative knowledge hexagon.