Tuesday 17 April 2012

Developing SOLO in my classroom

During an Easter revision session I wanted to develop the use of SOLO not only for stand alone lessons bur for use from now until their exam at the end of May.  Using the Pam Hook book 'SOLO Taxonomy: A guide for schools' I searched out for a way to use SOLO for section B of the AQA GCSE PE exam.  Section B consists of a scenario and then questions ranging from 2 - 8 marks available.  These questions could be from any topic within the GCSE spec.  The first thing I wanted to do was create a wordle of the scenario so the students would be able to pick out possible topics.
Once they had worked through this we then discussed possible questions which may appear in section B.  Using Kiplings questions (Thanks to @Davidfawcett27)  the students wrote their own questions about several topics 
I then introduced the Hot Solo Maps - to do this I again used the wordle of the scenario and looked at the mind map they had produced this showed understanding in a prestructural form.  I then got each student to pick out one topic to concentrate on.  For example they may have picked out training methods.  They would then show their understanding of the topic in general forming closer to a unistructural understanding.  In the third box I then asked the students to relate it back to David and how training methods affect him.  This showed more of a relational understanding of the topic and would ensure higher marked when answering the questions requiring extended pieces of writing. 
Finally I asked the students to link a further topic to the idea meaning the students are able to develop their answers and are in the extended abstract phase of their understanding.

Next Steps

During the next six weeks I intend to continue to use the hot maps so the students eventually build up a bank of answers showing deeper learning which will mean the students will achieve a better grade in the longer questions.

The SOLO taxonomy learning is something which is relatively new to me but I can only see positives from it.  It lends itself to allowing the students to work independently and also with regards to scripting longer answers in the exam.

I am planning on using this as an example at the Barnsley TeachMeet as I a feel this type of  SOLO has got potential to transfer into all subjects.

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