Tuesday 3 April 2012

First Attempt at SOLO Learning

As a teacher of PE I feel it is important to promote independent learning wherever possible.  I always structure my practical lesson in a fashion which allows me to set tasks which will show the students making progress and also build up their confidence in the sport which we are doing.  However this is something, which on reflection, I could improve on my theory side of things.  My GCSE group are fast approaching their exam. Previous exam analysis has shown that students in the main have not got the highest grades because they do not answer the longer questions because they do not look at the bigger picture of what the question is asking.  To help combat this I spoke to an AST in school (@JaneH271) who pointed me in the direction of SOLO taxonomy. 









The lesson I choose to trial SOLO was a lesson about Health and Safety, with particular focus on clothing, equipment and footwear.  Rather than introducing the topic I simply gave the students a picture to act as a stimulus for the topic.  The students then went to work annotating the picture with any details they could think of, this is what is termed as the preconstructral phase as the details have no link and therefore only show shallow thinking.  I then introduced the hexagons as a way of linking the learning, this was the only time i modelled the process as I gave an example of how it can link to other topics within the GCSE PE spec.

As the students went about setting up their hexagons I walked around the room and questioned students to ensure their understanding was there.  I was amazed at how the students began to form links and the hexagons began to branch off into different directions and moving more towards the extended abstract phase which would ensure students have a better understanding of the topic and what the examiner is looking for.

3 comments:

  1. I loved the lesson I came into. Your pupils really seem to be getting to grips with working independently!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great blog mate. SOLO is something that I might have to pick your brain about. I have a good GCSE group with some exceptional students. This may help me stretch the more able.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for this and the help you have given me regarding SOLO. Tried this the other day in a revision session and it worked really well.

    ReplyDelete