Rm 10

I will to continue to develop and improve my knowledge and understanding of SOLO taxonomy to develop the childrens questioning, processing and understanding skills in Inquiry Learning. This will be revisted regularly next term so that the children continue to improve their understanding of how the rubric works. I was very surprised that I had children at the relational stage for understanding and it will be interesting to see if these chn continue with the next inquiry or if it is related to that particular inquiry. Having the stages in child’s language helps the chn code where they are at so they understand where they fit on the rubric. I need to continue to improve and develop how I deliver the SOLO rubric to the chn so that their understanding of SOLO is extended as much as possible.

ULEARN09

"Striving Sevens" use SOLO

Recently my goal has been to further develop my own professional knowledge around the CSS inquiry rubric. I wanted to develop my own questioning skills and use strategies to assisst children to assess themselves against the rubric. I have found the inquiry solo rubric has given my teaching and children’s learning a lot more direction and ambition. It is so easy for children to code themselves and I find the more it becomes a natural part of classroom life and is refered to casually as well as officially the more children just naturally use the language. The children’s questions have improved simply by looking at the stages and what they need to do to achieve the next stage. Children now usually start a question with “explain why/how/what” because they know the answer they will receive will have more information in it. It has become a natural part of room 7 =)

Nic Mason's Solo Reflection

Truthfully, SOLO has been pretty hard and all-encompassing. But I guess that is the way all new things work until you get the hang of it. And true, it wasn’t until the end when the penny dropped for myself and the kids.

Another difficulty I found when taking on SOLO this term was that the 'Planning', 'Gathering' and 'Sorting' aspects of the rubric were hard to follow because we were trying a task-based inquiry; a bit separate from our traditional inquiry model. However, the end ‘Understanding and Evaluating’ parts still applied.

As a side project, I used the SOLO language and rubric to create a success rubric for writing. As a result, I am really pleased with how my writing program has turned out this term! The kids achieved fantastic results. My writing wall worked tumeke with examples of different SOLO parts E.g. This is what a multi-structural introduction looks like, etc. The SOLO success criteria was powerful when they self-assessed their work. They were truthful and hit the nail on the head. Very cool.

This will set my students up for the traditional inquiry approach next term. In conclusion, SOLO a GO-GO! It is choice.

Using SOLO (Room 5)

Inquiry Learning

Working with the SOLO rubric development group gave me a good insight and ownership of the changes.  I thought it was going to be really difficult to introduce the rubric to the children but by doing it at the appropriate stage it wasn’t such a major deal.  Quite a few children connected to it fairly easily and were able to place themselves where they thought they fitted.  I’m sure that putting the stages into child’s language definitely helped here and with each inquiry the children’s understanding of where they are and what they have to do to move to the next stage should improve.  I was pleasantly surprised to have some children working at the relational stage for understanding and look forward to see if this carries over in our next inquiry or if it is affected by the theme of the inquiry.

 

 

SOLO Reflections - Room 9

Reflective Journal

As part of my Inquiry Learning I have been introducing SOLO’s  Inquiry Rubric and the diferent levels from Prestrucural – Extended Abstract.  I have introduced these at the different stages of learning when appropriate.

Upon reflection of my activities I set up for the children’s learning I realise I need to ensure I provide a  variety of different activites so children do not all fit into the same stage of the rubric.  I still need to continue to work on improving my delivery of hands on activities to ensure children understanding is extended as much as possible.

Inquiry Learning in Room2

After our PD with Trevor Bond I started this terms inquiry by setting the class a task."We need to make the junior syndicate some toys to use during discovery time" I've found this really good not only for the students but for myself. Everyone knows exactly what we are trying to achieve and where we are going. Immediately after setting a task everyone was asking questions abut how we were going to do it, what we were going to make ect, even those who never, no matter how hard you try, ask a question. We also broke the task into three parts that we need to always keep in mind, that we need to make toys, they need to be something suitable to use during discoivery time and they need to be junior level toys. The next two weeks we have spent discovering how thing move with lots of hands on activities and experiments. I have only just introduce Solo's to my students and was very surprised with what year 2 and 3 students were really capable of. If we give our students even our juniors the chance to ask extended abstract questions or answer at an abstract level then they will. My class has understood the difference between the levels straight away and the symbols have made it really clear for them. One student has even made the link that on the xbox and playstation you can have multiplayer which is more than one player so that must mean multistructural is more than one question!! YAY. I was also surpirsed to see the students that I had just assumed would be able to ask at least one question couldnt and werent actually sure what the difference was between a question and a statement. it was a nice teaching moment to take those who were prestrucutal and ask them how can you change what you have said to become a quetion so that you are a unistructual questioner.
Not sure where to now exactly but we are all very excited to completing our task and taking action!!

Jenni Room 2

Inquiry learning Room 11

Inquiry Learning is very directed at this stage and there are limited useful children's ideas.  They have little idea but with appropriate questioning it will encourage them to think about the Inquiry.  SOLO taxonomy has been introduced and this has been a challenge.  The children are mostly pre-unistructual.  SOLO will be frequently revisited to allow the children to become familiar with the symbols and what they mean.  Teaching the children how to ask appropriate questions to find out answers to our inquiry will be something that will continue to be worked on. 

Wha Out 09

This is a Photo Story some of my kids helped me make about the butterfly inquiry we had in Term 1.  

Enjoy

Wha Out 09!

Inquiry Learning in Room 9

Inquiry Learning provides my children with the stepping-stones for their future learning.  Although directed at my level it still provides many opportunities for children to incorporate their own thoughts and ideas.  They are learning how to use the inquiry model and the different stages involved.  This learning is built upon each year as they move through the school and progress until they become independent learners. 

 I have just introduced Solo Taxonomy to my class and we are still learning the different stages and where they are at.  As the children become more familiar with it I think it will be easy for them to access what stage they are at and where to next. 

Inquiry in Room5: Introducing SOLO Taxonomy

Assessing children using SOLO is proving to be a challenge.  Sharing an understanding of the stages, as regards questioning, with the children was interesting.  Most of the children are working at the pre or uni structural level.  Even the ones who were able to use a question starter were often not asking the question about the topic being covered but just asking a random question.  My goal will be to teach children how to ask questions that will help us to discover the answers to our inquiry.

I think it will be more straightforward assessing children's understanding against SOLO and have shared the criteria for this with the children.  At this early stage I realise I am providing the children with an introduction to the whole focus of SOLO being the assessment tool for our inquiry.  Hopefully, the symbols relating to SOLO will have some meaning for the children.

What about Han Solo? Nic's understanding about Solo

Here's how I understand Solo:

1. The Homer: Prestructual - Nice guy but misses the point.
   
2. The Bat: Unistructual - You have the bat but you don't have a ball or any other items to play the game.
3. The Wolverine: Multistructural - Knows about mutants, fights for mutant rights, but is not a mutant.
4. The Spider Web: Relational - Here's where it gets tricky and sticky, you need to pull things apart, put it in order, look at it closely, compare, contrast, explain and then put them back together again explaining causes, making analogies and relating it to your experience.
5. The King: Extended Abstract - The Mac-Daddy, El Capitan, Don Corleon, The Godfather - take what you have learnt and apply it to a different situation.  Make something, predict something, imagine and reflect.

There you go... it's a start. 

Trevor Bond by Nic

This guy was freakin' awesome and he really struck a chord with me. It's so weird how he was there about questioning but I ended up taking away so much about other things. Actually, I did take a bit of everything from him.

The 'pentagon of understanding' that encompasses all ways of knowing really stuck in my mind the most.  I related it back to my experience of travelling to Guatemala.

Here are the sides (I can't draw them)

1. Episodic/experience
2. Factual
3. Linguistic
4. Conceptual
5. Behavioural/skill

My partner is 1/2 Guatemalan and I guess that's where my story begins.  Her mum was born and raised there but left to have all of her children in New Zealand.  I had a distorted 'understanding' of Guatemala based on some facts, behaviours and concepts that I understood at the time.  

However, once travelling there in 2003, I was able to include some experience, linguistic and conceptual knowledge to my increasing fact and behaviour knowledge.

Finally by the end of a 5 month stay in 2005, my understanding of Guatemala was sound as I had developed and combined experience, factual information, Linguistic, Conceptual, and Behaviours and skills knowledge.

This was over about 6 years!  I guess good things take time.

There were so many other points Trevor brought up and it was a fantastic day!  I really enjoyed the sound of his voice; and it was obvious he knew what he was talking about.  

He is someone who I aspire to be.

Senior Syndicate Inquiry Term 2

Task base inquiry has worked really well for motivating children. The children are very excited about their tasks and have found it reasonably easy to ask questions.

Taking time to teach children how to use search engines and looking through books i.e. using key words etc has been valuable in improving efficiency when looking for information. Also being thorough about the planning process and explicit about what we are learning has helped to keep all children on task.

Teachers are really pleased with the way the new inquiry model works. The new consider stage has worked really well for children to know how to move forward into the next stage.

Some children are still struggling with inquiry. We don't think this is a reflection on the model as these children are experiencing difficulties in other areas of learning. We have discussed how we are meeting the needs of these students and the common consensus was that we continue to give them one on one time and specific tasks that they need to complete in a set time limit so that they don't have time to wonder and time waste. This strategy has worked for most.

Change of Blog focus

As part of our 2009 goals all teaching staff will be asked to contribute to this blog.  At a Syndicate level the focus will be on teachers reflections on ICT and Inquiry.

Learning At School 2009

Learning Everywhere Conference 09

3 lead teachers, facilitator and principal attended the LATS09 conference in Rotovegas.

Overall theme of conf.  was CONNECTIVISM.  We felt it was a great follow on from the Ulearn conference.  The ideas/breakouts/keynotes all continued to develop this thinking.

All Coley attendees went to a breakout with Trevor Bond on questioning which challenged our current question rubric.  The emphasis was not on moving through levels (like a ladder), but more identifying the  type of questions required to gather relevant information. (Sometimes asking closed  questions is totally relevant).  

Teachers model and reinforce poor questions...we need to  teach students to ask better questions.

The idea of task directed inquiry also struck a cord.  Trevor used an example of his family building a land yacht.  The team work, sifting information, problem solving, rich,  and real nature of the task was exciting!

Michael Pohl

An absorbing day with Michael Pohl both endorsed a lot that we are already doing and left us with many ideas for enhancing inquiry and the thinking process.  Michael introduced a number of models that can be used to encourage students to think in different ways - deBono's Hats, Revised Blooms, Thinker's Keys.  It will be useful to see how each of these marries up with Forarty's Three Storey Intellect which at present forms the basis of our inquiry thinking tools.  Whichever we choose to continue with we must ensure that all staff know and understand how they fit into the inquiry process.  We need to remember to keep the toolbox manageable.

Michael also talked about developing complex thinking skills.  Some ideas he introduced:

• Both teachers and students need to become good questioners
• Acronyms - SCUMPS, SCAMPER - can help to develop analytical thinking
• Use graphic organisers/mind maps to organise information, show relationships and analyse ideas
• Develop the language of thinking.  All children - from the youngest to the oldest - should be hearing the same language.  
  
• Use visual icons to help the younger children understand the language
• Questions need to be deep, thought provoking

Unpacking Fogarty's

Mark took us thru the Fogarty's Three Storeys Intellect.

As a staff we clarified how we are using the question starters, buzz words.

Used as a tool to develop fat questions.

Using the first storey we asked..."What is global warming?" DEFINE and then developed into.

"What are the most important factors causing global warming?" COMPARE

"Evaluate the use of recycling in school on a Worldwide scale?" JUSTIFY/EVALUATE

When developing questions ask the children, "What does your/our question require you/us to do to get the answer".

A lot of discussion around the other 'tools' we have in the 'box'.  Is there any point of adding another tool  (Andersons Revised).  Because Andersons and Forgartys have similar sentence stems. Are there major differences?  We think not.

As a staff we were quite split on what we wanted...Jan made us vote!  Nic sat on the fence!

We have decided on Fogarty's, Activities from Blooms, De Bonos thinking hats, graphic organiser , kiplings 7 servants (Who, what, where, when, which,why,how) and thinking maps.

Decision made.....WE THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ICT Lead Teacher Meeting

Lead teachers will investigate and introduce the revised Blooms Taxonomy to their syndicate for term 4's inquiry. We discussed how we could best use Fogartys 3 story intellect and how it links in with Blooms. Lead teachers will lead the introduction of Blooms at syndicate level.
We talked about creating question starters for the "key" words in each stage of Fogartys to make it more user friendly for all teachers.
Staff will decide on what thinking maps we are going to investigate further and then introduce them into our thinking tool box.
Deb and Mary are going to investigate which thinking maps we have already in digital form. Deb will also investigate which graphic organisers that we already have available to us in digital format.

Inquiry Scaffolding System

On the 8th of September Mark and Jan put together a blueprint for the Coley Street School inquiry scaffolding system. The purpose of the system is to put all the inquiry resources together into an easy to use system that both students and teachers can access to aid them in their inquiries. The scaffold follows the new school wide model and includes templates, thinking tools, links etc.
The next step is to as a whole staff decide on which of these tools we want to include.