Having Students see their improvement in Learning

On a school trip last week, I was sitting beside a parent in the bus.  This parent asked me which level I preferred to teach.  I said I didn't mind.  What I liked was seeing childrens' faces light up when they got something.

Yesterday, I had my students write a definition for occupations with Solo Taxonomy.  When they read out their statement, I then read out their original definition from the beginning of the topic.  It was fabulous to see them realise that they had improved from writing about 5 words to a whole page, and had moved levels within the taxonomy.

Taking PD with staff

This afternoon, I ran a PD session on Solo Taxonomy. Staff had asked for help on writing rubrics and moving students to the next level. I think I am getting better at providing PD on topics that I am not necessarily sure. My main message was model and scaffold.I found 2 short clips that I thought were particularly good on teaching SOLO.
Procedural writing
Define Map - making bread.

Over the past couple of years I have become appreciative of the ICT PD cluster websites that share information.  Thanks to them all.

I felt at times I was giving very basic information.  Our AP said afterwards it was all good.  Phew!!!!

Solo Taxonomy Planning

Last Wednesday, I sat in on the planning sessions for each syndicate on our topic of inquiry of structure. It was a super experience. My understanding of the process has improved. I really like how Solo gives rich learning to the students. I notice this with our previous planning, and only doing a few of the activities, my students are enjoying some of the learning activites and really thinking about it.

Today, after watching a video (old technology from the National Library), I had one of my students come and say: "We could do a Solo activity with this." I inquired further and got we could now describe volunteering. Fabulous. Our WALT with the video was to learn to notetake. I gave them clues what to look for, and then covered together the information learnt.

SOLO Taxonomy PD on planning an Inquiry Unit

Yesterday we had an excellent day at work on planning our next inquiry unit on Leisure and Labour and how it contributes to our society using Solo Taxonomy and constructive alignment. Constructive alignment comes from John Briggs who devised Solo Taxonomy, and is about divising direct teaching and learning activities that directly address the learning outcomes.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_alignmentWikipedia Also I like the concept of how the teacher has to provide a specified goal for the learner.  
Therefore, our planning has direct acts of teaching which relate back to the outcomes  we decided we wanted for our students, along with using the Solo maps, our students learn to use Solo Taxonomy as a way of supporting how to inquire using our inquiry model.
We still have some work to do to finalise the plan.  I find it exciting that we have rigor in our planning and how using Solo Taxonomy to help us plan gives us high expectations for the learning outcomes for our students. 

Solo Taxomony - pd at staff meeting

Looking again for a clip to show at staff meeting.
I like this one, as it demonstrates the learning of teachers at different levels of experience with learning to use Solo Taxonomy. I hope that some of my colleagues will feel they have similar experiences.