The SOLO taxonomy helps to map levels of understanding that can be built into intended learning outcomes and create assessment criteria or rubrics. According to Hook and Mills (2011), the new understanding that emerges at the extended abstract level is “rethought” at another conceptual level, looked at in a new way, and used as the basis for prediction, generalisation, reflection, or creation of new understanding. SOLO stands for “structure of observed learning outcomes” and is a concept devised by John Biggs and Kevin Collis in 1982 to describe levels of increasing complexity in students’ understanding. Here’s a brief introduction. The use of formative assessment, for example, helps make students’ thinking visible to themselves, their peers, and their teacher. For example, texts often present facts and formulas with little attention to helping students learn the conditions under which they may be most useful. Read our policy. Learners construct meaning from what they do to learn. What does SOLO stand for in Teaching? ‘Students understand it almost instantly.’ Further practice could take the form of peer assessment – students assign each other’s work a symbol. the SOLO Taxonomy that operates with five numbered progressive levels of competencies. Heard of SOLO taxonomy but no idea what it could mean for your classroom? You must state something relevant first before explaining how it relates to something else. Experts first seek to develop an understanding of problems, and this often involves thinking in terms of core concepts or big ideas. The SOLO Taxonomy is divided into a number of levels. One teacher reveals which technologies have improved their teaching in 2020. Thus was constructive alignment born.”. It consists of five levels of understanding: 1. First time SOLO users can familiarise students with the symbols by setting a challenging question and asking students to match their own answers to one of the symbols representing levels of understanding, recommends Euan. The teacher makes a deliberate alignment between the planned learning activities and the learning outcomes. According to Beck et al (1989), instruction that focuses solely on accuracy does not necessarily help students develop fluency. Promoting reading using the school library. Bransford et al argue that, in response to these findings, teachers should do the following: First, teachers should draw out and work with the pre-existing understandings that their students bring with them. “@WerdelinEdu @teacherhead @jonnykayteacher Glad it prompted your thinking @WerdelinEdu. Top SOLO abbreviation related to Teaching: Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp any new concepts or information that is taught, or they may remember them for the purposes of a test but then revert to their preconceptions when outside the classroom.Second, in order to develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and organise knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.Third, they argue that a meta-cognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take greater control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.So what are the implications of these findings for teachers and how we teach? The SOLO (Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome) taxonomy illustrated in figure 1 (originally Biggs & Collis, 1982) can be used to categorise student responses to open-ended questions. McNeill, L. and Hook, P. (2012). Pattern-recognition is an important strategy for helping students to develop confidence and competence. You're not alone. What do I do next?As such, SOLO can help us to respond to the three findings about learners and learning with which I started this article, namely: we can help students to grasp new concepts or information; we can help students to develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge, to understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and to organise knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application; and we can help students to develop meta-cognition and, by so doing, to take greater control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.Matt Bromley is an experienced school and college leader, an education writer and consultant. Criteria for each level based on SOLO taxonomy can be seen in Table 1 [17] [18]. Essential Resources Educational Publishers Limited. See more ideas about Solo taxonomy, Taxonomy, Solo. A student at the extended abstract stage might give a response such as: “By reflecting and evaluating on my learning, I am able to look at the bigger picture and link lots of different ideas together.”. Pedagogy: The SOLO taxonomy and constructive alignment. Admittedly, when we first begun researching about the taxonomy, we did find it difficult to understand and … Closing the gap: Supporting the most disadvantaged EAL ... Black Lives Matter: How schools must respond. It consists of five levels of understanding: As students move up the five levels, their understanding grows from surface to deep to conceptual. January 2013 If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp any new concepts or information that is taught, or they may remember them for the purposes of a test but then revert to their preconceptions when outside the classroom. Visit www.bromleyeducation.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @mj_bromley. Then they know they’re aiming for understanding the techniques and linking them, not just recalling the facts.’. So what are the implications of these findings for teachers and how we teach? SOLO stands for Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes and was developed by John Biggs and Kevin Collis. Many assessments measure only factual knowledge and never ask whether students know when, where and why to use that knowledge. 21-43. This concept derives from cognitive psychology and constructivist theory, and recognises the importance of linking new material to concepts and experiences in the learner’s memory, as well as extrapolating that material to possible future contexts – connecting the learning, showing the bigger picture. For example, you can represent the unistructural level with a single line, and the multistructural level with three lines. Alternative to Bloom’s Taxonomy Any assessment for the purposes of accountability (such as national league tables and Ofsted) must improve in order to test deep understanding rather than surface knowledge.Third, the teaching of meta-cognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum and this must be done in a variety of subject areas because the type of monitoring required will vary in each. Tell them you don’t have time in the lesson to get them through the unistructural level (knowing the equipment) and the multistructural level (using that apparatus to learn about accuracy of readings). According to these categories, students could understand: nothing; something; several relevant things; several relevant things that they see relate to each other; or a few related things they can apply in new situations about any topic. Relational: Here, the different aspects seen at the multi-structural level have become integrated to form a coherent whole. teachers and school leaders working in secondary education across the UK. Textual literacy is a cognitively demanding activity, requiring students to make meaning of many aspects of a text such as its purpos It also helps students structure longer answers – they can see why their first sentence should be at a unistructural level. ‘Before a lesson on distillation or crystallisation, I’d tell my students that today’s lesson is at the multistructural level, or the “three bars” level – they don’t need to know the technical terms. If they can’t answer at that level, they can alter the command word of the question to make it a multistructural-level question about the same topic and have a go at that. If a question looks too hard to complete, students tend to leave it blank rather than attempting a partial answer. Any assessment for the purposes of accountability (such as national league tables and Ofsted) must improve in order to test deep understanding rather than surface knowledge. In other words, superficial coverage of all topics in a subject area (which is common practice because teachers feel the need to “get through” the curriculum), must be replaced with in-depth coverage of fewer topics that allows key concepts in that discipline to be fully understood. There are two main features in the SOLO Taxonomy: modes of … Pre-structural: a student hasn’t understood the point and offers a simple – incorrect – response. We use New Zealand. More on this: What is Bloom's taxonomy? According to Beck et al (1989), instruction that focuses solely on accuracy does not necessarily help students develop fluency.The ability to monitor one’s approach to problem-solving – to be meta-cognitive – is an important aspect of the expert’s competence. What do I do next? According to Biggs, there are two basic concepts behind constructive alignment: Learners construct meaning from what they do to learn. Matt Bromley explains their application in the classroom, How students learnIn How People Learn by Bransford, Brown and Cocking (2000), the authors assimilate a range of research on learners and learning and summarise three key findings which have strong implications for how we teach. In other words, the verb tells students what relevant learning activities they need to undertake in order to attain the intended learning outcome. A student at the uni-structural stage might give a response such as “I have some understanding of this topic”. They can see what they need to do to understand the topic at the next level. According to Hook and Mills (2011), the new understanding that emerges at the extended abstract level is “rethought” at another conceptual level, looked at in a new way, and used as the basis for prediction, generalisation, reflection, or creation of new understanding. SOLO taxonomy Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy is a model that classifies learning outcomes according to their complexity. According to Whitehead (1929), knowledge must be “conditionalised” in order to be retrieved when it is needed; otherwise, it remains inert. How is it going? It identifies five levels of learning, which increase in skill at each stage. It is an approach designed by educational psychologists John Biggs and Kevin Collis to scaffold higher-order thinking for pupils. Extended abstract: the integrated whole is now conceptualised at a higher level of abstraction. Pattern-recognition is an important strategy for helping students to develop confidence and competence. Download a SOLO taxonomy diagram to use with your class (MS Word or pdf). Start at the bottom and build layers of meaning and depth up to the 'extended abstract'” Students become aware of the reasons for everything they do and realise improvements are due to their own strategies rather than luck or fixed ability. Through their work, Biggs and Collis looked at the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes produced by learners in terms of complexity. 1, pp. We also need to teach less subject matter but do so in greater depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and by so doing proffer a firm foundation of factual knowledge. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. Please view our Terms and Conditions before leaving a comment. The outcome statements contain a learning activity, a verb, that students need to perform in order to achieve the outcome, such as “apply the theory of...”, or “explain the concept of...”. 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