I am co-authoring a new book – on using SOLO Taxonomy in music with Nikki Booth (UK), Alison Price (NZ) and Lauren Fobister (AUS).
The collaboration is focusing on the use of SOLO in formative assessment and self-regulation across primary and secondary settings using the curriculum expectations from three countries. No pressure then.
I am enjoying the many different examples we are collecting – showing how SOLO can be used in feedback on learning in music across all ages and in all contexts.
Check out this one- a SOLO Google Draw music example from Alison Price, Wakatipu High School(NZ).
This was adapted from a Google Draw planning for literacy example from Karen Fergusson at Tamaki College (NZ)
In our experience, learners and teachers can talk about the three questions for feedback (Hattie and Timperley 2007) more easily and more meaningfully when they have SOLO as a shared model of cognitive complexity. This is because sharing the SOLO model helps ensure the student holds a similar “measure of quality” to that held by the teacher – of surface (loose ideas) and deep (connected and extended) understanding (Hook 2016).
When students use SOLO as a mental model of learning they share an intuitive measure of quality – and as a consequence can continuously monitor what they are doing – how well they are going and what they should do next. The musical learning under discussion is made visible.
- Where am I going? – asks students to determine the SOLO level of the musical task.
- How am I doing? – asks students to reflect on the SOLO level of the student outcome
- Where to next? – asks students to reflect on the SOLO level of the next step in musical learning. (Hattie and Biggs both reference a “plus one level” approach to next steps)
Within a group composing lesson, meaningful practice requires quality feedback to reduce the between the student’s current performance in a task and the desired outcome. A teacher would move from group to group discussing work with students – asking how well it is going in relation to the SOLO differentiated success criteria and how they need to develop further or improve their work during the lesson and/or in the next lesson. These frequent SOLO based feedback conversations are crucial for learner development in music as they impact directly on what the students (and the teacher) do next.
Alternatively a teacher may take advantage of the comment function on an online collaborative platform like Google Draw to offer feedback on a music activity structured using SOLO Taxonomy.
