SOLO Maps

HookED SOLO Map Animations

July 24, 2016

New SOLO resources on YouTube The HookED SOLO Map Animations are instructional (how to) video for the SOLO Maps. The first SOLO Maps to be animated: Define, Describe, Sequence, Classify, Compare and Contrast, Generalise, and Predict Each animation is designed by the ever fabulous Nick Denton. And yes I will be uploading more SOLO Map […]

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School Values and SOLO Taxonomy

July 16, 2016

Embed from Getty Images A question from Siobhan in New Zealand We met when you came to [xxxxxx College] last term. In between one of the slots with the teachers, I was asking you about ways to link SOLO to our school values. You said you may have some ideas that you could share with […]

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SOLO Mapping the Science Capabilities

July 6, 2016

The New Zealand Curriculum Essence statement for science has a brusque confidence and certainty about it. The words know “how”, they know “when” and they know “why”. You can almost feel the words crossing arms with each other, locking hands in front and preparing to move across the river in a series of deliberate steps […]

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Make your own SOLO maps

August 4, 2015

Waimairi School in Christchurch is a hot bed of SOLO innovative practice. The clear focus on relationships and being culturally responsive, teacher effectiveness and student metacognition enables Waimairi staff to use SOLO in extended abstract ways – each visit trumps the previous for making deep learning and higher order thinking visible. Many of my client […]

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HookED SOLO Literacy Stickers

August 3, 2014

This post acknowledges two ever fabulous teachers – Lynley Cummack and Rachel Saxton – and the work they do with primary and secondary students using classroom based approach to SOLO Taxonomy in New Zealand. When I worked with Lynley Cummack (Team Leader for Hurunui Team at Waimairi School) last month, she set me up for […]

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The Baker’s Dozen: 13 SOLO Map Postcards

July 31, 2014

“There has always been art in cartography. Maps by definition are utilitarian, of course; they bear implicit promises of routes into and out of the unknown. Yet the language of maps as developed over time is a beautiful one, filled with artistic potential.“ Katharine Harmon “The Map as Art” from Princeton Architectural Press I am […]

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On “being a mole” days

July 28, 2014

“Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror – indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy ― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows I am working from […]

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Five powerful questions

October 20, 2013

One of the things I love about the classroom based use of SOLO Taxonomy is the way in which using the model helps students understand great questions. SOLO helps students understand how to construct great questions and how to answer them. For example, the HookED SOLO Five – a series of five great questions students […]

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I was only five and armed with an “egg” and a spoon.

September 27, 2013

It can be hard to remember your first learning experiences. At five I remember determinedly studying the points of difference between “was” and “saw” on small pieces of card when I was learning to read. I remember my teacher climbing onto the piano to staple a poster to the wall (and instead staple her fingers […]

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Revisiting analogy.

August 11, 2013

Modelling the process of making an analogy is an on-going challenge for educators. In my previous consultancy I developed a visual process map and self-assessment rubric to help students unpack existing analogies or create their own. It worked in part but I was never terribly happy with it. Oftentimes the output of the activity seemed […]

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