SOLO Hexagons
SOLO hexagons is a great way to introduce students of all ages to SOLO as a model of learning outcomes - loose ideas are important - connecting them in different ways makes them more interesting and shows more complex understanding. Sitting outside the clusters and asking - what is it all about? leads to conceptual understanding, big picture thinking and insight.
SOLO hexagons can be used to determine a student's depth of prior knowledge and understanding before starting to learn. It can also be used as a learning experience prompt to increase and deepen understanding, and to create new understanding by introducing hexagons with additional content - ideas, symbols, images etc.
In this strategy for generating and connecting ideas, the students work in collaborative groups. They:
* brainstorm everything they know about a given topic (presented as a focus question), such as a text, setting, structure, character, poem, text etc. * record each idea or thought on a separate blank hexagon. * arrange the hexagons by tessellating the hexagons.
The outcome differs according to the SOLO level:
*in a multistructural outcome students can describe the individual hexagons *in a relational outcome where students can make straight edge connections between simple hexagon sequences and can tessellate the hexagons (making connections) - students can explain why they have linked the ideas together in this way (talk or annotate). *in an extended abstract outcome students can explore the node where three hexagons share a corner and make a generalisation about the nature of the relationship between the ideas.
HookED SOLO Hexagon Generator
Add content to hexagons using the online generator
Download Blank SOLO Hexagon Templates
File:HookED SOLO Hexagons Template Primary Y012.pdf
File:HookED SOLO Hexagons Template Secondary.pdf
Download Sample SOLO Hexagon Templates
File:HookED Hexagons Energy.pdf
Purchase and download a SOLO Hexagon Poster from the HookED store
Also refer
McNeill and Hook 2012 SOLO Taxonomy and Making Meaning Bk3 Extended texts and thematic studies p8
(Based on an idea from AM Hodgson. (1992). Hexagons for systems thinking.European Journal of Systems Dynamics 59 (1): 220-30.)
Examples
SOLO I'm Riding SOLO - Chris Harte
Hexagon Heaven Week - Lisa Jane Ashes
Hexagonal learning - David Didau
SOLO Hexagons for Topic Revision- Emma Rawlings Smith
Triptico goes SOLO - Alex Bellars
SOLO Hexagons - I never realised how much I knew Sir - Ed Mosley
SOLO Taxonomy - The Hexagon Challenge - Tait Coles
- Going SOLO with Charles1 - Kerry Turner
SOLO Hexagons Spanish in Grosvenor
Hexagon Templates - SOLO activities - The Geophyte
Looking beyonnd a lesson in SOLO - David Fawcett
Can SOLO and hexagons help students improve their grades - Data Fiend
Why hexagons are better than square - Chris Harte
My first PE SOLO experiments Wilmslow High School
Going SOLO Learning Matters - Jen Leach
First attempt at using SOLO Taxonomy - The Geography Room
Hexagonal Learning - Julia at Stages of Succession
Hexagonal Learning 2.0 - Kristian Still
Hexagonal Learning - Engage The Minds