Using SOLO hexagons and Power Sentences

Teaching Israel and Palestine in the past has been a bit of a challenge as some kids find it hard to relate to the context.   Add the fact that learning dates and key historical facts can sometimes put my kids to sleep, I needed to find a strategy that would involve them sharing their knowledge in a way that would help them map the links for writing and verbalise what they've learnt.  Here are the steps I took for the lesson.

Step ONE:  SOLO HEXAGONS.

Using the online SOLO hexagon generator, I put in all the key words, concepts, details etc that we had learnt in 2 weeks.  I wanted the kids to use SOLO hexagons to connect what they have learnt and to verbalise the connections first to the peers and then to me.

Observation:

When I pointed out to them that being able cluster and compare concepts and facts in groups shows that they are working at merit level and describing the impacts of different links on others was an excellence, students began to recognise the relevance of the exercise.

Tough guys like to hold flowers while they are completing their hexagons

Step TWO: POWER SENTENCES.

I focused on one of the sentence types that our W.T.E (Write that Essay) crew suggested we try out to help our kids start a sentence, the power sentence.  This is a sentence that has to have a punch with only 12 words or less.  I gave examples on the board and as a class we wrote one together first.  I then shared a document where by I wanted students to write 5 paragraphs and each one had to have a power sentence.   I wanted them to use the SOLO hexagon activity to guide what to write in the paragraphs.

Observation:

I realised the expectation was a bit much to get them to write 5 paragraphs and it wasn't enough to just share a doc.  I noticed the girls in the class happily opened the doc and got on with it, but the boys couldn't be bothered.  So I adjusted the lesson to get kids to share it on the whiteboard so that we as a class could judge the best one and I would award a prize to the best one.  It was then that the boys got fully involved and I took the opportunity to video it below.

Overall REFLECTION:

It was the first time that I had actually observed some of my kids handwriting something - I never knew we had so many left handers!.   In saying that, the boys were especially engaged in the competitiveness of the activity and weren't shy to put up their answers.  This was encouraging as I want the kids to feel they can challenge each other to show what they know without being shy about it.

Next time: 
I realised that the girls are quiet and I need to make sure they feel included and have a voice in the classroom.  I see that the boys have grown in confidence and are not shy to answer and verbalise by making meaning from what they've learnt but I do not want the girls to feel that they get all of the attention.  My next steps are to ensure that they are provided a platform to voice their ideas more, whether it be out in front of the class or more 1 on 1.  I will definitely be sharing this lesson with my department and will use it with my year 13's.

Year 9 Holiday Blogging challenge!

At the end of term 2, I wanted to test out whether year 9 students would blog during the holidays by setting up a holiday blogging challenge.  We know students may not think about school much over the two weeks holiday and I wanted to see what would happen if I gave them a challenge that would force them to.   I decided to do a few things to set this up.

1.  SURVEY THE YEAR 9 STUDENTS FOR IDEAS FOR TOPICS.

I shared with the entire year 9 cohort a short survey because I was interested in finding out who would blog during the holiday break.  Out of the 100 or so students in year 9, 28 from different tutor classes completed the survey.

I wanted to see if students would have internet access during the holidays and surprisingly, a number said they would not have access.  

Then I asked students,  if they were to blog in their holidays, to list 2 or 3 things that they would blog about.  There were lots of varied answers, but the majority said the holidays, family and other subjects that were of interest to them which helped me with the next step.  

2.  USE THE TOPICS TO DESIGN RELEVANT SOLO TASKS.

I designed a document that had lots of different topics chosen by the students.  I gave them the choice to either use the document to help them scaffold their writing or to just blog about it.  For each topic there was a document that had a scaffolded 'solo' type structure to help students with their writing for that topic.

3.  RESULTS OF THE CHALLENGE

During the first week of the holidays, I got 6 or 7 emails from really keen students signing up to do the challenge - one student stayed up until 2am on the first night to work on the tasks!  Although this was positive,  of the 28 students who completed the survey, only 5 students actually completed at least one blog.

This student shows the extended abstract SOLO image next to his writing

One of my students in the class I teach really surprised me by completing all of his documents and blog posts shared.  His e-asttle scores at the beginning of the year were at 2P, and as I read through his documents this past week to see how well he has written, I can see a huge improvement in how far he has come and I am hoping that he moves up a level (fingers crossed).

4.  NEXT STEPS:

I want to find out why so few students completed the survey or blogged over the holidays.  I will meet with the 5 students who did try, as a focus group and get their feedback into why they decided to blog.  I also want to meet with other students who didn't blog and also get their feedback.  I also want to look at how other schools assign challenges like the one I did, and get ideas as to how to promote it better as I feel that I could have prepared the students better before the holidays for the challenge.

I then want to sit down with a team of students to design a plan as to how we can get their peers to blog over the Christmas holidays.  I am really interested in this idea of blogging over Christmas because I want to start thinking about addressing another challenge we have - the summer holiday slump. 

Using SOLO to support my year 12's exam preparations

This week is senior exam week for our students and trying to get my year 12's ready for exams has been challenging at times, especially with the mixed levels of literacy in my class.  Students have to write an explanatory essay, and the context is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Students were engaged with learning about the conflict but when it came to retaining some of the information and using it to write a structured essay, quite a few didn't know where to start.  

A few weeks ago, I taught some facts and issues around the conflict using the presentation below.  

The slide is quite content heavy, so I created a SOLO Hexagon activity to help them remember the key ideas and concepts.  I wanted them to connect ideas so they could show they were working to at least the relational stage of SOLO taxonomy.

At first, students were a bit hesitant to use the hexagons and had to refer to their notes.  But I persisted and every day for two weeks, I pulled out the hexagons and as I did, I expected complaints like 'why are we doing this again' and 'boringgg'.  Instead, students seemed excited when I brought out the hexagons and became confident in explaining how they were connected.  Each time they used the hexagons, I would mix try and mix up the task abit - sometimes they needed to work individually, sometimes it was a race to get it done the fastest or it was work in a mixed group with someone you'd never worked with before and be ready to explain to them what you knew.

For the less confident quieter students, I asked them to tell me the story of the conflict from their hexagons and it was nice to hear them articulate what they knew about the conflict.  It was tempting for their confident friends to jump in and try to help them out, but with a bit of guiding and patience, the quieter students were allowed their moment to speak.

Explaining to each other how ideas are related. 

After 3 weeks of hexagons, I wanted the students to firstly as a group, write down the what they'd learnt.  I wanted them to do this so they could show how they could collaboratively come up with what they thought was the best answer and then I could help them formulate and structure their paragraphs better with some formative feedback.   One of my quieter students completed the task straight away, which I thought was fantastic.

Using the hexagons has allowed my students to explain what they've learnt and gain a sense of confidence in using them to help structure their essays.   My next steps are to develop strategies which will allow for a deeper level of understanding, so that they could explore and make predictions about the future of the conflict.

Year 9's writing across curriculum areas.

After our local MP Simon O'Connor visited our students, I wanted to continue the momentum by getting my year 9 social studies class to 'SLOG' (SOLO + Blog) about his visit.  I had my year 9's period 5 on Friday afternoon and I felt they needed more time to develop their blog without feeling pressured or hurried.  I asked their English teacher Ms Latu, if they could work on completing their blogs during her class (which was after mine) and she was happy to let them work on them.  She offered to help them by checking spelling, punctuation and grammar which was really helpful.

At the start of the class, I reminded my students about the importance of 'slogging' and how they would be rewarded with dojo points if they worked well.  I then shared a document with them using the familiar 'summary strategy' that they had been using over the last copy of weeks and asked them to reflect about Simon's visit.  We firstly brainstormed as a class and I was surprised about how much information students had remembered from the visit and how keen students were to give their answers.  I wrote the brainstorm on the board around the SOLO activity which implicitly showed them that we were at the multi-structural stage of SOLO.   Students then picked 20 important words related to Simon O'Connors life and from there the 8 MOST important words that they would use in a summary.  They were also given access to photos from the visit to support their writing.

The start of the brainstorm 

When the bell went students continued with their writing.  Their English teacher arrived and I left.

I went on to check the work that they'd shared with me at the end of the day, and saw that most of the students had completed their writing to a high merit/excellence standard which I was really pleased about. 

Examples of student work

What I found useful was to complete the writing reflection immediately after Simon O'Connor had visited as students could still remember and relate to him.  He was a real person in the real context of their learning about the government and they felt a connection with him and therefore felt a connection to their writing.  I had told students that if they managed to blog, I would share it with him.  

I also saw how engaged the students were knowing that two of their teachers were checking the one piece of writing and I wondered if this was what it was like in a modern learning environment where two or more teachers shared the learning space?  I would like to look into developing this kind of learning context next term and will aim at collaborating with one or two of their teachers on a topic for writing.  Overall, I think the lesson went well and students are becoming more confident and capable writers. 

SOLO + Blogging = SLOGGING!

My SPARK M.I.T inquiry is looking at using effective blogging with my year 9 social studies class.  Part of my reason for choosing blogging relates to challenges that our year 9 students face have when they start high school and the need to shift and accelerate their achievement towards the national norm. With my focus being on writing, I found one of the biggest obstacles was transitions from year 8 to year 9.  A writing tool that students have been using throughout primary school are their blogs which showcase their learnings.  They also allow me an insight into how students write.

I have looked into writing frames that were being used in the primary schools so I could understand what their teachers were using to teach writing.  In finding a connection between years 8 and 9, I am also looking at balancing what students need to know by the end of year 10.  I felt it was important to acknowledge the need to prepare students for the how to write better, in the senior school and for NCEA.  At the college we use the SOLO (Structured of Observed Learning Outcomes) taxonomy framework which we have linked carefully to the NCEA criteria of Achieved, Merit and Excellence.

Recently, I introduced the SOLO taxonomy structure to my year 9's and showed them a video of SOLO using mine craft.  I then went through each stage from pre structural to extended abstract using the concept 'Leadership' as their writing topic, to relate it back to the government unit that we were currently studying (here is a link to the document template the students used).   Whilst I was checking their writing, I continually made verbal reference back to the SOLO and showed students where their writing was on the framework and what they needed to do to move from one structure to the next.

Students then blogged about their learning which would give them an audience who could support them further with their writing.  To get kids to use the SOLO framework whilst they blogged, I came up with the term 'SLOGGING' which I thought would be a catchy phrase for them to remember (although I got weird looks when I said the term the first time!).  Some students completed their blogs, but a few spent time perfecting their paragraphs and didn't get a chance to blog.  There were some interesting and engaging responses from students about the session which I felt overall was positive.  Below is an example of one of my students' Jamaine, who used a scaffolded writing framework to completed his extended abstract answer.  

Jamaine writes using the SOLO structure

For my next actions, I will continue to ensure that every time we 'slog', I consciously use SOLO language and relate it to NCEA so that students.  I want to also see if students could time themselves and aim to process the information faster so that they could complete their blogs in the one period as some didn't get a chance to.  I would also like to work with their English teacher to see whether we could develop a plan to help with our students to develop their writing skills better.