Solo Stations and Student Agency

Within our team teaching programme we're looking at how we can create as many opportunities for students to learn at their own pace and with the right learning goals. This, in itself, is quite a huge ask when you're talking about 58 students and counting. 

One of our favourite tools for learners to know where their understanding is, and what to work on next, is the Solo Taxonomy model. The Solo levels are, and framed for a math's learning goal, in a nut-shell;

Pre  Structural - I'm just starting out.

Uni Structural - I know one thing about the goal.

Multi Structural - I know three or more things about the goal but I'm not sure when or why to use them and I sometimes make mistakes.

Relational - I know three or more things about the goal and I know when and. Why to use them.

Extended Abstracted - I can teach others how to do this and I can use this goal to apply to other goals.

This year we've started using the Solo Taxonomy (See Pam Hook's site for more info) to create differentiated stations within our math's workshops. Here's how we put the levels to use;

When we first run a workshop we work with materials and take the whole group through the learning intention and use buddies to share our ideas and work through a few problems. At the end of session we share our understanding of where our learning is at. We talk about what each Solo Level would look like and then share our understanding using hand signals. You can see some examples of the symbols here.

The next time we run the workshop we meet as a large group and quickly remind ourselves of the goal and how it works with a couple of examples. Then we show the symbols our learning is at the moment (we're trying not to say, 'I am....' because it's not US that are multi structural but our learning). This is usually quite varied with students at all stages of understanding.

Then we talk about the different stations around the room. We make sure that everyone knows where they are, what they will be doing at each station and how the will know when they can progress to the next station.

At each station we have card signs for each Solo Level that are shown in the pictures. Here's how each station works.

1. At the Pre-Structural / Uni-structural station the students work mostly with the teacher and are scaffolded through examples with materials and lots of prompting and questioning. The focus here is helping them see some concrete solutions and touching, moving and talking with their thinking buddy.

2. The Multi-structural station has a set of written equations with at least example of how to set out the thinking involved with solving the problem. Students work with a little prompting from the teacher checking in on them occasionally and their learning is written into their books for easy reference for them and the teacher.

3. Lastly, the Relational and Extended Abstract station is where the students can have a chance to confirm that they have a solid grasp of the goal and to check and little holes they have in their understanding. We give them a word problem with the maths within it and they have to read the problem, write down the maths equation or solution to the problem and then create an 'artifact' of the learning that will help others learn. So far these have been posters, instructional videos like Showme or Doodle Cast Pro. 

There are three things that impress me during these workshops;

• The students are (mostly) incredible honest about their understanding. It's very obvious when someone is at the wrong place and their peers are very quick to help them out when they are, either with redirection or peer tutoring. For the odd one or two who constantly over estimate their understanding it's very easy to quickly check in with them once the stations start.

• This approach allows them to move stations when they think they are ready and is always done with some guiding from the teacher. Once they think they are ready to move they check with the teacher and we talk about why they think they are ready. It's wonderfully fluid with some learners moving very quickly and others taking 2 or more workshops to consolidate and really gain some depth to their learning. I have seen learners move from Pre Structural to Extended Abstract in one workshop and it gives them a real tangible way to view their progress.

• These Solo Stations make the learning visible! We can all see where our thinking is working at, where we are moving to next (literally and figuratively) and as a teacher I have a quick snapshot of where this group is currently at.

I should also mention that we run learning programmes where students are guided to make their own choices about the goals and workshops they attend. In a workshop we could have students who have been working on a goal for 2 weeks and others who arrived for the first time. The Solo Stations approach allow us to make the learning M and M - 'meaningful and manageable.'

Our next step is to move this approach and adapt the pedagogy to other learning areas. There are advantages for workshops to remain as a large group and I'm thinking that we could set up the stations later at the end of a reading or writing workshop.

Are you catering for different learning levels and learning paces in your programme? We'd love to hear how you're doing that. 

Reference: M and Ms Pic

Mediamash Workshop Slides

I'm part of an initiative called, 'Mediamash' which is aimed at inspiring schools to dig into the treasure chest of digital media for their learning programmes.

Today we launched our first teacher and student workshops. These are the slideshows from 2 workshops I ran, with a colleague.

I always love talking with other teachers about the systems and methods we're using in our classes - especially ones with so much passion and enthusiasm for giving our students the best possible learning experiences!

Rewind'ed' and Mash'ed'

Yesterday our class created some artwork using a simple checkerboard pattern and a 3D effect. To walk them through the process I used the paperfiftythree app - great to screen share with the appleTV and create your own digital whiteboard.

It was when I used the rewind feature (2 fingers moved in a circular motion) to show them the process from start to finish that I realised the whole process could be captured in a screenshare movie. And with a little 'mashing', here's what it looked like.

So - here's the process from 'woah to go' (why is it in that order? Nonsensical).

1. Create the drawing in Paperfiftythree

2. Screenshare to laptop using Reflector app

3. Capture video using Quicktime Pro

4. Import and create video on iMovie

5. Create soundtrack clip on Iambeatbox app

6. Share to Soundcloud and download

7. Add to video project in iMovie

8. Upload to Youtube

Phew. It's always amazing how apps, programmes and sites share to each other. That's what you could call 'Mashed'.

Worried about losing an ipad at school?

Our school has had a large roll out of ipads minis this year and it's been a journey learning how to
 - configure
 - register
 - store
 - update
 - charge
 - secure!

Last week we had one of ours go missing for a weekend and we weren't sure how to find it. So - once it was found in the library shelf - we set about getting 'Find my iphone' set up on all of them. No mean feat!

Here's a video I've made that shows the steps. I'm intending to share this with parents, too so they can have some peace of mind over the BYODs they send with their children each day.

Created on Quicktime Pro - music made on 'I am Beatbox' app.

Planning and Assessment with Notability App

I replied to a question on twitter about how I use one ipad in the classroom. Last year we had 1 ipad (now we have 12 which is awesome!) and I decided to make the most of it as a teaching tool;

 - I achieved my goal of having a digital planning and assessment approach!

Here's a video of how I use Notability for planning and assessment.

What's your Dream Class?

If you could run a dream classroom programme... what would it look like? Imagine an unlimited budget and the freedom to follow your own pedagogical path! This was a provoking thought I've come across lately and I thought I'd share a glimpse into what I think would make a great 2013 with my students!

Aurasma - an Interactive, Digital Display

We have a third year college teacher, @mattmurraynz, working with us this year and he is proving to be a handy innovator in his own right.  One of his college assignments this term was to create an interactive display in the classroom.  He told me his class were thinking, 'What? How do you do that?'

With a little bit of chatter and after seeing a great ipad app called aurasma lite he came up with an idea for using augmented reality and the student's learning about taonga - special treasures.

The student's held their taonga and spoke about it's importance to them, then Matt made this into a video. The video is uploaded to aurasma and a screen shot of the video was printed out and hung on the wall.

Matt then went through the steps on the app to take an image of the photo and linked it to the uploaded video. And below is the result. When you hold the aurasma app view finder up to the image it shows the video of the student speaking inside the image of the photo.

How cool would our classrooms, office foyers, shopping mall walls, and street signs be with this kind of interaction?

Showme - Connecting any time, anywhere.

My teacher inquiry this year is to provide the parents of my class as many opportunities to be a part of the learning with my students. I suppose I 'm trying to widen our learning community beyond being just my students and I'm assuming that this will help them achieve - so far it definitely has!

One of the things I've been doing is to give the students access to teaching from home - not from a worksheet but through interactive games and videos.

This isn't anything radical but, like any good elearning practice, the effectiveness is enhanced when teaching pedagogies and media are mashed into a workable system. One that is student centred and personalised.

An example of this is our basic facts blog. Here the students are working through a series of steps on a basic facts ladder (designed by advisersplus in the Hawkes Bay) using some links to interactive games - and some videos created on a great ipad app called showme.

Showme has been a fantastic way to record some teaching steps for a particular skill that the student can access at any time. Some parents have told me that THEY"VE found them helpful when they've tried to help their child master a particular skill.

Here's a video explaining more about how it came about and the impact it's having in classrooms across the world.

There are lots of uses for this great little app. I've used to remind students on our classblog about the scientific method - really helpful when they're working in groups and unsure about a step in their experiment, and last year my students became quite handy in making their own showmes to explain and demonstrate their learning about all kinds of things we were doing in class.

Here's a showme that I made to explain how to find fractions of a whole number. The small group I was working with was able to show their parents at home and consolidate their learning even more.

How are you providing opportunities for your students and parents to continue the learning?

App of the week!

Here's the first 'App of the Week' - it could also be the last, who knows. I have @sharpjacqui to thank for sharing the news that this app (she called it one of her favs) was free on itunes for 2 days... so naturally I was curious.

Yes, it was the free part. Can you blame me.

Here are some screen shots from itunes on Halftone.

It's a great app for uploading photos, adding text and a few icons. Very easy to use and, as most apps will allow these days, whatever you create can be shared on facebook, twitter and emailed.

Some fun ahead, I think! My first go is on the side of my blog.

iPads in Education - resources

We've all been seeing the hype created by the iPad, especially when it comes to being used in the classroom. Mobile devices are being identified as the next big tech tool for learning so... here are some links I've collecting.

Here's an example of one of MANY educational apps for the iPad.

Toontastic from Thushan Amarasiriwardena on Vimeo.

An amazing wiki, and another here with LOTS of resources for both the iPad and the iPod.

A blog post about using the iPad in classrooms.

Some student achievement data for use with the iPod (lets face it, the iPad is just a big screen iPod, essentially)

Some info from a blog post about the iPad2.

This video shows the iPad in action - specifically how students might use them.

And lastly - the MAMMOTH wiki for Ipad resources, created by Mike Fisher!