Monday 1 February 2016

A taxing taxonomy?

Not, perhaps the most original of titles...

However, something that has concerned a large portion of my waking thoughts has been linked to year 11 revision! As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost I think as teachers we may be more stressed about exams than some of the students. Something that then got me thinking was the implicit assumptions I am perhaps guilty of making. The things I take for granted. This led me to looking at Solo Taxonomy and the way I can apply it to my teaching and student learning.

That is not to dismiss Bloom's Taxonomy at all, and I think that the hierarchy of skills does successfully represent different levels of thinking. What I think is that often we can take for granted that while students may be able to meet some of the higher order thinking skills this does not mean they do not need support in linking some of the elements of the earlier thinking levels. This is one of the things I quite like about the Solo Taxonomy is that students are focusing on seeing and developing connections between elements. The 'levels' or 'steps' of the model, this is not to limit it to being a step-by-step unit.

  • The first stage is seen as the pre-structural stage, where a student may not understand a task or be able to identify any relevant knowledge.
  • The uni-lateral stage is where the student is focusing on one area of detail, they may feel that they can only identify one area of information.
  • The next step sees students beginning to include more detail but they see the details as being distinct or separate, this is the multi-structural stage.
  • The penultimate stage, the relational stage sees the student making connections between the identified detail or knowledge.
  • The final stage, extended abstract sees the student conceptualising the content/detail/knowledge at a higher level. The student is now beginning to see where this connected (relational) model fits into wider topics. For example: a student being able to see how the Scientific Revolution impacted upon wider society, media/art, religion or politics.

I can see how this model can be applied to support student progress and development in that it encourages students to focus on connections and the impact of events/actions/people upon the wider world. One way of demonstrating is through the use of hexagonal models, the interlinked models that get produced show how events cause other events and the way in which the consequences and relationships spiral beyond the opening concept or piece of detail. If you are using Solo Taxonomy or hexagonal models and have thoughts or ideas please do share!

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