SOLO taxonomy #ozseries

1. @charte
www.chrisharte.typepad.com

4. Bloom’s vs SOLO Smackdown
Bloom’s (revised) Taxonomy is a useful way to describe the cognitive challenge level of
any given activity, That is to say that Bloom’s is a useful checklist of different types of
thinking in a hierarchy. It does not show progression within a task or in understanding
a concept.

5. SOLO Taxonomy
(Biggs & Collis 1982)
• SOLO stands for the Structure of Observed Learning
outcomes
• Originally a way of assessing the quantity and quality
of understanding demonstrated in an outcome
• More recent move towards using it as a constructivist
framework (work by Pam Hook @hooked_on_think
and Daren Mead @dkmead)

6. C O N C E P T

8. C

9. C O N C E

10. C O N C E

11. C ?
C O N
E

12. C
?
C ON
E

14. The Alexandrine (prestructural)
• A form of verse
• Used in 17th Century French tragic drama
• 6 syllables , caesuric pause, 6 syllables per line
• Racine was a famous playwright
• Aristotlean rules – same place, one story, 24 hours
• Breaking these rules caused outrage
• Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis à sa vue

15. Getting #SOLO brains on the
table – a mystery?

16. pre structural

17. uni structural -
display stage

18. multistructural -
setting stage

19. Relational - sequencing and
webbing

20. Extended abstract -
reworking stage

21. Moving on map

22. References
BIGGS J and COLLIS K (1982) Evaluating the
Quality of Learning: the SOLO taxonomy New York:
Academic Press
David Leat & Adam Nichols (2000): Brains on the
Table: Diagnostic and formative assessment
through observation, Assessment in Education:
Principles, Policy & Practice, 7:1, 103-121
Leat & Nichols, Scaffolding Children’s Thinking -
doing Vygotsky in the classroom with National
Curriculum assessment