Nearly four years ago, I wrote a post which, for me, was a real watershed in my understanding of how to make learning visible. I had been mulling over my burgeoning understanding of the SOLO taxonomy (often over a beer with the inimitable Darren Mead) , a paper written by David Leat about the role of kinaesthetic card activities called "Brains on the Table" and an activity my colleague Damian had developed using hexagonal shaped cards when I felt I had arrived at a nexus of ideas. I have written quite a bit about this in this very blog, and I invite you to read this, followed by this and then this co-authored post with Tait Coles.
The truly powerful aspect of bringing together kinaesthetic, open ended card activities, the SOLO taxonomy and the irresistibly tessellatable hexagons was that not only did it give me a way to see what learners thought through the final outcome of the activity, but I could see the process of their thinking, the ebb and flow of their growing understanding and the quantity and quality of connections they were building. Having the SOLO taxonomy as a language to describe these different stages makes it easy to talk to learners about strategies they can use to move from a multistructural understanding to a relational one and beyond. It allows thinking to be made visible and formatively assessable in a way no other activity I have found does.
To see the many examples of people applying this strategy to make learning visible, just Google "solo hexagons" there are tons of great applications. Also check out the guru of SOLO and hexagon afficianada Pam Hook and her website pamhook.com .
So if you enjoy the mind-numbingly yet strangely calming activity of cutting out lots of hexagons and are willing to undergo the scissor callouses necessary to really see your learners' thinking, then give this strategy a go. Now there is such a thing as hexagonal post-its but they only stick on two edges and therefore curl and also hexagonal paper punches (which are too small), but where is the fun in that?
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