The Supersized PhysEd Podcast
The Supersized Physed Podcast is dedicated to providing new ideas, activities and inspiration to our physical education field. Each week a new episode about various physed topics comes out, sometimes with a guest, sometimes it's just me!
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The Supersized PhysEd Podcast
How I Teach SOLO Taxonomy in Physed Class
Hello PE Nation!
Today I discuss how I implement SOLO Taxonomy in my PE class. This model offers a powerful framework for structuring learning progression in physical education, taking students from basic knowledge to creative application through five distinct stages.
• SOLO stands for Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes
• The five stages progress from pre-structural (knowing nothing) to extended abstract (creating something new)
• Using Legos as an example: level 1 is not knowing what Legos are, level 5 is creating original designs without instructions
• Similar progression with musical instruments: from holding a guitar to jamming and creating new songs
• Modified approach using numbered magnets makes the system more kid-friendly
• Implemented successfully with dance, hockey, soccer, football, and pickleball units
• Students track their own progress and clearly understand what skills they need to advance
• Higher-level students can help teach others and create new games or activities
Take care,
Dave
SOLO hand signal video
Sample SOLO PDF
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Hello and welcome to the Super Size Fizzhead podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to talk about solo taxonomy, and it has nothing to do with Star Wars. I'm sorry to all you Star Wars fans out there, but it's a great learning model and I want to talk about it after this break. So, without further ado, here we go. All right, pe Nation. So solo taxonomy is actually called solo because it stands for structure of observed learning outcomes, but solo just sounds better, right? It's just cooler, right.
Speaker 1:So I was first introduced to this learning model I'd say about 10 years ago. I used to be on Voxer a lot and actually that's how I got really good at just my knowledge and I just became a better teacher, like 100%, just by learning from other teachers and collaborating. And so our Voxer group someone in there posted about this learning model called Solo Taxonomy. Boxer Group someone in there posted about this learning model called Solo Taxonomy and from that I started watching these videos that we kind of shared, which I will put in the episode notes. There's actually a few different videos based on just people and teachers using it and even in other countries, and what I noticed was it was really it's kind of like gamification, I guess, like different levels, but it's more in-depth thinking and it's something I really gravitated towards, um using it in PE.
Speaker 1:So let me go through the five stages first, and then I'm going to make it real simple. So the first stage is called pre-structural it's and it means, um, I just don't know anything about the subject. Okay, that's the first level, like I just don't know anything about whatever we're talking about. The second one is unistructural and it means you have like one relevant uh aspect that you know, like one thing that you know about whatever it is you're learning. The third one is called multistructural and it means you can you know like several things, like multi means several, so you know several ideas about this topic. And then the fourth one, where it gets better and more in depth, is called relational. So that's when you you're starting to see patterns, you're starting to uh put things together, you're integrating these things into the structure, uh.
Speaker 1:The fifth one is the highest level it's. It's called the extended abstract and if you can think about the word extended, like you're extending the knowledge, um, you can make something new out of it. You can just create something out of uh, whatever you're learning and putting into practice and I know that sounds like a lot of not very clear what I just said sometimes. So I can make it a lot easier and I learned something from actually this video makes it really great and I'm going to link this in the show notes as well. It's from Emily Hughes, who I found on YouTube for this. I think we shared it in the Voxer group and it definitely makes it so much easier. So let me define it using Legos. So in the video she has well, again, she's using Legos to describe the stages.
Speaker 1:So pre-structural means I don't even know what a Lego is Like, I have no idea. Unistructural, so again, that's level like one. If you want to make levels, level one is I don't even know what a Lego is, never seen it before, don't know what it is. Level two is I know what a Lego is but I don't know what to do with it. So you have one idea about it but you're not sure what to do. Level three, which is multistructural, is I have a bunch of Legos but I don't know what to do with them. I don't see the connection.
Speaker 1:Number four, which is relational, is and this is where it gets cool I can make a spaceship out of the bricks using the directions. Now, that's the key Using the directions, following what you can see, following the steps, I can make a spaceship or whatever it is, but let's keep it as a spaceship. So, extended abstract, that's where, again, that's where the magic happens. I can create something new with the bricks without using any directions. I made it by myself, I created something new. That is extended abstract. So then, if you follow that, then you could take it to a different level or a different topic.
Speaker 1:So sometimes I talk to my class about this, or like chess, or I call it my Jimmy Page version guitar. So if you're talking about music or if you're a music teacher, you can frame it this way. So pre-structural level one is I don't know how to hold a guitar. Maybe I don't even know what a guitar is. I don't know. Number two is I know how to hold a guitar. Number three is and that's again, it goes from pre-structural, unistructural. Number three is multi-structural I can play a note or two. It's multistructural. Four, relational. Again, this is the good stuff, this is level four, relational I can play a song while looking at my music sheet. And number five, extended abstract, is I can jam on stage with a band and create a new song. So that's the Jimmy Page version. Or Eric Clapton, or whoever you like. They have that kind of knowledge and that kind of talent that they can just go on stage and just jam with a band and make something new. So, again, that is my Jimmy Page version of this.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've been listening to this the whole time which I thank you for listening in you're probably like well, why, what is this all about? What do I do with this? So my goal is to teach my students with a variety of methods. Okay, so some are visual learners, some are audio, some are tactile, and I don't use solo a lot, but when I use it, I find that students really start to get the concepts I'm trying to teach, and I usually use them in the beginning learning stages of a um, a certain topic like I'm gonna use, like I use it in the beginning of, like a basketball unit, or beginning of a um, a soccer type skill units, or hockey, as a matter of fact, I just use it with hockey. But um, what I noticed was some of the students were not getting it as far as the levels. They weren't understanding what I was talking about. So let me give you an example of that. So, to try to make a long story short, this is going back eight or nine years, maybe ten.
Speaker 1:I got a grant for a lot of technology and it was a let's see, it was a we, a we gaming system with a bunch of dance pads. It was Dance, dance Revolution, and I actually had a trailer an unused trailer that I would take a class into and I'd set up all the learn, the dance pads and we would follow along to different songs and with Soul Taxonomy I've seen it different ways. The original way I saw it was the teachers would put or give each student a post-it note and they'd put their name on it and they would just move the post-it notes as they go. The other way to do it, which I've done before, is using just a marker and an overhead or a whiteboard and they would just initial and then they'd erase and put it on the next step on the board, and I'll put a lot of these visuals in the show notes, if you want to take a look. The next step on the board, and I'll put a lot of these visuals in the show notes if you want to take a look.
Speaker 1:So when we did DDR Dance, dance Revolution, here's what the levels I put it at. Number one, pre-structural, is I do not know what DDR is. Number two is I know what DDR is, but I have never played it. Number three is I can do one or two moves to the song. Four is I can move the pieces together in sequence. Five is I can do the entire song and create new moves. Now what I and then students can move up and down levels. Of course, no one's ever in the history of my teaching moved down a level. I don't think like like back a level.
Speaker 1:But I noticed some students and you can have conversations about that like, hey, I noticed you, you're only at pre-ructural, but I know, you know a couple of these moves. Now the opposite happened, more than that, where a kid just went right to the fifth level, which is extended abstract, without even doing much. And that's when you need to have these conversations about wait, wait, wait. You're telling me you know how to do all this and this and this and this and create something new, and they're like well, maybe not. And this and this and this and create something new, and they're like well, maybe not. So those are the types of things that you need to monitor as you do solo taxonomy.
Speaker 1:And another aspect of solo taxonomy, if you'd like, is to use hand signals, and that's what I taught the students. Again, I learned these from YouTube and, like I said, I'll link all these in the show notes as well as my article that I wrote on Medium and Substack, so I would have students use the hand signals as well to show me what they know, what they've learned, and you know where they started, where they ended. So what happened was the students weren't quite getting some of the you know, when I say multistructural, this is multistructural, see, I had a hard time saying that or extended abstract to like third graders. They're like well, what does that mean? And I decided to change it over the years where they would still have levels and it would still be solo taxonomy, but it'd be more kid friendly way, more user friendly for their age level friendly way, more user friendly for their age level. And you know, I've seen a lot of uh people online use solo the regular way and, again, I did for a long time, but I like doing it my way and here's how it goes.
Speaker 1:So I started using magnets and it doesn't matter what you use. Again, you can use post-it notes, you use markers, whatever. I bought these flat magnets on ebay, I think, or amazon, and I put, I just wrote numbers on them and the students would move the their magnets based on their dot numbers. Or I just give them a number. I'd say you're number one, two, three, four, five, whatever, and during that day that was their. So they would move their magnets as they went through the stages. However, I would tell them what the stages are.
Speaker 1:So this is where I think it's kind of like a solo taxonomy slash gamification hybrid model that I made, because to me it was easier for the students to see where they needed to go at each level than just say, well, I know two things about hockey and it just wasn't time efficient. I guess we only have 40 minutes and after we warm up and talk and stuff and I demonstrate the different levels and things. It just wasn't able to. I wasn't able to have one-on-one conversations with all these students or even, you know, a small group sometimes. I just wanted them to get through the levels and understand here's where you start, here's where you need to go, and so, again, I did it with hockey and soccer in the past couple of years, but again, I'll talk about hockey right now.
Speaker 1:So level one is I could hold the hockey stick properly and so that's, instead of like when I said about the Jimmy page, I can hold a guitar. So number one is I can hold the hockey stick properly, I mean with their dominant hand on the, you know, middle to bottom and their non-dominant hand near the top and you know one's going forward, one's going backwards, bottom, and their non-dominant hand near the top and you know one's going forward, one's going backwards and, um, so that's level one, and they couldn't move from that until they, until I proved it. Number two is I can stick handle to 25 dots with control. And they started with a frisbee. Just on the ground they had a stick handle. Uh, we have dots and they have to properly stick handle to 25 dots with control.
Speaker 1:Number three is I can stick handle up and down our basketball court 10 times with control. Again, they can't just hit the Frisbee far and run after it, they have to show control. Number four is when they have to get a partner and they have to pass 30 times to a partner with control, Obviously with control. I've said a lot, so they have to show control and demonstrate that they can pass. Number five again. So let me go back for a moment. So number one, again pre-structural, just holding the stick properly. Number two stick handling, that'd be like the unistructural. Number three, which is multistructural, is basically putting the three concepts together you can hold it correctly, you can sick handle and then you can move with it up and down the court. So that's multistructural. Number four, which is relational, is taking all that and adding to it with a partner in passing, with control again. And number five and this is the extended abstract is they can repeat the stations with a tennis ball, so it's faster, it's demonstrating more skills.
Speaker 1:And I know what you're thinking You're like well, wait a minute, where's the creativity come from? Where's the jamming on stage come from? Well, they can help other students move up levels, so they're teaching, or they can create a new move or pass or game, so that's when they get the creativity going. That's the final stage and a lot of students don't get that far. Sometimes we'll make it a two-day or two-lesson thing where I'll take a picture of where they're at, where their magnets are, and they can move them back. So if we run out of time, we can just continue and pick up next time and they really achieve or they strive to achieve these levels. Like the students really want to get to the fifth level.
Speaker 1:Now, again, I know it's not probably technically solo taxonomy, but it's very kid-friendly and they can see where they really need to be and they can still talk about it. We still have conversations about what levels they're at, why, what they can do to go up a level, things like that. So it's just a great method, especially, I think, in the beginning of a unit, the beginning of a skills-based unit. So I've used Solo with dance, soccer, hockey, football and pickleball dance soccer, hockey, football and pickleball and I'm going to keep using it with different units as we go throughout the school year and into the future. So definitely check it out.
Speaker 1:It is solo taxonomy. I will leave it there. I don't need a cowbell tip of the day. I don't think, although I know you like cowbells. I do too. So tell you what. I will make this a cowbell just for that. So here is your cowbell tip of the day. All right, just cause I like cowbells.
Speaker 1:Your cowbell tip of the day is to check out the videos in the show notes. It is to, uh, look at or read the article I posted in there. I'm going to post in there because it shows you. It's more visual If you want to take a look at how my students use it. And yeah, there's some pictures in there and I just explained it with. You know, obviously, word form and I will also put some of my posters in the show notes that you can take a look at if you're not sure what solo taxonomy is, so more visual. So take a look at those and definitely add it to one of your units. Make sure it's a unit that you know really well Like I know hockey pretty well, I grew up playing hockey and make sure it's a unit that you are comfortable with and you think that would benefit your students, so that my friends is your cowbell tip of the day.
Speaker 1:Thank you everyone for tuning in today. I really do appreciate it. As always, go to SuperScienceize phys ed for more information and definitely follow my sub stack. Like I've mentioned in the past month or so, I love sub stack and I'd love to get more conversations going. Or, if you'd like to be a part of the show, reach out to me at my email in the show notes and I will also link a uh my form to fill out If you'd like to join the show, or and I will also link a uh my form to fill out if you'd like to join the show or be a part of it. I want to start doing more interviews, like I've been doing here and there and uh, because I learned from all of you as well. I want to hear what you're doing. I want to hear your awesome stuff in pe class in your p program. So, with that, have a great day, week, weekend, whenever you listen to this p nation. You guys and girls are awesome. Let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.
