Using SOLE in the Classroom

SOLE: Self Organized Learning Environment.


When teaching research skills I would create what I called scavenger hunts or trivia challenges. Students went through the questions and used that week's database or Google to locate and cite the answer. Q&A. They even wrote their answers on paper! Worksheets. I was creating worksheets. I didn't want to do that. Students didn't want to fill out worksheets. There had to be a way to teach research skills in a way that would allow students to be in control.

When we research we aren't simply finding an answer. A real world question doesn't have a simple answer. I don't want students to ask me if their answer is correct, I want students to feel confident that they can address real world concerns. I want students to understand that tackling these issues will take research, communication, collaboration, and time. There will be dead-ends and wrong ways. There will be disagreements.

So this year I changed things up. Students began collaborating in small groups to question, research, and brainstorm solutions to open-ended issues and concerns. And I stayed out of their way. This is the purpose of SOLE: Self Organized Learning Environment--to empower students to direct their own learning.

For each class I would propose an open-ended question. The question had global implications, multiple paths in which the research could go and did not have an easy answer. Or any answer, really. Some of the questions this year were:

How can we empower communities living in food deserts?
Should schools go paperless?
Is social media bringing us closer together or pushing us further apart?

We would watch a short video for background information, then began.

Students collaborated in small groups to brainstorm questions and considerations, then researched. Only one laptop per group was allowed. Information was hand-written or sketched out on poster-sized paper. Disagreements were referred by a student "peace maker."

At first we simply shared our results within our class. Then we went global- 7th graders created short videos that we swapped with a class in Sweden. 6th graders blogged and created Google slides. These were shared with a class in Canada, and then a class in Australia. 5th graders also blogged, sharing their ideas with students in Australia as well. This global sharing is when learning became real- by pushing out our classroom walls we allowed multiple views and perspectives in.