Understanding Levels of Thinking using:

SOLO TAXONOMY

(after Biggs and Collis 1982)

SOLO Taxonomy

Unistructural Multistructural Relational Extended abstract

DefineIdentifyDo simple procedure

DefineDescribeListDo algorithmCombine

Compare/contrastExplain causesSequenceClassifyAnalysePart/wholeRelateAnalogyApplyFormulate questions

EvaluateTheoriseGeneralisePredictCreateImagineHypothesiseReflect

SOLO TAXONOMY(after Biggs and Collis 1982)

Prestructural

Unistructural Multistructural Relational Extended abstract

DefineIdentifyDo simple procedure

DefineDescribeListDo algorithmCombine

Compare/contrastExplain causesSequenceClassifyAnalysePart/wholeRelateAnalogyApplyFormulate questions

EvaluateTheoriseGeneralisePredictCreateImagineHypothesiseReflect

SOLO TAXONOMY(after Biggs and Collis 1982)

Prestructural

Type of Thinking

Visual image of the type

of Thinking

Describing words for each type of Thinking

Unistructural Multistructural Relational Extended abstract

DefineIdentifyDo simple procedure

DefineDescribeListDo algorithmCombine

Compare/contrastExplain causesSequenceClassifyAnalysePart/wholeRelateAnalogyApplyFormulate questions

EvaluateTheoriseGeneralisePredictCreateImagineHypothesiseReflect

SOLO TAXONOMY(after Biggs and Collis 1982)

Prestructural

What does it mean?Really there’s not much there.

For example:

Prestructural

What do you know

about Tennis?

Err….. What?

?

Unistructural

DefineIdentifyDo simple procedure

What does it mean?There’s one idea there.

For example:

What do you know

about Tennis?

Err….. You

need a racket

Multistructural

DefineDescribeListDo algorithmCombine

What does it mean?There are a number of ideas.

For example:

What do you know

about Tennis?

It’s a game played

between two people where you hit a ball over a net, keeping it

within certain boundaries

Relational

Compare/contrastExplain causesSequenceClassifyAnalysePart/wholeRelateAnalogyApplyFormulate questions

What does it mean?There are a number of ideas and links are be made between

these ideas

For example:

What do you know about

Tennis?

It’s a game of skill played between two people. The idea is to out manoeuvre your opponent by hitting the ball over the net in such a way as to force

them to make a mistake. Whether it is their failure to return the shot or they

miss the ball.

Extended abstract

EvaluateTheoriseGeneralisePredictCreateImagineHypothesiseReflect

What does it mean?There is a range of ideas which are linked together plus some

knew or extended thinking is added.

For example:

What do you know about

Tennis?

It’s a game of skill played between two people. The idea is to out manoeuvre your opponent by hitting the ball over the net in such a way as to force

them to make a mistake. Whether it is their failure to return the shot or they

miss the ball.If you knew each players skill level

with regard to putting spin on

the ball, accuracy and speed of their serve, you could

predict the outcome of each

match

Why is Mr Perry Telling me this?

(Two Reasons)1. It’s incredibly interesting2. It parallels NCEA marking perfectly

and thus, thinking about levels of thinking (metacognition) puts us in a more likely position to achieve at higher levels

Unistructural Multistructural Relational Extended abstract

DefineIdentifyDo simple procedure

DefineDescribeListDo algorithmCombine

Compare/contrastExplain causesSequenceClassifyAnalysePart/wholeRelateAnalogyApplyFormulate questions

EvaluateTheoriseGeneralisePredictCreateImagineHypothesiseReflect

SOLO TAXONOMY(after Biggs and Collis 1982)

Prestructural

So How do they match up?

Not Achieved Achieved Achieved with Merit

Achieved with Excellence

What can I (that’s you) do?

• Read each question and look for the instructional word which suggest which level of thinking is being asked for

• Read through your own answers and assess what level of thinking you have applied