Artichoke

Exploring “Positive Deviance” and “The kids are not in the classroom” Times.

It is the end of term 3 and the start of the school holidays in New Zealand. Many people outside of education would describe a teacher’s lived experience in the school holidays in “Mr Curly” “doing nothing and having a rest” terms 

Dear Vasco, In response to your question “What is worth doing and what is worth having?” I would like to say simply this.  It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you must rest Vasco – otherwise you will become RESTLESS! ...
p26 The Curly Pyjama Letters Michael Leunig

However, “school holiday” is increasingly something of a misnomer for New Zealand teachers.  An expectation has developed in recent years that, rather than holding teacher only days during term time, teachers will spend time in the “school holidays” in some school wide professional learning experience. 

The first Saturday of these “holidays” saw us working on a thinking curriculum with teachers in Kaukapakapa and  on Monday and Tuesday we have been looking at inquiry learning with teachers on a 2 day retreat in the Wairarapa Valley.   We have a “where to next meeting” with some teachers in Wellington and then at the end of the week we fly to Sydney to work with teachers attending Navcon2k7 .  Some of our cluster teachers are coming with us to Sydney, most are staying in Auckland and attending ULearn07 in Auckland 

When you add these expectations for professional learning to the marking, reporting and planning that goes on in the average teacher’s “school holiday” time there is a strong case for finding a new descriptor for those “the kids are not in the classroom” times.

This is because the teachers we meet are not “on holiday” in the “school holidays” – they are captured in verve filled thought experiments on how to “better” what they do when the kids are in the classrooms, planning how how to “better” their performance.

I suspect that the term “School holiday” helps undermine the idea that teaching is a profession – in that it gives everyone outside of schools the impression that the day job is a doddle, and encourages the few inside, who have not looked closely at the working lives of others, an undeserved sense of martyrdom when they attend formal learning during “the kids are not in the classroom” times.  And I cannot help but think of these malcontents who have known only teaching as a day job, and resent any intrusion into their “the kids are not in the classroom” time,  in terms of the "Henny" Youngman one liner "I was an atheist for awhile, but I gave it up. No holidays!"

As we travel around during “the kids are not in the classroom” time I have taken advantage of the opportunities to read, consuming both “chosen for the journey” books and  “found” books.  My favourite read on this trip is a “found book” - Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

Doing things “better” is what many New Zealand teachers are exploring in their “school holidays” so a book exploring how to “better” medical performance captured me immediately.  I read the chapters “On Washing Hands”, “The Mop Up” and “Casualties of War”, before the taxi arrived to take us to WTG airport but these three chapters allowed me so many connections to stuff that challenges us in school that I have ordered a copy from Amazon so I can finish reading.

An idea in “Better” that I  want to think about, in terms of what it can offer schools and our work in the ict_pd clusters, is Jerry Sternin’s  sense of the "positive deviant". 

In every community there are certain individuals (the "Positive Deviants") whose special practices/ strategies/ behaviors enable them to find better solutions to prevalent community problems than their neighbors who have access to the same resources. Positive deviance is a culturally appropriate development approach that is tailored to the specific community in which it is used.Positive Deviance

Gawande’s chapter “On Washing Hands” (describing the inability of medical institutions to persuade their staff to adopt simple measures to prevent hospital acquired infections) reminded me of the simple issues that we never seem to resolve in school.  Issues like persuading students and teachers to take responsibility for their own rubbish, or encouraging school attendance in low decile communities, discouraging  Maori and Pasifika boys from early school leaving without qualifications, or sustaining school wide integration of ICTs in student learning experiences in ict_pd clusters. Gawande describes how when all other approaches had failed, a “positive deviance” solution made real shifts in hand washing behaviours in a hospital.

The Projects page of the Positive Deviance site is packed with stories about interventions that make real change and sustainable difference in the world  AND because positive deviance relies upon identifying people within a community to model the behaviours for change, we ensure these changes are doable, manageable and achievable and avoid charges that so commonly arise when ‘developed’ world’s institutions see themselves as catering to ‘underdeveloped’ people’s needs.

I am thinking that we may get more leverage is resolving the “unmovables” in education if instead of bringing in “experts”, “facilitators”, specially funded research programmes etc into our schools we started looking for and funding interventions that explore “positive deviance” within a community and within a school.    

A curriculum of smells and tastes

“We think with the objects we love, we love the objects we think with.” Turkle 2007

I have been reading Sherry Turkle’s “Evocative Objects - Things we think with”.  It is an intoxicating read, each essay written with conviction and character, each object inspiring delight.

When I read Evocative Objects it feels a little like I am reading poetry – the ideas and images the essays conjure are so interesting, so complexly nuanced that I’m pausing after each one so I can absorb the new ideas.  To read them all in one sitting would lead to sensory satiation – cognitive overload.

Tonight I read “Salvaged Photographs” and “The Rolling Pin”.

I loved the way that Glorianna Davenport’s “Salvaged Photographs” elaborated and affirmed a “thought catalyst” email I was sent by a friend last week. 

We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium. Ansel Adams(Levitt, Parks & Hosoe, 1998)

Photographer Ansel Adams¹ quote provides us with insight into how we might think differently about researching the meaning of social interactions through digital ethnography. Photographs and videos are containers in which many things can be stored; they can hold details, memories, emotions, and meanings. They allow moments to be captured and stored for later recall and sharing. Photographs can speak for us when we cannot find the words. (Loeffler T.A 1982a).

The walls of Grandpa's dementia centre are covered in “digital ethnography” – photograph’s that capture the  “details, memories, emotions, and meanings” of the residents – past and present. And when the resident’s can no longer recall and share, the photographs speak for them.      

However, it was the extract from Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, in the next essay by Susan Pollak that I want to use as the “thought marker” for today.

But when from a long distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest, and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.” Marcel Proust

It makes me wonder about the sensory deprivation of our students when so much of their learning comes from interacting with a screen. We are even bringing ICTs into early childhood education in New Zealand.  What will the so called 21st Century learner have to call on after "all things are broken and scattered"? It makes me wonder if instead of a curriculum of questions we need a curriculum of smells and tastes.

There is not a flower or bird in sight, only a small screen on which lines are moving, while the child sits almost motionless, pushing at the keyboard with one finger. As a learning environment, it may be mentally rich, but it is perceptually extremely impoverished. No smells or tastes, no wind or bird song (unless the computer is programmed to produce electronic tweets), no connection with soil, water, sunlight, warmth, the actual learning environment is almost autistic in quality, impoverished sensually, emotionally, and socially.John Davy

Grandpa is increasingly lost in his familiar environment. “How did you find me” he asked in amazement when I arrived today. His bewilderment and uncertainty of place temporarily reassured by visitors he can still identify.  But if taste and smell are enduring, I’m going to have to find some evocative smells and tastes to bring him back when he gets lost in his own mind. 

21st September World Alzheimer’s Day

Reducing disparities in early childhood education: The PPP ECE Report

We have been working in Foxton Beach and Kapiti this week, staying at a motel beside the estuary where the only connectivity with the outside world was a pay phone in the laundry (and that needed discontinued coins to work).  The isolation allowed us to indulge in happenstance conversations with a spontaneous gathering of occupants from the adjoining units. The carpet overlocker, shaving brush artist and polytech tutor ignored the lists of what was unacceptable pasted to the walls of their units, and were attracted like moths to our convivial wine fuelled conversations on the grassy patch outside the unit. We hit Sidorkin’s three wine dialogue criteria early on in the evening and deliciously unexpected topics were introduced, shaken out and enjoyed. 

One of the reasons I love the day job is the opportunity it provides to travel to new places and make new friends, and I especially enjoy it when these new friends work in jobs that sit outside of education. Every profession seems to have a “language of belonging” and people who work in schools are no different.  When I only talk to people who work in schools this language of belonging, limits the way I can imagine, predict, and create opportunity.  It is only when I nudge up against the conversations of edu_outsiders that I realise the extent of this disconnect. 

It is as a result of these conversations with outsiders that I wonder if teaching should never be a full time occupation – if teachers should be required to work somewhere outside of schools two days of every week, or be required to take other jobs during the summer holiday breaks.

The outsiders we meet on the road see teaching as a day job notable for being rule bound and risk adverse – they see teachers as people focussed on compliance behaviours. When pressed, the outsiders will admit they believe  – “present company excepted of course” – that most teachers are people who preferred the security of never leaving the safety of school, people who failed to jump when it came to looking for a job outside.

Perhaps it is because the population profiles in schools are tilted towards security seeking personalities that the individuals in them lack the diversity and life experience that we meet when travelling.   In this regard, schools remind me in part of a Bruce Sterling like “Involuntary park” 

“... government-owned areas nervously guarded by well-indoctrinated forest rangers in formal charge of Our Natural Heritage©™.  They are, for instance, very green, and probably full of wild animals. But the species mix is no longer natural.

This lack of a natural species mix in schools means that whether we like it or not, teachers and schools are perceived to have a disconnect from the world outside of school – a disconnect that we emphasise through our over earnest attempts to identify and introduce “authentic contexts” and “social action”

Sometimes the disconnect between involuntary park school  thinking and thinking on the outside doesn’t matter, but sometimes it does. 

I have been reading the most recent report on the efficacy of the MoE’s Promoting ECE Participation Project (PPP), where the disconnect between what the MoE allowed to happen/ felt unable to challenge and what an edu_outsider would tolerate in a setting outside of school seems especially perilous. 

PPP was  “an ethnically targeted intervention that is intended to reduce disparities in early childhood education participation between Māori and Pasifika children, and other children.” The project first implemented in May 2001 had a $4.350m ongoing annual funding from Vote: Education.

I first became interested in the PPP project after a damning report published in the NZ Herald in April 2004, where it was described as  “A Government scheme that paid bounty-hunters up to $2275 a head for enrolling Maori or Pacific preschoolers - some of them non-existent – (that) is set to roll on, despite damning new disclosures.”

The extent of the corruption revealed in the Herald article   suggested to me that nobody responsible for monitoring this project really cared whether the PPP intervention made a difference for the preschoolers in the communities targeted.

Both organisations fell badly short of their recruitment targets after audits found dozens of irregularities in their records. These included placing youngsters in unapproved playgroups, claiming to have introduced children to preschools that had never heard of them, and providing names that turned up on another contractor's database.

Reading about the dubious activity of PPP contract providers and the seeming lack of activity of the people paid to monitor them made me think rather cynically that I live in a country where so long as we can report that money was being thrown at an ethnically targeted group of New Zealand preschoolers the outcomes didn’t matter.  Perhaps the ineffectual targeting of costly interventions for vulnerable groups was planned to ensure that inequity and underachievement of the children of the needy will always be with us.   

For example, I couldn’t help thinking that if this intervention had been targeting the children of the wealthy – had been charged with increasing their participation in pre-school golf academies, entrepreneurial thinking programmes, advanced numeracy institutes or second language academies - this corruption would have been exposed very early on, and not allowed to continue.

A May 2005 review of the funding initiative designed to increase participation in early childhood education (ECE) within targeted communities continued to be bad news in terms of the PPP project’s  effectiveness.

14.We agree with the proposal to immediately commence an evaluation of the
programme, especially as there is little evidence of effectiveness. Another issue to be
considered in the evaluation is whether children enrolled in ECE as a result of PPP
are retained in ECE.

But I had to wait until August 2007 before the final PPP  report (102 pages long) was released. 

So what did the The  Evaluation of Promoting Early Childhood Education (ECE) Participation Project have to say when we finally got to read it.

Although outside the targeted age group, many children placed in ECE by PPP providers were under 3 years of age. Participation by younger siblings of children recruited through PPP appears to account for some of this; however, the identification of and enrolment of children under 3 would seem to be inconsistent with policy intent which was to focus on participation for three and four year olds

Finding out in 2007 that the project established in 2001 was targeting children who did not meet the policy intent is somewhat alarming.  It seems that the PPP project was an expensive intervention that was poorly monitored, and targeted the wrong kids, but did it work?  The full report suggests not.

The qualitative data gathered in the course of this evaluation indicates that, in communities where PPP was operating, families who might not otherwise have been participating are now participating in ECE. However, limitations in the system for collecting data from providers, gaps in provider data, and variable strengths of provider reporting preclude the evaluation from being able to reliably determine the degree to which PPP has been associated with an increase in participation, or to draw conclusions about the degree to which families have been retained. 

The report takes one hundred and two pages to tell us there is no evidence that the PPP project made a jot of difference since it was started in 2001. 

Only individuals used to playing in the “involuntary parklands of school” could use so many words to tell us something so straightforward.  I feel certain that the carpet overlocker, shaving brush artist and polytech tutor could have captured this in less.  But then again they might not have charged so much to provide the assessment as the University of Auckland Uniservices report writers will have. 

Why did we have to wait so long to find out that the PPP project wasn't working? Was it due to the torpor of the "lets not rock the boat" minds in education?

Given that almost 7 million dollars was spent in the first three years of the project I’d like to know the total cost to Vote: Education of project that has resulted in no reliable outcomes since 2001.

And then I’d like to imagine what might have been created with the money squandered on the PPP project.

For example, I wonder what the outcomes might have been if the PPP monies had been used to establish a centre of early childhood education in a target community.   A functioning centre that also acted as government subsidised professional learning centre for educators across New Zealand interested in the conditions of value when making interventions in the lives of young New Zealanders and their families facing inequity in educational opportunity.

Interestingly the unintended costs of the PPP project continue to grow

“ A Waikato association which had a Government contract to encourage children into early childhood education terminated is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
The Waikato Pan-Chinese Association was given a $75,000 contract under the Government's programme to encourage greater participation in early childhood education, but it was terminated 11 months later, according to documents given to National MP Katherine Rich under the Official Information Act.” NZ Herald Thursday September 6

Linus’ Security Blanket, Comfort Food and the “Learning Community”

There was a mix-up in the kitchen. Lucy was using my blanket to dry the dishes. We now have very secure dishes! Linus van Pelt

Whilst only some of us will admit to Linus like thumb sucking, blanket clutching behaviour in our past, most of us will admit to a retreat to “comfort food” when life folds in on our present. Comfort food as the "answer" when things go wrong.

“Poached egg - all mashed up in bread” works for “The Microscopist” and serial black olive scoffing work for me.  When pressed, “The Magnet” admits to finding salvation in peppermint creme biscuits, “The Mistress of the Template” claims “bangers and mash”,  “Lo Snowboarder” suggests something with a fork in a bowl with cheese and “The Geek” alludes to chocolate, vodka and sex but not necessarily in that order.

I am stuck in milestone reporting mode again – you probably picked it from my recent predilection for measurement and outcomes – but I’ve ground to a halt tonight with the MoE ms_request that we report on our progress in “Establishing a sustainable professional learning community”

By happy coincidence SC has proffered some consoling thoughts today on the “Learning Community” he is developing through the Chess-squared blog

Despite replying reassuringly on the progress of our learning community in previous MoE ms reporting I know that in doing so I am guilty of writing “telling the teacher what they want to hear” stuff.  SC’s reflection and self doubt marry with mine I don’t know if our cluster schools are learning communities, I am not even sure that I know what constitutes a learning community.  Let alone how a sustainable one differs from an unsustainable one, or where we sit on the continuum.

And I suspect the reason I don’t know is that “learning community” is a “comfort food” term

Its “comfort food” nature allows “learning community” to be portrayed by our MoE as the “answer” to ictpd cluster progress rather than an idea to challenge.  And that is its weakness.

We agree without too much critical thought that a “learning community” is a good thing, something we ought to tilt at.  Community promises security, worthiness, and when connected to “learning” suggests an educationally meritous outcome that we don’t critique.

This allows us to ignore some real tensions for the learners involved in a learning community that are not so evident for learners involved in more tightly controlled learning groups (such as those found in lecture theatres in tertiary institutes) where direct instruction means we anticipate clearly articulated learning expectations in terms of LO’s and LI’s. 
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“Community” suggests a sharing of the control and responsibility for learning amongst members – the whole “guide on the side” is somehow better than the “sage on the stage” thing. Community  implies participatory practices where teachers within the community co-operate, collaborate and critique when learning together.  There is looseness in the term – a kind of “constructivist” sense of we will make sense together. 

Thinking about a group of adult learners as a “learning community” (with its notions of an ever changing distributed learning leadership, where all participants share responsibility, where specific roles emerge rather than being assigned, where peers influence peers and everyone learns from the exchanges that take place), creates tension when the community members also belong to hierarchical institutions that require compliance. 

We do not usually think about the fact that the learning communities we aspire to create have to also accommodate “privileged differences and identities” different authorities and power hierarchies.  Yet when we attempt to create a learning community within the structure of existing schools this is just what they involve. (refer Lefstein on Dialogue in schools for a more elegant take on this idea wrt dialogue)

I think this is why I cannot really tell whether I’m part of a learning community or not –

In valorising the collective, the cooperative, the collaboration – the collegial support, and the sharing we neglect the difficulty communities based within institutions will have with self critique. 

It is not that the learning community rejects the value of collaborative critique.  If you ask they will accept that they should be responsible for the assessment of learning outcomes within the community, and often reject the idea that their outcomes should be critiqued by outsiders - things like those parlous ictpd online surveys. 

But in reality members of “learning communities” often feel uncomfortable about honestly critiquing the learning outcomes of themselves and of colleagues who may well be friends. 

When the learning community is based within an institution/s, the learner's attempts at assessment of what has been learned are compromised by the opposing forces of compliance and institutional authority.

When the community is charged with assessing the learning outcomes of members who may well hold positions of deferential authority within the institution, the smart response is often to look the other way, to play under the radar. 

I suspect that assessment of what has been learned is far easier for learners within instructional groups with well defined notions of authority and the consequent need for parameters, performance measures and compliance. 

I have seen this lack of an honest critical eye in “learning communities” result in whole groups of adult learners in New Zealand schools becoming lost in pursuit of edu_fads like “learning styles”

This is probably why I accept the irony of being charged with creating a learning community and then having to report against externally imposed sets of performance measures.  The irony being that my ability to report against externally imposed performance measures reveals that our cluster is not a learning community at all – despite my claims to the contrary 

If I am honest the roles of the cluster director and facilitators in the contracts we work with involve direct instruction in learning experiences we have determined to be meaningful rather than us acting as fellow learners on journeys of collective co discovery - 

For example after the first 18 months clusters teachers across all our schools could claim WALT statements as follows
We are learning to:

• identify the “powerful” idea/ insight/ “universal” in the curriculum strand
• integrate AO’s and LI’s from the draft curriculum that develop the concepts and skills needed to   understand this insight
• develop a “fertile question” to engage and scaffold learning experiences when students are researchers
• select and integrate the key competency threads that support the powerful idea
• identify the support different students will require when engaging in the research process at the different research stages of - formulating the question/ locating relevant information and data/ research data collection/ analysis/ creating new knowledge/ and presenting of new knowledge and understanding. 
• plan learning experiences for when “students are researchers” differentiated against SOLO Taxonomy,
• integrate ICTs, visual thinking filters and thinking tools as interventions of value for different SOLO coded learning outcomes,
• anticipate/plan possible social action/ performance for understanding, and
• design differentiated “student self assessment rubrics” across every level of SOLO coded learning experience

And in response to the ICTs identified above contract teachers could add

• We are learning how to use (software application)
• We are learning how (software application) can enhance the conditions of value for differentiated learning outcomes

There is a commonality and consistency of outcome here that betrays everything I am about to claim about our co-constructivist sustainable learning community status in the ms report.  I wonder if I can work in something on comfort food, security blankets and thumb sucking to rescue the deceit in what I am about to write.

The other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it.

Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative.  The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it.   Stephen Leacock

I have been thinking about how we can help students put powerful thinking into the comment boxes of their fellow student blog posts. 

I want them to think about the comments they make in more than "Blog commenting is of two kinds, positive and negative." terms. To avoid polarising their thinking about blog comments into "a little more expensive" comments versus “lets the moths get in” blog comments.

In my ever burgeoning bloglines account I enjoy reading bloggers who disallow comments altogether – but whilst I admire the purity of their motive, and their ability to write without needing the frottage effect of other blogger’s rubbing themselves up against the post with trembling cries of “great post”, “insightful”, “I agree” stuff, I just know it wouldn’t work for me.

The comments from others encourage me to blog post  just as much as all the ideas restlessly jostling in my mind

I love the feedback.  I need the attention that comments provide, and I need the challenge.  I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m not as discerning as I'd like to be when it comes to blog comment.  I don’t care whether it is valorising, condemnatory or tangential comment – it all belongs – it all builds texture around the original flawed thinking. I do love the new ideas and new thinking that challenging comments bring, but I keep them all.   –  Only the odd spam comment is denied permanent residence at Artichoke. 

I wondered if blogging really is “conversation”

For instance, Cluetrain Manifesto guru David Weinberger states that "blogs are not a new form of journalism nor do they primarily consist of teenagers whining about their teachers. Blogs are not even primarily a form of individual expression. They are better understood as conversations." Cited in Geert Lovink Blogging, the nihilist impulse

Then perhaps we could use a simple self assessment rubric based on communication to help student bloggers comment on other's posts.

I tried to combine Dr Janice Orrell’s Communication Skills Rubric with bits of Bonk and Kim’s 12 forms of electronic mentoring and assistance  aligned to Structure overview of learning outcomes SOLO Taxonomy -

I've come up wanting tonight ... but the rubric can only improve with time

Draft Rubric for Making Durable Blog Comments

SOLO Extended Abstract Level Blog Comment

Balances blog reading and responding.
Can synthesizes what has been read in the blog post and makes comments that evaluate or elaborate  to others ideas offering alternative perspectives

Includes encouraging Articulation/Dialogue Prompting/ Reflection
"I am interested in what you think is  the real problem here...?,""Can you justify this? "What do you predict might happen as a result” Can you imagine any other outcomes?” What if ...?  “Do you think it is possible  that ?  "Do you have an alternative to this situation?," "Can you give me three good reasons why...," "It still seems like something is missing here, ...?

SOLO Relational Blog Comment

Blog comments communicate most effectively and explain ideas clearly.
Can actively read the blog posts of others and respond appropriately, reflecting a personal understanding of the blogger  viewpoint expressed.

Includes Cognitive Elaborations/Explanations/  Push to Explore:
"Please clarify what you mean by...," " In contrast to this might be...," “What is similar to this” "What else do you think is  important here...? ," " "How is this related to...?," “What do you think led to this?” "You might want to  email  'XYZ' for...,"

SOLO Multistructural Level Comment

Blog comments communicate ideas and relates sensitively to others.
Can read blog posts respond to them.

Includes Questioning/ Modelling examples/
"What do you call this idea...?," "Another reason for this might be...?," "An example of this is...," I'm just not sure what you mean by...," "I think I solved this sort of problem once when I...,"

SOLO Unistructural Level Blog Comment

Limited blog reading and commenting skills.

Includes social and cognitive acknowledgement/ Simple feedback and praise
Hi...," "I agree with everything said so far...," "Wow, what a post…," "This post certainly has got people talking..," " " I'm impressed great writing...,"

SOLO Prestructural Level Blog Comment

Poor blog reading and commenting skills accompanied by a lack of self-awareness of impact of  comments on others.

“This writing sucks.” “Are you going to J’s place after school? “ “Why would anyone want to read this?” "Duh..."

UPDATE  6 September 2007

Thanks for all the ideas about this, and apologies for persevering with something that in the wrong hands may well turn out to be a joysucker BUT this version of the self assessment blog comment rubric may be a little less "mothy"

What is missing from this rubric thinking - and what may ultimately make it a pursuit of red herrings is that all levels of comment are important in conversation be it F2F or within a blog  - the texture of the initial post is enhanced by the collective comments offered so looking at them individually may be flawed.

Self Assessment Blog Commenting Rubric (Draft 2)

Dr Janice Orrell’s  (2003)Communication Skills Rubric framed as Blog Comment with explanation and example from SOLO Taxonomy

SOLO Extended Abstract Blog Comment

Blog comment balances blog reading and responding.
Can synthesize what has been read in the blog post and makes comments that evaluate or elaborate to others ideas offering alternative perspectives

E.g Blog comment includes taking linked ideas from the original post into other contexts through : generalisation, evaluation, analogy, prediction, imagine, judgement, speculation, if/then, hypothesise, forecast, idealise

SOLO Relational Level Blog Comment

Blog comments communicate most effectively and explain ideas clearly.
Can actively read the blog posts of others and respond appropriately, reflecting a personal understanding of the blogger viewpoint expressed.

E.g Blog comment links ideas from the original post through: sequencing, classification, comparison and contrast, causal explanation, analysis (part whole), clarification, inference, reason

SOLO Multistructural Level Blog Comment

Blog comments communicate ideas and relates sensitively to others.
Can read blog posts respond to them.

E.g Blog comment includes several ideas from the original post through: statements that define, describe, identify,

SOLO Unistructural Level Blog Comment

Limited blog reading and commenting skills.

E.g Blog comment includes one idea from the original post

SOLO Prestructural Level Blog Comment

Poor blog reading and commenting skills accompanied by a lack of self-awareness of impact of  comments on others.

E.g Blog comment makes no reference to the ideas in the original post

Download blog_commenting_rubric.pdf