I’ve been surprised this week to find a sudden increase in my blog visitors. As these peeks happen occasionally I just put this down to some MOOC out there stumbling across my SOLE model and deciding it was worthy of sharing. Always pleasing in itself, but not surprising perhaps. This was a sudden and unexpected peek, so one digs a little deeper into the stats and yes, lots of people seemed to be searching for the ‘SOLE Toolkit’. Excellent finally the traction, the critical mass, I have been….. ah.
Merely reflected glory it seems, for when I also do the ‘SOLE Toolkit’ search I find that the remarkable Sugata Mitra, currently at Newcastle University (UK), has been awarded the 2013 TED Prize for his work to ‘Build an School in the Cloud‘ and part of his contribution is something also called the SOLE Toolkit. His ‘Self-Organized Learning Environment ‘ toolkit is an amazing read and well worth getting hold of. I actually think there may be more similarities to these two namesakes than is apparent at first. I contend that any effective environment should allow for each of the nine elements of the ‘Student Owned Learning Engagement’ model and Mitra’s ‘SOLE Mindset’.
When I developed the SOLE model in early 2010 I was most concerned with the notion that teaching staff found it difficult to draw the balance between maintaining an instructivist identity, the expert role, and the facilitation of independent and thoughtful self-discovery amongst learners. The Student-Owned Learning Engagement model was envisaged as a professional development instrument primarily, to engage teachers in deconstructing the learning experience and to see their role in the process from a different perspective. It’s a privilege to share the name with Mitra’s different but similar aspiration.