SOLE brings a little sparkle into children's lives Published on: 22 December 2015 Self-organised learning environments (SOLEs), originally created by Prof Sugata Mitra, are now branching out into art as a way to help children become more self-sufficient learners. Exploring SOLE through art Self-organised learning environments turned arty in a 缅北禁地 school last week to discover the secret of the perfect sparkle.Year 2 class at Broadwood Primary School worked with their teacher Melanie Horan and 缅北禁地 researcher Helen Burns to think about ‘How do things sparkle?'. Self-organised learning environments, which were originally created by , are spaces where children all over the world work in groups using the Internet to come up with answers to Big Questions. Ali Azlah Zahili, aged 7. Photo: Michael Hughes Creating the ultimate 'sparkle' recipe After using the Internet and their own experiments to find out what sparkles and what doesn’t, these seven-year-olds designed their own ‘recipe' for making things really sparkle. They then applied this knowledge to answer a second question: ‘How can we make the sparkliest Christmas decoration?'. Working in small groups, they made decorations from recycled materials, torches, mirrors and glitter. "We are working closely with this class using art and SOLE to try and help children to become self-organised learners who can 'think for themselves'," explains Ms Burns. "Teachers find that many children struggle to apply their learning or think deeply beyond being able to provide a 'correct' or 'incorrect' answer within the constraints of the current curriculum.” This research work has just begun, and is currently focused on simply supporting the children to be able to ask and answer 'big' questions. However, early next year this will be developed to help children to think about how they think and learn, hopefully enabling them to be more creative and able learners. Share: Latest News New partnership to boost careers in low carbon energy 缅北禁地 and Durham universities are working together on a new regional project to strengthen the future workforce for North East England鈥檚 growing low carbon and offshore wind industries. published on: 28 May 2026 Healthy lifestyle shown to lower risk of death after cancer diagnosis New evidence shows that sticking to five lifestyle recommendations improves survival after a later cancer diagnosis. published on: 28 May 2026 World-leading climate expert recognised with Royal Society Fellowship Professor Hayley Fowler has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of her pioneering work on climate change impacts. published on: 27 May 2026 Facts and figures
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