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CAT4 and Strategies for Learning

Example of average no bias profile

This example shows the profile for Bisset Billy for whom all four scores are average (stanines 4, 5 and 6) and the overlapping confidence bands for the four batteries indicate an even profile of average scores. Bisset has standard age scores of 92, 93, 98, 99 on the Verbal, Quantitative, Non-verbal and Spatial Batteries respectively, placing him in stanine 4 or 5 on each battery.

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CAT4 and Strategies for Learning

This is a no bias profile, demonstrating verbal reasoning and spatial abilities in the average range.

The student may achieve at an average level in most areas of learning including writing, discussion, paired work and creative tasks and the profile indicates similarly average skills in visualisation and working with pictures, diagrams, 3D objects, mind maps and other tangible methods of learning. However, teachers should ensure that high expectations, the sharing of clear learning intentions, the use of challenging questions and the creation of opportunities for the student to demonstrate their learning are all integral to the learning environment.

The student may not show a clear preference for specific learning methods but will benefit from a variety of active teaching approaches such as modelling, demonstrating and the use of simulations.

What does this look like in the classroom?

It is important that teachers do not lower expectations for students with an average no bias profile. They should:

Identify learning objectives that support all student aspirations. It is better that teachers do not ‘differentiate’ using the language of ‘all students, most students, some students’ but instead provide one common objective, for example, ‘Describe and explain the way in which blood circulates around the human body’.

Setting higher expectations across the board works positively for most students – ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ – and helps to develop a culture of aspiration and an acceptance of challenge as part of the learning process.

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Copyright © 2020 GL Assessment

Every class is a ‘mixed-ability class’. There is always a range. … I’ve found that it is a win-win to cater explicitly for the highest attaining students in any group: to ‘teach to the top’, pitching every lesson and the general thrust of every unit of work to

stretch them. In doing so everyone benefits.

Sherrington (2017)

Given that a significant number of students in any group will fall into the average achieving no bias category, it is important that teachers use their classroom management skills to help raise the group level of achievement while paying close attention to the learning demands of all students in this category.

The effective teacher understands that scaffolding support for student learning is the gateway to achieving independent success and examples of effective strategies are provided below.

Examples of strategies for an average no bias profile

Teachers should be focused on using strategies that encourage these students to move securely from guided practice to independent practice. The aim for average no bias profile students is to develop the independent learning skills that above average no bias profile students are already likely to possess.

One key finding from cognitive psychology is that subject experts approach a problem differently to non-experts. Experts are more able to discern pertinent information from the irrelevant information presented, which decreases the load on the working memory. They are more likely to select the most relevant process to solve a problem, and then attend to the degree of success from that process and change tactic when needed. Experts have better retention of new relevant information (these factors will be returned to in the section on metacognitive skills).

For example, experts in chess are very good at remembering arrangements of pieces on a chess board, but only when the arrangements are from a plausible game. When pieces are arranged implausibly or at random, chess experts have much less memory advantage over non-experts (Chase and Simon 1973).

The relevance of these considerations for education has been covered by The National Research Council in Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (2001), which calls for a complete rethink to curricula and assessment in the USA, and leads to the formation of ‘learning progressions’ based curricula and schemes of work (Gallacher and Johnson 2019). Even without a ‘learning progression’ based curriculum, the interplay between

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