WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...
Ideally, students should never be put into boxes or categories. However, the realities of teaching around 30 students at a time necessitate at least some levelling and pigeon-holing. In this type of environment, it’s best to try and keep mixing up the boxes in which you put students. My latest venture is to arrange my classroom according to CAT scores.
Before you go any further, you might want to read a recent mini-series of posts I made entitled Using CAT data to improve your teaching. In that I showed ways in which different quadrants on a graph plotted with Verbal and Non-Verbal CAT data can be used to inform lesson planning. Broadly speaking, the students in each quadrant prefer different ways of learning.
With this in mind, I’ve reorganised where students sit in my classroom. Given that I have five ‘islands’ of tables it works out pretty well:
Of course, no intake is going to have a perfect distribution, meaning that ideally each island would be a different size depending on the class. Again, realities dictate: with 50-minute lessons and no changeover time, manouvering tables at the start and end of each lesson isn’t very practical - especially given the small size of the classroom!
My current school has a skew towards the top end - those with Verbal and Non-Verbal CAT scores of over 100. This means that the yellow table would ideally be larger. At the same time, the blue and green tables would be smaller. Whilst I could do this, it would make for a somewhat ‘unwieldy’ classroom. Instead, those who have a significantly higher Non-Verbal than Verbal CAT score (even if the latter is over 100) go on the blue table, and vice-versa for the green table.
(previous mixed arrangement!)
The advantage of this arrangement is that I can focus my teaching when going round the classroom very easily. Those nearest mey desk need the most help, guidance and re-iteration of instructions and advice. Those furthest away from my desk are the most independent learners. I can also focus on making sure that students on the green table understand the concepts involved in the lesson, and that those on the blue table know how to structure any written work. In addition, when it comes to group work and peer learning, students are able to explain things to one another in a way with which the recipient is likely to connect.
It’s going very well so far and, in conjunction with a recent learning styles quiz and choice of activities in lesson based on preferred learning style, things are going rather swimmingly! I’m just waiting for the honeymoon period to wear off… 
Has anyone else done something similar? What do you think of this layout?
Photo credit: Smarties @ Flickr
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Doug
Top work that man! A fine idea indeed.
This looks like a great idea - however do you not need to be careful about the transient nature of CAT tests? What scores fit a Year 7 group when they arrive in September potentially don't fit at all a few months later. That is why it is important, as you've done, to keep evaluating studentrs learning styles.
To me I also feel that there is also a need to knowingly support students, being aware of their learning style, so they can actually develop additional traits of other learning styles too.
How aware are students of what you are doing? The most powerful tool for us as teachers is to make use of this directly with students - thus with group work, even though you state that they will work better with someone more likely to understand what they are on about, it might be better to instead mix the up completely. The key thing is that you and they are aware of their current styles and consequently how to approach their learning.
I agree, which is why I was wary about using it with my GCSE lot. At the end of the day, so long as you use it as a lens through which to view students, and not as the last word, I think it's OK.
Very, actually. I initially sat them according to their CAT scores as soon as they came back from the Easter break, explaining why I was doing it (although obviously stressing the learning styles aspect and not the ability aspect). The first lesson was spent doing a learning styles quiz (the one from The Teachers Toolkit) and the results of that are that they have a record (and graph!) of their different colour learning style preferences.
In subsequent lessons I have gone through the knowledge they need to show evidence of, and then with the board divided into different coloured quarters, suggested some activities students with various learning styles could undertake. It's actually gone down well mainly because it puts them in charge of their learning: they like having a choice.
At the end of the lesson we come back to the key question and lesson objectives (often through a game and review what we have learned). After all, learning goes on in one's head and not in a book!
Great ideas as ever Doug.
Have you a copy of that Learning Styles Quiz at all?
You know I share everything I use, Dafydd! It's at the historyshareforum here.