More Than Expectations

More than I am
…A life without risks is just as good as
death,
But in my lifetime I want to take risks, I need
to,
Is it too much to ask to want to become
more,
More than I am, more than they tell me I
can be…
Presentation Title Goes Here (See Header & Footer To Edit This Text)2

Managing the Advanced
Learner
Dr Linda Rush, Director of Teacher Training
7 May, 2015

Objectives:
1. To share definitions of advanced learner / high
ability/giftedness
2. To discuss definitions in terms of the characteristics
associated with being a successful lifelong learner
3. To consider the role of the teacher in ordinary
classroom settings
4. To focus on the use and management of teaching
time
5. To offer a framework - an orientational device which
allows teachers to recognize the boundaries and
borderlines of their interactions with (advanced)
learners, and a prospective device to help develop
the qualities of interactions in the future.

Positionality:
• ‘Plasticity’ of the human brain
• Ability & environment are deeply intertwined
• Interested in the basis for intellectual
superiority
• Belief that everyone can be an ‘advanced
learner’
• Conscious of ‘potential ability’
• Prospective view of ability and the role of
assessment in respect of this

Key Question/Task
• What’s your view of high ability or giftedness
(Maybe helpful to consider an actual student or
group of students).
• Do you bother to identify or make yourself aware
of students with advanced learner
characteristics?
• How do you go about identifying your advanced
learners?
• How do we get to know our students?

PhD findings: More Able child profiles –
identification
• All teachers used tests of intelligence to identify
the cognitive ability of children in their class &
Assessment Tasks
• Teachers also made specific reference to the
quality of the children’s work being a useful
indicator of ability
• Recognized ability through teacher observation
• Areas of ability highlighted: cognitive; technical;
practical

‘demonstrated achievement’ &
‘potential ability’
• Some teachers stated that the high performers
were not necessarily the more able…
• Teachers also recognized individuals as having
the potential to be more able: ‘needs to be
pushed’, ‘doesn’t always do his best’, ‘doesn’t
always give the extension’, ‘will do as little as
possible’.

personalities & learning characteristics
• ‘amazing humour’
• ‘very serious . . . an absolute perfectionist’
• ‘laid back . . . very good at seeing patterns and
things . . . he will tease you and kind of
challenge you’
• ‘deep thinking’
• ‘Can be quite difficult, obstructive at times . . .
eccentric in some of his behaviours’
• ‘stolid plodder’

• most able liked to get their work right and that they didn’t like
failing
• ‘Perfectionism’ was used more than once to describe these
individuals
• tend to give up if he didn’t get what he was doing right first
time
• some enjoyed working with others…
• always challenging things – not to undermine the teacher but
‘purely out of curiosity’

• ‘had his own agenda…he will come back at me with a
counter idea’
• enjoyed bringing in his ‘own ideas not directly related to [in
class] projects’
• ability to ‘think of where a problem is going’
• motivated by challenging work
• some were confident to be challenged and questioned, and
to question themselves
• others were quite shy or particularly
• All teachers also recognized that a straightforward correlation
between ability and achievement does not exist

Formal definitions of giftedness:
• literature on the more able indicates that they think differently
from others…
• they are Gestaltist in their thinking.
• 'in contrast to the less gifted who use either atomistic or
serialistic strategies of perceiving information, the more gifted
have an analytic strategy’. (Merenheimo, 1991, cited in Freeman1998,
p. 23)

Giftedness:
• Metacognitive – knowing how you know things & the
processes by which you think
• Self-regulating – autonomous learning, being able to prepare
& supervise one’s own learning
• Underpinning this thinking is the notion of 'individualisation’

• possible’.
Renzulli’s model of
giftedness

• Information processing psychologists see
intelligence as steps or processes people go
through in solving problems. One person may be
more intelligent that another because he or she
moves through the same steps more quickly or
efficiently, or is more familiar with the required
problem solving steps.

Advocates of this view (e.g. Sternberg,
1979) focus on:
• how information is internally represented
• the kinds of strategies people use in processing
that information
• the nature of the components (e.g. memory,
inference, comparison) used in carrying out
those strategies
• how decisions are made as to which strategies
to use

Urban’s model of giftedness

Cigman’s (2006, p. 200) four-fold
distinction:
1. The child who is very bright, and benefits from
propitious environment
2. The child who is very bright, but lacks a
propitious environment
3. The trophy child, who achieves highly as a result
of a pressured environment, but who seems not
bright, and strained or alienated by the experience
4. The child seems 'not bright', and lacks a
propitious environment.

Key Points:
• No general agreement about the nature of
intelligence and that of being more able or gifted
• An artificially constructed concept
• Identification of ability needs to be carried out in a
useful way – not just to classify individuals
• A concern about ability is a concern about student
developing as individuals so that their potential is
translated into achievement

Key Question/Task
• Do you recognize such students in your classrooms?
• In what ways do your highly able students (drawing on earlier
identification and definitions) fit within the above categories?

Giftedness:
• Metacognitive – knowing how you know things & the
processes by which you think
• Self-regulating – autonomous learning, being able to prepare
& supervise one’s own learning
• Underpinning this thinking is the notion of 'individualisation’

ELLI’s seven ‘learning dimensions’
1.Growth orientation v being stuck and static
2.Meaning making v data accumulation
3.Critical curiosity v passivity
4.Creativity v rule bound
5.Learning relationships v isolation
6.Strategic awareness v robotic
7.Resilience v dependence

Claxton’s Positive Learning Dispositions
Resilient Resourceful Reflective Reciprocal
Curious
(proactive)
Questioning
(“How come?”)
Clear-thinking
(logical)
Collaborative
(team member)
Adventurous
(up for a
challenge)
Open-minded
(‘negative
capability’)
Thoughtful
(Where else
could I
use this?)
Independent
(can work alone)
Determined
(persistent)
Playful
(“Let’s try ...”)
Self-knowing
(own habits)
Open to
feedback
Flexible
(trying other
ways)
Imaginative
(could be ...)
Methodical
(strategic)
Attentive
(to others)
Observant
(details /
patterns)
Integrating
(making links)
Opportunistic
(serendipity)
Empathic
(other people’s
shoes)
Focused
(distractions)
Intuitive
(reverie)
Self-evaluative
(“How’s it
Imitative
(contagious)

Pedagogic implications of teaching
the more able
• Students encouraged to take control of their own learning
• Teacher to involve the learner explicitly as a partner in the
learning process
• Notion of 'open discourse’
• Assessment is not something that is done to them but done
with and by them
• Collaborative and open-ended enquiry is promoted
• This type of pedagogy can be seen in terms of a particular
type of mediatory power in teaching/learning interactions

PhD findings: Involving the more able
as partners in the learning process
• Allowing the pupils to extend in-class learning
further than anticipated or planned for.
• Flexible time – frame for pupils to work within.
• Modification of planning or learning to take into
account the interests of pupils.
• Co-operative and collaborative learning
promoted.

• Whole class, self and peer assessment.
• Questions asked or problems set allow for
personal interpretation.
• Method(s) and solution(s) of problems set are
unknown to both teacher and learner.
• Inclusive use of language.
• Interactive displays.

• Availability of independent activities.
• Whole class discussion where pupils as well as
teacher have to explain their ideas, and where the
process of learning is analysed
• The promotion and support (in terms of time and
resources) of independent study, the focus of which
is decided by the student or group of pupils

To varying degrees the roles of
‘teacher’ & ‘learner’ were floating:
• Expectations were made clear to the pupils that they were
dual partners in the learning process
• Pupils’ contributions were frequently volunteered rather than
elicited and were always valued
• Pupils were encouraged to co-construct one another’s
learning at whole class and group level
• Discussion was allowed to shift in an unpredictable manner
• Inclusive use of language was deployed ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’
• Manner and tone of teacher whilst demanding was warm and
friendly

Key Question/Task
• How do you manage to mediate and
promote the learning of your highly
able students during non-contact?
• How do you promote interactive
learning?

Key References
Baxter Magolda, M.B. 1992. Students’
epistemologies and academic experiences:
Implications for pedagogy. Review of Higher
Education 15, no. 3: 265–87.
Biggs, J. (2004), Teaching for Quality
Learning at University: What the Student
Does. 2nd edn. Maidenhead: Society for
Research into Higher Education & Open
University Press
Bransford, J., A. Brown, and R. Cocking, eds.
2000. How people learn: Brain, mind,
experience, and School Committee on
Developments in the Science of Learning.
Commission on Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education of the National
Research Council National Academy Press.
Cigman, R. 2006. The Gifted Child: A
Conceptual Enquiry. Oxford Review of
Education, 32, no. 2: 197-212
Claxton, G. 2007. Expanding Young
People’s Capacity to Learn. British Journal of
Educational Studies, 53, no. 2: 115-134.
Daly, A., Penketh, C., and Rush, L. 2009
‘Academic preparedness: Student and tutor
perceptions of the ‘academic experience’’.
Society for Research in Education (SRHE)
Conference proceedings.
Fontana, D. 1995. Psychology for Teachers,
3rd Ed, Revised and updated, London: The
British Psychological Society
Fredricksson, U., and B. Hoskins. 2007. The
development of learning how to learn in a
European context. The Curriculum Journal
18, no. 2: 127–34.

Key References:
Lucas, L., and P.L. Tan. 2005. Developing
reflective capacity: The role of personal
epistemologies within undergraduate
education. Research seminar discussion
paper, Fourteenth Improving Student
Learning Symposium, September 4–6,
University of Bath.
Moon, J. 2005. We seek it here . . . a new
perspective on the elusive activity of critical
thinking: A theoretical and practical
approach. ESCalate discussion paper.
Available online at:
http://escalate.ac.uk/index.cfm?action1⁄4re
sources.search&q1⁄4criticalþthinking&rtype1⁄
4itehelp&rtype1⁄4project&
rtype1⁄4publication&rtype1⁄4resource&rtype
1⁄4review
Moseley, D., Elliot, J., Gregson, M., and
Higgins, S,. 2003. Thinking skills frameworks
for use in education and training. British
Educational Research Journal 31, no. 3: 367-
390
Northedge, A. (2003), ‘Rethinking Teaching
in the Context of Diversity’, Teaching in
Higher Education, 8.1, 17-32
Perry, W.G. 1970. Forms of intellectual and
ethical development in the college years: A
scheme. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Poerksen, B. 2005. Learning how to learn.
Kybernetes 34, no. 2/3: 471–84.
Putnam, R.T., and H. Borko. 2000. What do
new views of knowledge and thinking have
to say about research on teacher learning?
Educational Researcher 29, no. 1: 4–15.
Rawson, M. 2000. Learning to learn: More
than a skill set. Studies in Higher Education
25, no. 2: 225–38.

Robinson, M. Nancy. 1997. The Role of
Universities and Colleges in Educating Gifted
Undergraduates. Peabody Journal of
Education. 72, no. 3/4, Charting a New
Course in Gifted Education: Parts 1 and 2
(1997), 217-236
Rush, L., and Fisher, A. 2009. Expanding the
capacity to learn of student teachers in
Initial Teacher Training. ESCalate, Academic
online paper (http://escalate.ac.uk/5802).
Rush, L. 2009. Bridging the gap between
theory and practice: one tutor’s endeavors
to embed and enact a distinctive
pedagogic approach to learning-to-learn
(L2L). NEXUS Journal 1: 197-212. Edge Hill
University, Centre for Teaching and Learning
Research (CLTR)
Fisher, A and Rush, L. 2008. Conceptions of
learning and pedagogy: developing trainee
teachers’ epistemological understandings.
The Curriculum Journal. 19, No. 3 pp 227-238.
Routledge.
Rush, L. 2002. An Exploration into how
Effective Upper key Stage Two Teachers
Manage to Intervene with More Able
Children in the Classroom Setting Ph.D.
Schommer-Aitkins, M.A. 2002. An evolving
framework for an epistemological belief
system. In Personal epistemology: The
psychology of beliefs about knowledge and
knowing, ed. B.K. Hofer and P.R. Pintrich.
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wingate, U. 2007. A Framework for Transition:
Supporting ‘Learning to Learn in Higher
Education, Higher Education Quarterly,
0951-522461. No. 3: 391-405

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