One of the tools I used to help students succeed.
October 4th, 2009
As a teacher in the mid ‘80s, I implemented an instructional program called Mastery Learning (ML) because I believed three basic principles: all students can learn, teachers control the classroom and success breeds success. The basic premise of ML for me, the teacher, was to teach a unit of instruction to my students and then test my students at the end. Students would be held to an 80% mastery of the objectives taught in that unit. Those students who did not reach the 80% mastery would be given an intervention or what I labeled a corrective and then would be retested. The retest was not the same test as before, but a parallel test that included questions of the same difficulty, format and content. The ML approach assisted my students in learning the subject matter and helped them to be ready for the next unit of instruction.
Those students who mastered all of the objectives with 80% mastery on the first attempt would be given enrichment activities that would be at a higher level of learning in order to increase their understanding of the subject matter.
Mastery Learning gave my slower learners time to learn the content at their own rate as well as giving my fast learners new material to learn in order to stay motivated and not become bored. It also allowed me to manage my classroom for all of my students’ learning.
Accountability for both Teaching and Learning does work. If you want to learn more about Mastery Learning check out the book: Implementing Mastery Learning
Vail, the largest school district in the state to have all its regular schools labeled Excelling, can attribute its success to it reteach and enrich program. Everyday teachers communicate clearly to students the academic objectives and the standard to which they must perform. Benchmark tests are given and students given the opportunity to take another look at the lesson (often taught by a different teacher) or an enrichment exercise to deeper their understanding of the topic.