Mastery Fundamentals
According to Bloom, students enter learning experiences differing on a number of cognitive and affective dimensions. Cognitive
Affective
These differences influence what I would call learning rate. Depending on the circumstances of learning, learning rate can have two outcomes. These outcomes have been proposed as alternative ways of viewing the consequences of differences in aptitude. traditional learning environment - aptitude will determine how much will be learned While these alternatives may seem new, the traditional view has been recognized for some time. For example, consider one of the original ways of of thinking about intelligence. IQ=MA/CA. In this perspective, those who learn at a faster rate (MA>CA) have a higher IQ. Those who learn at a slower rate (MA<CA) have a lower IQ. The activation task was an attempt to get you thinking about what most teachers do about differences in learning rate. Most probably do not focus on learning as a key variable, but it is still possible they make Mastery advocates argue for the mastery approach because of the consequences of not making sufficient adjustments for learning rate. Failing to adjust for learning rate has theoretical consequences in other individual difference areas (see the list we started with). When the pace of the class exceeds the rate at which a student can learn:
In a way, the variability associated with aptitude differences become magnified by these other consequences. After a while, less able students must deal with differences in learning rate, less background knowledge, etc. In theory, individualized instruction attempts to contain learning differences to the variability created by aptitude. Fundamentals of Mastery SystemsMastery systems are usually built from most and often all of the following components. 1) Goals or objectives - the concept "mastery" begs the question "Mastery of what?" Decisions of when learners understand what they are to know or are able to do what they are intended to do requires that desired knowledge and skills be identified and criterion established. 2) Small units of instruction - the idea is to not teach a large amount of material before you attempt to determine if students are understanding what has been taught. This makes remediation more efficient. So what is small? In some computer based tutorials, small can mean a single screen of information. In classroom based systems (see later comments about Bloom's Group Based Mastery System), the unit of information is often about 2 weeks. 3) Mastery before progress - this is the tough one for many people. In a way, this fundamental is a logical extension of #1 and #2. The point of identifying objectives and isolating them into small units is so that understanding can be evaluated and remediation provided before learning becomes overly inefficient. The idea that you do not move on until you master prerequisites (often translated as the previous unit even if this would not represent prerequisite knowledge by the traditional definition) is intended to be the way the system responds to the time to learn variability described previously (see Slavin's criticism of this point). 4) Multiple, nonpunitive evaluations - to mastery before progress, one has to assume that some students will need to be evaluated several times. The "nonpunitive" factor assumes that mastery of a unit means the same thing whether accomplished on the first or fourth try. So, you would not award a lower grade to a student who simply required more tries. 5) Remediation - most mastery systems accept responsibility for failure rather than blame failure on the student (pretty idealistic!). This means that an ideal system does not send the student back to the same materials, method of instruction, or whatever that was not successful the first time. Remediation might involve personal attention (face to face instruction) or a different type of presentation (e.g., computer based instruction. ExamplesWhile variations on these fundamentals are nearly limitless, there are a couple of examples that are recognized by "name." Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) The Keller method was originally developed because Keller felt the lecture approach was inefficient. There was no way for knowledgeable students to speed it up or for struggling students to slow it down. Keller felt written materials were more appropriate because students could make personal decisions that would allow greater inefficiency (research on the poor metacognitive skills of most students or research on the poor performance of instructional technology users under "learner control" were obviously not available at the time). The content in a PSI course tended to consist of a book, detailed study guides (perhaps a form of goals), and various other written documents. The innovative management development in PSI was the tutor. The tutor would administer and score exams, keep records and provide remediation. Tutors in college courses were often graduate students or undergraduates who had already completed the course. A related field of research evolved demonstrating that tutors benefited from the process of tutoring (this was used to justify the practice of awarding course credit for serving as a tutor). In one variation, students who were several units ahead had an obligation to serve as a tutor for slower students. Cross-grade tutoring was sometimes used in K-12 settings. Early versions of PSI awarded two grades - A and incomplete. This resulted in high drop out rates and negative reactions from administrators who objected to courses with all As. Most versions later used a scoring system combining points for the number of units mastered and a score on a comprehensive final. One consistent problem in PSI courses was students getting off to a slow start and then dropping the course. Because PSI courses were flexible, students often concentrated on other courses first and put themselves in jeopardy. A common practice was to require that the first few units be completed by a certain date - this seemed to help (this was sometimes called the doomsday contingency). Bloom's Group-Based Mastery Method Many educators considered PSI impractical because it was so different. Bloom developed a system for group instruction based around 2-week units. The idea was to identify core information/skills in the unit and begin instruction focused on this material. After about a week, an exam (the first use of the term formative exam I think) was given. This differentiated two groups. In the early versions, those who passed were done until the summative exam at the end of the two week period (translate as the test for the grade). In later versions, the group passing the formative exam were directed toward supplemental independent learning tasks. In this system, students might get a B by achieving at a certain level on the summative exam. To get an A, they would have to have completed the supplemental project and also achieved at the expected level on the summative exam. Consider this video - what features of mastery learning as outlined here are being implemented. Continue to Discussion Task |