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Mastery Learning
Notes from Benjamin Bloom lecture [ACSA, April, 1987]:
With traditional instruction, the correlation of pupil performance from grade-to-grade is 80%+. The variation within each grade is greater each year. The range is double the second grade in the fourth grade, triple in grade 6. Rank order is already fixed by third grade for the next 8 years for 90% of kids. Similarly, self-concept drops grade-by-grade for the bottom 20% while it rises year-by-year for the top 20%. This is true of most countries, not just the US.
[snip]
The mid-point for conventional instruction is the 50th percentile. For individual tutoring, it is the 98th percentile. For whole class mastery learning instruction, it is the 84th percentile.
[snip]
CORE IDEA OF MASTERY LEARNING: aptitude is the length of time it takes a person to learn not how "bright" a person is, i.e., everyone can learn given the right circumstances.
How to instruct for mastery:
1. Major objectives representing the purposes of the course or unit define mastery of the subject.
2. The substance is divided into relatively small learning units, each with their own objectives and assessment.
3. Learning materials and instructional strategies are identified; teaching, modeling, practice, formative evaluation, reteaching, and reinforcement, etc., and summative evaluation
are included.
4. Each unit is preceded by brief diagnostic tests.
5. The results of diagnostic tests are used to provide supplementary instruction to help student(s) overcome problems.
Time to learn must be adjusted to fit aptitude. NO STUDENT IS TO PROCEED TO NEW MATERIAL UNTIL BASIC PREREQUISITE MATERIAL IS MASTERED.
[There is a difference between "80% of students will master the material" and "each student will master at least 80% of the material" before proceeding.]
This explains a lot.
One of the mysteries here & elsewhere is: why are administrators so unconcerned about the amount of tutoring going on in affluent communities?
I've mentioned before the tutor here who estimates that 50% of Scarsdale kids are being tutored. That tells me that Scarsdale schools are overrated.
But that's not what it says to educators.
The 98% figure may explain this. Middle-aged educators are old enough to have studied Bloom in ed school (teachers younger than 35 may never have heard of him - not sure....).
If they're thinking "98%" when they hear tutoring, no wonder they're dismissive.
In fact, I'm 98% positive (that's a joke!) Bloom was talking about tutorials, not tutoring. He was talking about what homeschoolers are doing, which is direct, one-on-one instruction in the whole of a course, start to finish.
Tutors are trying to put out fires, get kids ready for the Big Test, keep the kid from giving up, etc. Hiring a tutor to try to teach a student who is struggling in a class at school is by no means ideal.
In fact, the one family I know whose kids are doing brilliantly well with tutors simply takes it as a given that all schools, public and private, are fatally flawed. They have a "regular" tutor on the tab who works with their kids almost year round.
Preemptive tutoring.
extra credit
Was mastery teaching ever widely adopted in public schools?
16 comments:
Mastery Learning in Public Schools
Denese Davis and Jackie Sorrell
http://teach.valdosta.edu/whuitt/files/mastlear.html
I was always a sucker for "extra credit."
I wouldn't call these studies in the public schools widely adopted. However, upon reading the study I have to wonder, "Why not?"
Younger teachers today have likely heard about Bloom -- but not his ideas on teaching to mastery (nor indeed anyone at all's ideas on such a medieval idea). Bloom is all over the constructivist discussion groups and district-level teacher PD in the context of teaching "higher-order thinking" using "Bloom's Taxonomy." Naturally that low-level stuff, knowledge and skills, is to be skipped so we can get up there and synthesize and analyze. Out of the aether no doubt.
It seems Sylvan Learning Centers use Mastery Learning techniques. They are results oriented and their assessments are very detailed.
From the Sylvan website:
Mastery Learning
After your child is enrolled in a Sylvan Online program, our certified teachers teach to his personalized lesson plan, using a method known as Mastery Learning. This means that after the teacher teaches a skill to your child and answers any questions, your child demonstrates he has "mastered" that skill by using it 3 to 5 times with high accuracy. Once your child shows this kind of proficiency, he progresses to the next skill. In addition, he is periodically re-tested on mastered skills to ensure retention.
How could it be widely adopted?
It was never used in ed schools to teach the curriculum that the teachers teach.
Seriously, how many teachers in grammar school do you think have achieved mastery in arithmetic, phonics, spelling, history, social studies, grammar, let alone algebra, biology, civics, etc.? If they haven't achieved mastery, how could most of their students?
Bloom's Taxonomy is used as a means of differentiated instruction, such as it is. Thus, teachers with different ability students in their classes must do a triage to defined the levels of mastery that will be achieved. Eg., all of my students will know the number facts; some of my students will know how to apply addition and subtraction to single-step word problems; and a few of my students will be able to apply addition and subtraction to multi-step word problems. Differentiated instruction is therefore viewed as a solution to "no tracking" while staying loyal to Bloom's principles. It stays loyal to "no trackng" but I'm not sure about Bloom's principles.
Younger teachers today have likely heard about Bloom -- but not his ideas on teaching to mastery (nor indeed anyone at all's ideas on such a medieval idea). Bloom is all over the constructivist discussion groups and district-level teacher PD in the context of teaching "higher-order thinking" using "Bloom's Taxonomy."
oh, thanks for posting this
This was the exact thought I had reading those notes --- I thought, Jeez, I had no idea Bloom ever talked about mastery learning.
But the hierarchy of skills seemed directly relevant to constructivism.
I looked up a book on Amazon that had to do with revisions to the Bloom hierarchy.
It made the point that there isn't really a hierarchy.
When people are good at something they do all the levels at once.
I think the book may also have said that Bloom saw the higher levels as being more difficult - when in fact they're not all that difficult for an expert....
How far up does Sylvan go?
Differentiated instruction is therefore viewed as a solution to "no tracking" while staying loyal to Bloom's principles. It stays loyal to "no trackng" but I'm not sure about Bloom's principles.
Interesting.
Is this generally the case, do you think?
Are teachers in schools with differentiated instruction formally trying to assess where their kids are on the hierarchy?
Are teachers in schools with differentiated instruction formally trying to assess where their kids are on the hierarchy?
Not sure, but this is how it's presented in ed school.
The 98% number from Bloom means that an average student (scores at the 50th percentile) scores at the 98th percentile (ie, gifted) if the student is tutored (one-on-one) rather than placed in an ordinary classroom. He talks about a study he did in that showed this in his paper, "The 2-Sigma Problem". The same paper also claims that an average student placed in a "mastery learning" environment scores at the 84th percentile.
I've read the paper and it is quite interesting. It contains a number of other factors (e.g. if the teacher actually corrects homework, how much better does the class do?). I really wish someone would try to replicate this study to confirm his findings. As near as I can tell, these sorts of findings are just not that interesting to most Ed School professors.
-Mark Roulo
The 98% number from Bloom means that an average student (scores at the 50th percentile) scores at the 98th percentile (ie, gifted) if the student is tutored (one-on-one) rather than placed in an ordinary classroom.
Right.
That's what I assumed.
Completely different from trying to keep a kid alive in a course that's not going well for him.
What did he say about correcting homework?
I'm going to see if I can get that paper.
I've got it!
The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as One-to-One Tutoring
Benjamin S. Bloom
Educational Researcher
Vol. 13
No. 6
(June - Jul. 1984)
pp. 4-16
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