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Mastery learning makes its way to secondary level

Ohanian Comment: Ohmygod. I post this only so I comment that eons ago I first became aware of a Chicago teacher and newspaper editor named George Schmidt when he wrote a brilliant article for Learning Magazine about the Mastery Learning scam in Chicago. As Patrick Shannon noted in Broken Promises, George won the IRA journalism award for his articles on the impact of the the Chicago Mastery Learning Program on Chicago teachers and students.

I remember when the Language Arts Coordinator in my district gushed over the program at a department meeting of 7th and 8th grade teachers. "Where are the books?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

Long silence. She mumbled something, but I kept insisting, "Surely, there are books."

I finally caught on: students weren't supposed to read books. They were supposed to master reading skill--you know, learn the skills in the prescribed sequence. I just kept saying, "You've got to be kidding!" And in the end we didn't hear any more about it.

A couple of years later, I read George's article. It was published in Learning in November 1982. A year later, I left teaching and became staff writer at Learning.

Editor’s note: New North Kansas City Schools Superintendent Todd White recently laid out the strategies the district will use in the coming years to reach its goals of increasing the high school graduation rate and academic achievement among groups of minority and working-class students. At a July 7 Board of Education retreat, White called these strategies the "three big rocks." This is the first of three stories explaining White’s plan and describing how it should work.

by Ray Weikal

Ready or not, mastery learning is coming.

Starting this fall, North Kansas City Schools will extend to its middle and high schools a teaching method known at "mastery learning."

It’s a concept that’s already been in place for several years at the district’s elementary schools. But concerns about its widespread implementation at the secondary level persist, in large part due to a pilot project at Staley High School that school officials admit was mishandled.

"We left the blocks before the gun went off," Superintendent Todd White said.

Still, White believes mastery learning offers the best chance for the district to achieve its so-called "mega-goals" of helping more students graduate on time and lifting the classroom success of students from working class and minority families.

"We are going to require, from all students, more extensive mastery of the curriculum material," White said. "I would hope, for parents, that will be a reassurance."

Mastery learning is actually an old concept, developed in the early 1960s at places such as Public School 148 in New York City, according to a 1980 essay written for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

The concept is based on the idea that every child is capable of learning any reasonable curriculum. The trick is to create a learning environment that matches each individual student’s abilities.

Most often, White said, that means more time and hands-on activities, and less lecturing.

"The most significant piece of mastery learning is providing the time for more engagement," White said.

The other major facet of mastery learning is determination that a student does not progress to more advanced concepts until they’ve "mastered" the early building blocks.

In the mastery learning classroom, curriculum should be split into bite-sized pieces. Students who master at least 80 percent of the concept move on; others may require small group or individual attention like tutoring, peer mentoring or discussions.

In the mean time, teachers are supposed to assess where their students are throughout the mastery process, from the beginning to end. That requires more tests and quizzes, the results of which influence supplementary instruction.

Progress is typically measured with an "M" for mastery, "P" for making progress, "N" for not making sufficient progress and "I" for concepts that have been introduced but not widely studied.

The biggest problem with the way mastery learning was implemented at Staley High School was the connection with grades, according to White. Too often, there was confusion among teachers, students and parents over how mastery learning marks influenced the traditional grading scale, and concern about how that would impact students’ class ranks and other academic achievements.

"As a parent who was educated in a conventional manner, this feels like a very dramatic change," said Board of Education member Phil Holloway.

White’s fix is simple: decouple grades from mastery learning marks.

In essence, progress will tracked by teachers and administrators, but not linked directly to grades or class ranks, White said. Students and parents will still get the traditional report cards.

"We tried to move too rapidly through the curriculum and instruction part to the grading component," White said.

Ultimately, mastery learning should help all students achieve greater success in school, White said. Middle school students are a particular concern for the administration.

"We’ve seen data that suggests that the largest predictor of dropouts is how they feel about their academic success in seventh grade," White said. "Research supports the fact that mastery learning would be part of the process that we should go through."

— Editors
Kansas City Sun Tribune
2009-08-13
http://suntrib.com/200908135277/news/schools/mastery-learning-makes-its-way-to-secondary-level.html

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