Mastery Learning is …

I have heard many faculty speak in favor of mastery learning … and almost as many speak in opposition.

The heart of this set of opposing viewpoints is an incomplete notion of what mastery learning IS.  Many equate mastery learning with basic skills … with repetition … with homework systems.  These are not definitions, nor even descriptions, of ‘mastery learning’.

The origins of ‘mastery learning’ were centered in a philosophical base which claimed that almost all students could learn any particular content to the level of ‘masters’ (usually defined to be a 4.0 or A student) given the correct conditions … with a primary condition to vary being ‘time on task’.  In a classic view of higher education, all students are imbedded within a learning environment so they experience similar conditions; those who perform at a high level are rewarded with 4.0/3.5/A/B grades and encouraged to pursue more learning … those who failed to perform within these constant conditions were told that they needed to make an alternate choice of activity (as in, some other class … some other major … or not in college at all).

Those of us who adopted a mastery learning model turned this conception on its head.  We were not here to sort students; we were here to create the conditions for all students to have the opportunity to become masters of the content.  Our content was not changed, only the conditions for learning.  Our assessments did not reflect lowered expectations, but they did create positive conditions for additional learning.

The current misconception of mastery learning is based on the technology that is often used to deliver ‘content’.  Offering modules, online homework, and requiring ‘80%’ before moving on … these have little to do with mastery learning.  These learning environments focus on basic skills primarily because that is easier for mass-produced homework systems (though it also reflects a bias among many colleagues). 

In essence, mastery learning is only limited by our capacity to design instruction and assessment.  If applications … transfer … problem solving … creativity are important elements in your ideas about mathematics, mastery learning can be designed to support them.

Mastery learning, in 2011, is more about the economics of publishing and grants than it is about the flexibility (and power) of mastery learning.  I have spent many years in a program that had mastery learning as a founding principle, and I understand the complexities of creating a mastery learning model that includes ‘more than basic skills’.  I would suggest that most of these difficulties are present regardless of whether mastery learning is involved. 

Mastery learning does not determine the nature of the mathematics faced by our students.  No, what determines the mathematics that our students experience is our own conceptions of mathematics.  We should, as a community of professionals, have honest discussions about what it means to “learn mathematics”.

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1 Comment

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  By Laura, September 19, 2011 @ 11:16 pm

  A current trend in developmental mathematics seems to be to change curriculum to include only those outcomes that can be readily assessed by computer software. Then, student success rates based on this limited curriculum are compared to previous success rates that were not and amazing increases in success occur! These dramatic successes make administrators and legislators happy plus there is a reduction in expenses if class sizes can be increased and/or more adjuncts hired. Students pass; all is well; the software determines what it means to “learn mathematics.” If enough large enrollment schools adopt this approach, the publishers are happy and see no need to change. In fact, the rest of the publishers want to join in on the success. It takes a lot of determination to swim against this particular tide.

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