Mastery learning: why practice should start at the gap
· 2 min read
In mastery learning, students don’t move on to a new idea until they’ve shown they have the one before it. Research on the approach is one reason SubjectPath starts practice at the gap.
What the research found
- Mastery learning and tutoring. Bloom reported studies in which students in mastery learning classes, with regular checks and corrective help before moving on, outperformed students in conventional classes, and tutored students did better still.
- A wider review. A meta-analysis by Kulik and colleagues found that mastery learning programs had positive effects on exam performance from upper elementary school through college.
These studies are about mastery learning in general, not about SubjectPath.
The idea in one sentence
Check whether a skill is in place, help where it isn’t, and build the next skill on one the student already has.
How SubjectPath applies this idea
After the diagnostic, practice starts at the break point: skills whose prerequisites the student already has, but which they haven’t mastered yet. Practicing a skill means a lesson, then a 10-question skill check, and a student who answers 8 or more correctly masters it. Standards that depend on it unlock once their prerequisites are mastered.
Starting at the gap, not the unit
Mastery learning asks whether each skill is in place before moving on. Starting at the gap applies the same idea to where practice begins: rather than starting every student at the top of a unit, practice starts at the first skill a student hasn’t yet secured.
What a skill check is for
A skill check is a focused confirmation that a skill is in place. A student who answers 8 or more of 10 correctly masters the skill, and the skills that depend on it can open. A student who doesn’t pass yet keeps the skill in progress and keeps working on it, and the skills that depend on it stay locked.
Sources
- Bloom, B. S. (1984). The 2 sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Researcher, 13(6), 4–16.
- Kulik, C.-L. C., Kulik, J. A., & Bangert-Drowns, R. L. (1990). Effectiveness of mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 60(2), 265–299.