Tag Archives: mastery learning

If Learning Gaps Were Important, We Would Teach Differently

Posted on by
Reply

How many times do educators read in the media that their students suffer from gaps in their basic understanding of reading, writing, and arithmetic? Learning gaps are unsuccessful or incomplete learning of content, concepts, and skills that are required building blocks for future learning. It is like seeing a picture of a smiling person missing two front teeth and wondering how that person chews food. Gaps in learning, like missing teeth, make it hard if not impossible for children to “bite into” more complex instruction.

Learning gaps are becoming a standard fixture of educational reports. They beg the questions – when we know something is a significant problem, why don’t we fix it? What keeps us from doing what we know we should do?

What do we know?

To understand learning gaps, I do what most of us do today; I make an AI search of “gaps in K-12 student learning achievement in the United States and in Wisconsin (my state)” to get a rough portrait of learning gap problem areas. In a quick summary of student learning gaps, and as a generalization about all K-12 students, a high percentage of school children today show gaps in

  • Automaticity of basic arithmetic skills, understanding conceptual concepts in algebra, fractions, and math reasoning and the application of math skills to their real-world experiences.
  • Decoding of words leading to struggles with fluency and comprehension, vocabulary development, understanding complex texts, using what they have
  • Organizing their thoughts into writing or spoken conversation, constructing written or spoken arguments based upon evidence, understanding of grammar and language mechanics.
  • Understanding and applying scientific theories and practices to their real-world experiences, development of inquiry skills to investigate their real world, and the interpretation and understanding of data to interpret the patterns and trends in the world.
  • Knowing and understanding governmental rights, responsibilities, and organization, looking at historical and current events from multiple perspectives, understanding patterns and trends in global issues, and having a clear understanding of global geography and socio-economic-cultural differences.

We recognize the above gaps by taking a 1,000-foot overhead view of K-12 education and considering student achievement from a multi-year analysis of data.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) makes national studies and points to these shortcomings for Wisconsin 4th and 8th graders.

NAEP Reading: 32.6 of 4th graders achieved proficiency (67.4% were not proficient) and 32.4% of 8th graders achieved proficiency (67.6 were not proficient)

NAEP Math: 42.9% of 4th graders achieved proficiency (57.1were not proficient) and 33.2% of 8th graders achieved proficiency (66.8 were not proficient)

From a ground level view of statewide assessments, children in Wisconsin demonstrated more pointed gaps in learning in 2024.

  • Math – 42% of 4th grade students achieved proficiency in math and this falls to 37% for 8th graders.
  • Reading – 31% of 4th grade students achieved proficiency in reading and the same percentage (31%) were proficient readers in 8th grade.

When learning gaps are disaggregated by race and special learning needs, children of color and children receiving special education services score 30 to 45 points below white children and white children without special learning needs.

We attempt non-instructional for instructional challenges.

School districts annually respond to the educational reports with a variety of actions to address learning gaps. Actions range from

  • Identifying students with gaps using formative assessments and standardized test data and grouping these children for targeted instruction.
  • Small group instruction that personalizes the focus on each student’s gap needs.
  • Response-To-Intervention protocols that increases instructional supports based on student needs.
  • Tutoring.
  • Culturally sensitive instruction.
  • After school programs.
  • Saturday instruction.
  • Summer school.
  • Community partnerships that support families and provide additional tutoring.
  • Professional development to strengthen teachers’ instruction.
  • Social-emotional support for students.

Yet gaps persist. The effectiveness of these outcomes mirrors the proverbial Dutch boy trying to plug leaks in a dam wall with fingers.

Mastery learning for core outcomes.

We need to teach children differently if we want to achieve different outcomes.

Mastery learning is not a new concept education. To generalize, mastery learning makes learning achievement the instructional constant and time an instructional variable. All children successfully learn all core outcomes no matter how long it takes. Repeat – mastery learning teaches until all students meet the outcomes of success.

In contrast, most classes in our schools are organized using traditional instruction practices. In traditional instruction time is the constant and achieving successful is a variable – in the time allowed, many children cannot achieve successful learning. Repeat – children run out of time to successfully learn their lessons.

What does this look like?

We identify the core outcomes every child must learn in their grade level or course curriculum. The core outcomes are the building blocks that allow the child to continue learning in their grade level or course and be ready for success in the next grade or course. There is a lot of content knowledge and curricular activities in each grade level and course curriculum that add value to the core, are good for children to know and experience but are not core. The non-core lessons in each lesson take time for planning and teaching.

A mastery learning curriculum isolates the critical knowledge, concepts, and skills a child needs to know and be able to do to achieve success in a grade level or course. Let’s drill down. These are the math standards that are essential for success in second grade math and readiness for third grade math.

1. Operations and Algebraic Thinking (2.OA)

• Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.• Solve one- and two-step word problems within 100 using addition and subtraction. • Add and subtract within 20.• Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By the end of second grade, know sums and differences of numbers up to 20 from memory. • Work with equal groups of objects to understand multiplication:

• Determine whether a group of objects (up to 20) is even or odd. • Use addition to find the total number of objects arranged in rectangular arrays (up to 5 rows and 5 columns) and write equations to show the total.

2.    Number and Operations in Base Ten (2.NBT)

• Understand place value. • Understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represent hundreds, tens, and ones. • Count within 1000 and skip-count by 5s, 10s, and 100s. • Read and write numbers up to 1000 in numerals, words, and expanded form. • Compare two three-digit numbers using >, <, and = symbols. • Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract. • Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies based on place value.

• Add up to four two-digit numbers. • Add and subtract within 1000 using models, drawings, and strategies, and explain the methods used. • Mentally add or subtract 10 or 100 from a given three-digit number.

3.    Measurement and Data (2.MD)

• Measure and estimate lengths. • Measure objects using standard units like inches, feet, centimeters, and meters. • Estimate lengths using appropriate units of measure. • Compare lengths of two objects and express the difference. • Relate addition and subtraction to length. • Use number lines and rulers to solve addition and subtraction problems involving lengths. • Work with time and money. • Tell and write time to the nearest five minutes, using analog and digital clocks. • Solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. • Represent and interpret data. • Generate measurement data and show it on a line plot. • Draw and interpret picture graphs and bar graphs to solve simple problems.

4.      Geometry (2.G)

• Reason with shapes and their attributes. • Recognize and draw shapes like triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons, and cubes. • Partition shapes into equal parts and describe the parts using words like halves, thirds, and fourths.

A mastery learning teacher carves enough time out of every school day and week for daily instruction of units and lessons that teach these to all children in the class. Instruction is explicit with formative assessment to ensure students understand initial instruction and enough guided and independent practice to reinforce student learning. Summative assessments document student learning success, but if a child is not successful the child must repeat instruction until the content, concepts, or skills not met are successfully learned. Children must be proficient in each day’s lesson before they advance to the next lesson.

When learning outcomes are non-negotiable constants, there are no learning gaps. But when time and the calendar are constants, learning stops when time and the calendar tell instruction to stop and learning gaps are obvious outcomes. Reconsider the second-grade math standards. Which of these can we say, “It is okay if you do not learn this (these) standards this year?”, however in third grade we will assume you know these standards.

The following two videos display how Sal Khan and the Khan Academy perceive mastery learning and our need to change from traditional instructional models to a mastery model.

Let’s Teacher for Mastery – Sal Khan

Khan Academy View of Mastery Learning

Reality leads to learning gaps.

I have participated in this conversation repeatedly over the past decades. Many strong arguments have been made for infusing mastery learning in our schools. We examined models of direct instruction, explicit instruction, and outcome-based instruction as they are prime ingredients in mastery models. However, whenever these are discussed and even in early implementation, the issue of time and priorities arise. Predominantly, the issues boil down to –

  • If some or most of the class were successful in learning the lesson, what do we do with them while we wait for those who were not successful? The logistics of management are both worrisome and tiresome. We are not willing to change our paradigms of whole class teaching.
  • The time it takes to ensure mastery for all reduces the time for other curricula. Time must come from somewhere and it comes from non-core curricula. We are not willing to change our preferences for a comprehensive curriculum for all with learning gaps for some to a targeted curriculum of no learning gaps for any in the core curriculum and a reduced non-core curriculum.

While we decry learning gaps, we are not willing to let go of the traditional school day and school year or prioritize core curricula over non-core.

Hence, school boards as representatives of their community and the community’s concept of public education, abandon mastery learning in favor of traditional learning, happiness for the majority instead of success for all. And the acceptance that some children will suffer learning gaps every year and these gaps will plague them for a lifetime.

As I participated in these discussions over time as a teacher, principal, superintendent, and school board member, I always was aware of the whimsy and politics of public education. We would rather endure learning gaps of traditional teaching models than face the stresses of teaching differently.

Teach Less Well In the Time of COVID

Posted on by
Reply

Panic sets in easily in the Time of COVID.  Or, the denial of panic.  They almost are interchangeable when pandemic causes extreme anxieties.  In the schoolhouse, a rising panic concerns the availability of enough direct instructional time and opportunity for all children to make the academic growth in the 2020-21 school they need to make for their educational future.  We acknowledge that a solid academic education requires direct instruction, professional monitoring and adjustment of instruction, strategic assessment leading to corrected learning, and enough time for guided and independent practice for learning to be mastered and ingrained.  Panic can be separated into mini-panics.  A first panic is a belief that school closures last spring prevented children from completing that full academic year.  They begin 2020-21 behind in their learning.  The second panic, with children either learning at-home or in hybrids of in-person and at-home learning, is a belief that all children will not or cannot achieve a full academic year this year.  The mix of in-person and at-home is the prohibitive factor.  Finally, the third panic is an aggregated panic that this generation of children in school will not be adequately prepared over time for their futures in a higher education and careers.  The pandemic has robbed them of their time to learn.  Hence, what will we, what can we do about it!

As an aside, it is about time that people in and out of education are panicked regarding children who do not achieve a full year of academic growth.  For too long, our culture accepted a sub-class of studenthood, those who gradually and steadily underachieve.  Perhaps, COVID will shake this antipathy loose.

Are there work arounds that can improve academic achievement when instruction for children is disrupted by something as significant as the pandemic?  You bet there are.

Take Away

The science of teaching gives us many tools that are not time- or condition-bound.  They are time- and condition-tested.  They work effectively in the best and worst of times, in- school and out-of-school.  As often is the case, panic causes people to lose a grip on what they know and seemingly re-invent or re-tool what they think they need in the moments of panic.  The key here is – don’t panic.  The science of teaching will cause children to learn, even now.

Teaching is teaching whether it is in-person with children in the classroom or remote from the classroom to children learning at-home.  Best teaching practices don’t change because a teacher is in front of a camera instead of in front of a classroom of child faces.  And, teacher-child relationships do not change because of distance.  A caring and nurturing teacher can be just as effective without proximity. 

Our task is to provide each child with a full academic year of instruction and apply all that we know about good teaching to that instruction.  Children will learn. 

Worry scatters thoughts and thinking.  Don’t let that happen.  Focus on essential learning and get after it.

What do we know?

Teach less well.  Take that apart.  Our curricular shelves are heavy with stuff.  We do not need to teach every thing in the collection.  Publishers and vendors provide more and more each year.  Teach less.  Teach what have been labeled “enduring” or “mastery” content, concepts, skills, and disposition.  Then, teach what you teach so that every child learns what you teach.

Teach less.  Time is not on our side this year.  180 days of 7 hours per day exist on a paper calendar but they do not exist in real time.  Real time is contact time when a teacher and children are actively engaged.  Today, real time is three to four hours per day and often less.  Real time is when the Internet connections are working.  Real time is when no one, teacher or child, is ill or no one in the home where the child is learning is ill.  Real time is when children at home have adult assistance.  Real time forces us to teach less this year than we usually would teach if everyone was in the classroom.  We need to teach less stuff because we have less real time to teach.

Teach well.  Best teaching practices always, please.  Take enough time in every lesson to assure student mastery of the content, skills and dispositions.  Set a clear lesson objective.  Attach the new learning to what children already know.  Provide impactful initial instruction.  Model and clarify the new learning with strong examples.  Check EACH child’s understanding of what is being learned.  Give enough time for guided and independent practice of the new learning.  Assess.  If necessary, unteach what is wrong in what children learned and research so that all children get it right.  There always is enough time for best teaching practices.

The basics of teaching well sound and feel like Education 101, because they are.  They focus on effectiveness and efficiency.  Good and compact units of instruction.  Good and compact daily instruction.  Good and precise assessment.  Good and necessary reteaching to ensure all children learn.  Good to go to next.

Teach less well.  Huh?  Read it again but read it like this.  If you are going to teach children, teach then what they need to know, teach them so that they learn it and remember it, and teach it so they can use it for further learning.  The Time of COVID is not a time to worry about quantity of learning and covering every topic a child might learn in the best of times.  The Time is a time to assure that everything a child learns is purposeful and is taught so well that what is taught is solidly learned.

Why is this thus?

There is truth in what we fear.  Teaching and learning take time and we did not have adequate real time in the spring of 2020 to complete that academic year.  Remote education was an emergency process and less than adequate.  Now, unless we teach differently in 2020-21, we will not have enough real time to completely teach this academic year’s curricula.  If we don’t work differently, children will fall significantly in their academic learning.

We will not get a “do over”.  Children will not repeat last year’s incomplete curricula this year and they will not repeat this year’s incomplete curricular next year.  Children will not be held back in their grade levels or be prevented from graduating.  There are no “school do overs” in education.  (Hypocrisy – we retain children for not performing, but we do not retain promotions when schools do not perform.)

We will not do an industrial recall.  If education was a manufacturing industry, we would issue a recall of 2019-20 and 2020-21 learning, retool it, make it better, and then release it as an improved model.  There are no recalls in education.

We are called to make all children complete in their 2020-21 academic year of learning.  To do this, we need to teach less well.

To do

Modify assessments of learning to match modified curricular instruction.  Administrators and teachers must be on the same page regarding what will will be taught and what will be measured.  Everyone in school must be telling the same story.  It does make sense to maintain full curricular assessments when children will not receive full curricular instruction.  Align teaching less with measuring less.

Pace lessons by teaching them well.  Don’t pile on lessons.  Don’t hammer children with so much work that they become panicked or angry.  When we teach less, we have enough time to teach it well and well takes the time we have.  This reinforces our need to cull out the non-essential stuff of our curricula.  Learning takes time.  We have enough time for children to learn by pacing what we teach well.

Differentiate who delivers instruction and who supports learning.  Now, more than ever, the delivery of initial instruction is essential for teaching well.  If a grade level or departmental team recognizes that one teacher has more expertise in teaching a unit or lesson, let that teacher become the “face” of that instruction and other teachers the supporters of that learning.  This applies well to in-person as well as at-home learning.  Take the pressure from some teacher of daily presentations in front of the camera and replace it with chat groups for precise modeling, checking for understanding, guided practice and formative assessments.

Synchronous and asynchronous on-line teaching allows us to capture an “expert” delivery and provide it to all children.  A child who misses the beginning of the lesson can view it when ready.  A child who does not understand the initial teaching can see it again and again.  With one teacher only giving the initial instruction, a grade level or subject team assures that every on-line segment is highest quality instruction.

Constantly monitor student engagement – all of the time.  Understand that engagement for at-home learners looks different than engagement for in-school learners.  Know the differences.  Monitoring is not browbeating; it just means knowing.  Monitoring will show some children who are engaged in-person or at-home all the time and doing well.  It will show children who look to as if they are engaged all the time but not doing well.  Likewise, some children may not look engaged but will do very well in demonstrating their learning.  And, monitoring will highlight children who are not engaged when they should be.  Use the monitoring information to shape a child’s attention and attention span.  Each child can find an effective and efficient use of in-person and at-home time.

Manipulate the logistics of immediate and precise feedback.  Instead of kneeling next to a child’s desk, make a telephone call.  Most at-home learners will have a cell phone near their screen.  A private phone call treats the child with respect yet is directly to the point. 

Constant contact.  Every child every day.  Sadly, we know that some children in-school in normal times pass through a school day without a single personalized contact with a teacher.  In the Time of COVID, every child needs a personal contact – called in a zoom lesson, talked with in a zoom chat, shared e-mail, or a phone call – everyday.

If parents are able to create earning pods of supervised children, make the most of these small groups.  Regardless of the parents’ reason for forming a pod, grouped children give a teacher renewed opportunities for small group work, collaborative projects, peer editing, and socializing for children.  Done safely, pods are a great way for groups of families to provide supervised learning when individual families cannot.

The big duh!

Don’t panic even though there are many reasons for panicking.  The science of teaching, best practices, culling the curricula and teaching less well will cause children to complete a full academic year in 2020-21.

Whose Learning Needle Must Move? Every Child’s Learning Needle

Posted on by
Reply

What we say and what we do matters. If we believe that all children can and must learn, say it aloud and often and then cause it to happen.

Imagine walking into a school classroom on Monday morning, looking at the faces of children sitting and looking at you, their teacher, and saying, “This week I will improve the reading skills of five children. Although all of you will join me in reading groups, I am only interested in improving the reading skills of five children.” Or, saying to children in an Algebra class, “This week you will learn about quadratic equations. However, by Friday I expect only three of you to be able to balance an equation.”

In looking at test scores in elementary reading and middle school math, the paragraph above too often reflects student achievement following classroom instruction. The distribution of achievement staircases children from those who demonstrated advanced understanding and skills to those who minimally understand and demonstrate little to no skill. In this proverbial week, some children improved their reading skills and some children learned to resolve quadratic equations. Some children did not. In reverse, what we caused to happen we certainly would not have announced. We allowed the learning needle (how we measure learning achievement) for some children to be stagnant or recede while we advanced the learning needle for others.

The issue is clear. Whose learning needle needs to move? Every child’s. Which learning needle needs to move? The needle that measures the educational attribute receiving our current focus. Causing learning is a purposeful instructional attention focused on every child that does not cease until every child’s needle is moved.

Enlarge the scope of this proposition. Imagine your band or choir director giving focused and measured instruction only to the brass instruments or the sopranos while giving unfocused attention to the remainder of the band or choir. Or, the home construction teacher giving focused instruction only to the carpenters and less attention to students learning the electrical and plumbing trades. In these two examples, we hear and see the results of attending only to the learning needles of some children and not all. Music performances at band and choir concerts will cause patrons to lose all confidence in the school music instruction. The learning needles of all band and choir members need equal attention to create a quality ensemble performance. Realtors trying to sell the school-built home will stop showing the property. The learning needles of all members of the construction crew contribute the quality of the build.

This is true also of the quality of a school’s academic program. The learning needles of all children need to move in every grade level and every subject. Quality academic programs don’t just have high achievers. They concentrate on moving the learning needles of every child, on increasing every child’s understanding, skills and problem-solving, and closing the measured gaps between the learning needles. Instead of an achievement distribution with children languishing as minimal performers, quality academic programs give concentrated instructional focus to cause every child to reach proficiency in their understanding, skill sets, and ability to resolve challenging problems.

Imagine walking into a school classroom on Monday, looking at the face of every child and saying, “This week we will cause each of you to look for periods in your reading and to take a breath after a period before starting the next sentence. At the end of the week, each of you will know how a period works in a sentence and you will improve your reading using periods as stops between sentences.” And, then cause it to happen.

There were regrettable politics and distorted practices associated with the words “No Child Left Behind.” Yet, those words clearly express the intent and necessary actions for moving every child’s learning needle. Be clear in telling each child, “We are going to move your learning needle today (this week, this month) and this is what your new needle will cause you to know, do and be.” Then, cause it to happen.

Stop Coddling the Hare; Tend to the Tortoise

Posted on by
Reply

Aesop spun a fable about a race between the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise won! However, that was just a fable and not likely in real life where tortoises are what they are – slow and late to the finish line. Aesop aside, most races are dominated by the hares. The daily news is replete with stories of hares and scant mention of tortoises. A banner runs at the bottom of the TV screen with scores of games – winners in bold. Social media texts the day’s stock market activity – gains before losses. As Billy Bean said in Money Ball, “Nobody remembers who came in second in the World Series.” Winners matter and they get the attention; but, there are a lot more tortoises in the world than hares and the quality of the world’s life is shaped by the status of the tortoise not the bling of the hare.

Hares in most races are the genetically gifted, the economically advantaged, and the lucky-in-birth who most often are at the head of the pack from start to finish in every race, game and contest. Most people don’t choose to be hares; they are born with quick twitch muscles, funds for training, and into the cultivation of their winning ways. Although there are real-life “boot strap” kids who blaze like comets out of poverty and disadvantage, seldom do tortoises become hares. The hares win at the Olympics, in pro sports, and in the general elections. They also win in school races, on school tests, at spelling bees, and whenever school work is graded. This is where our real story begins. We can abide the hare winning at most things, but we must not abide the tortoise losing in education.

It is up to us to make Aesop’s fable into a new reality in which tortoises, more common and greatly more numerous than hares, win in school. And, win with regularity. This is exceedingly hard to do in a contemporary culture that adores winners and cradles every newborn in the hope that he or she will be a star. But, absent star power, what will it take to create school winners of all the tortoises?

Surprisingly, not much – just two things. Let the hares run.  Stop coddling them.  And, calmly tend to the tortoises.

Let the hares run is easy. Star students most often are self-directed and self-starting. The greatest dilemma they face in school is not being allowed to run. So, let them. “I see you completed today’s assignment and did well, as always. What would you like to do now? Great, what do you need?” Say and do no more, because the hares will run happily and they will learn and grow and succeed. In fact, the more you tend to their needs, the less and the slower they run.

Interestingly and politically, parents of the hares have made schools feel guilty when their hare-children are not receiving constant attention. Stop feeding the speed frenzy of the speedy. Just say, “If your hare really is one of the special children, they don’t need someone else telling them what, when, or how to learn.  We’ll point them and let them run.” Attending to hares who run fast and in many directions is a never-ending commitment. Stop with the endlessness.

Calmly tend to the plodding tortoises. Sit beside each tortoise, they won’t run away from you, and frequently make this single, simple inquiry. “Let’s see where you are now on this assignment. Tell me (show me).” And, follow their reply with instruction that causes them to continuously advance their work until the assignment is successfully completed. It should not surprise us that most tortoises fail in school not because they cannot understand and complete the assignment, but because they run out of time. When the hares finish the same assignment that the tortoises work on slowly, time runs out for everyone and the entire class moves to the next assignment. There is a long trail of uncompleted assignments behind every tortoise, assignments they could and should have completed if the race was not all about the hares.

An educational system focused on student learning success, not student speed in learning, will let the hares run and tend to the tortoises until all, hares and tortoises, have crossed the finish line.