Since 2019, the Washington State Board of Education has engaged stakeholders in creating a vision for mastery-based learning (MBL) that sparked pilot programs, outcome evaluations, and a push for legislative action. By decoupling how students earn high school credits from the amount of time spent in classroom seats, the board also sought to boost…

Three essential elements--curriculum, sound instruction, and authentic literacy--are the primary, fundamental drivers of schooling and its improvement, says ASCD author Mike Schmoker. And yet they are rarely implemented. If our schools are to enter Marzano's "era of unprecedented effectiveness," then we must change the way we train…

Evidence-based approaches to assessment design, development, and administration provide a strong foundation for an assessment's validity argument but can be time consuming, resource intensive, and complex to implement. This article describes an evidence-based approach used for one assessment that addresses these challenges. Evidence-centered…

Discover the teaching practices that make the biggest difference in student performance! The new edition of this practical, research-based book gives leaders and teachers an even closer look at instructional practices from top award-winning urban schools. With refreshed examples from high-performing teachers and detailed analyses of these…

What if all students had an opportunity to work through content at their own pace? What if all students had to master content before they moved on? The authors take their flipped-classroom model to the next level by flipping their classroom for mastery. In the flipped-mastery model, the teacher begins by organizing content around specific…

In his book "Drive," Daniel Pink writes that mastery is "the desire to get better and better at something that matters." If we consider this definition in the context of the classroom, students must have a desire to get better and must feel that what they're learning matters. Technology can help ensure these two criteria…

In the June 2010 "Harvard Business Review," Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, wrote a column entitled "You Are What You Measure." In it, he thoughtfully prods business leaders to consider the problematic correlation between the tools for measuring progress and actual…

A number of graduate (masters-level) students from a wide variety of academic disciplines have viewed a required introductory research methodology course negatively. These students often do not retain much of the previously learned material, thus limiting their success of subsequent research and statistics courses. The purpose of this article is…

A problematic, yet common, assumption among educational researchers is that when teachers provide authentic, problem-based experiences, students will automatically be engaged. Evidence indicates that this is often not the case. In this article, we discuss (a) problems with ignoring motivation in the design of learning environments, (b)…

There are ongoing debates as to the merits of mastery and performance (or competitive) approaches to school and student learning. Mastery approaches are focused on factors and processes such as effort, skill development, learning, and understanding. Performance approaches are focused more on competition, demonstrating relative ability, social…

As teachers of political theory, our goal is not merely to help students understand the abstract reasoning behind key ideas and texts of our discipline. We also wish to convey the historical contexts that informed these ideas and texts, including the political aims of their authors. But the traditional lecture-and-discussion approach tends to…

Effective teaching of dance skills is informed by a variety of theoretical frameworks and individual teaching and learning styles. The purpose of this paper is to present practical teaching strategies that enhance the mastery of skills and promote self-esteem, self-efficacy, and positive self-image. The predominant thinking and primary research…

Achieving learning standards is at the forefront of current educational philosophy, and is the goal of sound educational practice. That "all children can learn" and there will be "no child left behind" presume that teaching and assessment practices must benefit all children. Agreement in principle is nearly universal. Practical implementation,…

This article defines what mastery learning is, examines how it works, and indicates how well it works. (JD)

Achievement-based unit grading in secondary physical education is not commonly practiced due to resistance to grading students based on learning, performance, or achievement. Traditional grading practices based on managerial factors, such as attendance and good behavior, and on "pseudo-accountability" do little to make students accountable for…