The "state of the craft" of instruction within the context of the mastery learning model is discussed. Little has been said in the past about specific instructional strategies that are applicable to particular instructional units or objectives, or to the daily classroom life of teachers. This paper is organized into six major sections. The first…

Responds to R. Slavin's best-evidence synthesis of research on mastery learning. Contends that at the heart of decisions about education are value judgments about how the mind should be cultivated and for what goal. (RB)

A student of the University of Chicago's Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistical Analysis Program reflects upon Benjamin S. Bloom's professional and personal educational contributions, including mastery learning, educational equity, and educational excellence. (CB)

Results show that student differences in time-on-task to learn to criterion are alterable and can be minimized over a sequence of learning units given appropriate adaptive learning strategies. (Author/DEP)

Schools have devised several ways to adapt instruction to a wide variety of student abilities and needs. Judged by criteria for what adaptive education should be, most learning for mastery programs look good. (Author/JM)

To explore the relationship between time and school learning, this paper defines the three kinds of learning time identified by researchers--allocated time, time-on-task, and academic learning time--and relates them to curriculum development. The author cites evidence that time-on-task is related to student achievement and describes two…

Mastery learning can be described as a set of group-based, individualized, teaching and learning strategies based on the premise that virtually all students can and will, in time, learn what the school has to teach. Inherent in this description are assumptions concerning the nature of schools, classroom instruction, and learners. According to the…

Clinchy and Rosenthal's error classification scheme was applied to test results to determine its ability to differentiate the effectiveness of instruction in two elementary schools. Mathematics retention tests matching the instructional objectives of both schools were constructed to measure the understanding of arithmetic concepts and the ability…