Students are guaranteed, by legislation, a math education that focuses on the process of mastery learning, and that incorporates an Indigenous worldview. The issue is that some teachers and principals are apprehensive or do not have the skill or knowledge to support mastery learning and Indigenous worldview in math. This article is not a…

Professional learning strategies often rely on the belief that teaching and learning outcomes are best when teachers have a clear understanding of students' thinking. This may seem like common sense -- after all, students are active participants in the learning process, so their thinking impacts the outcome. But does research support the…

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…

The problem of achievement gaps among different subgroups of students has been evident in education for many years. This manuscript revisits the work of renowned educator Benjamin S. Bloom, who saw reducing gaps in the achievement of various groups of students as a simple problem of reducing variation in student learning outcomes. Bloom observed…

Two proponents of the precision teaching approach to teaching the handicapped discuss such principles as: the problem of partial application of the method; relationship to behaviorism; relationship to experiential learning; and the importance of fluency in task performance, mastery learning, and recordkeeping. (DB)

Fuller, physicist, educator, and director of the University of Nebraska's ADAPT (Accent on Developing Abstract Processes of Thought) program discusses ADAPT in terms of its interdisciplinary, reasoning skills, and mastery learning orientation; university support; plans; student testing; achievements; and faculty training in Piagetian theory.…

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)

A major concern among physical educators is the public's apathy toward accountability in physical education. All students should be ensured achievement of minimal competencies for specific objectives. One approach for ensuring this achievement is a mastery learning strategy which would include developmental procedures, operational environment…

Most educational advances are timid improvements on the periphery and ignore underlying shifts in national need. This article discusses some cultural shifts and speculates about design responses: corporate training, resiliency and life-long skills improvement, the shift from learning as work to learning as entertainment, and the shift from mastery…

Describes a self-paced, computer-managed course on internal medicine for medical students at the University of South Dakota. The rationale for using a computer-based system is outlined, and the program is evaluated for cost-effectiveness, currency of information, curriculum goals and objectives, and student attitudes. (EAO)

Discusses theories of learning; reviews previous generalizations for instructional design; and presents 21 guidelines for effective instructional design that are related to planning, preparation, implementation, and evaluation. Highlights include objectives; learner profiles; cognitive maps or schema; mastery learning techniques; metacognitive…

A Brooklyn (NY) district superintendent rebuts arguments against the Chicago Mastery Learning Reading (CMLR) program that appeared in an article in Learning (November 1982). Based on his district's experience with CMLR, the superintendent points to improved reading scores, teacher enthusiasm, and renewed student interest in reading as indications…

For the past twenty years policy initiatives at the state and federal levels have reflected the call for significant improvement in educational outcomes to support the human capital needs of the 21st century. An argument is presented on the basis of longitudinal data that the basic structure of the current system of education undermines national…

Current syllabi and textbooks, in trying to cover every important idea, trivialize them all. The Coalition of Essential Schools believes that students will learn more if teachers are allowed to cover less. The advantages of a slower, thought-provoking curriculum, and recommendations for designing one, are provided. (BJV)

Although both mastery learning and outcome-based education require students to meet certain criteria, OBE encourages students to assess themselves. Johnson City (New York) Schools stress three outcomes: academics, work and process skills, and attitudes. The key to Johnson City's success lies in clearly defining these desired outcomes, getting…