What can educators do to help students care about their learning and become more invested in their own success? Chase Nordengren describes how a school district created a goal-setting culture in all classrooms at all grade levels. The district began with a complex, research-based, prescriptive program that teachers found did not work well with…

Presents a four-step process for staff members interested in designing their own mastery learning program. (Author/JM)

The mastery learning model called "Essentials, Correctives, and Enrichment" was adopted in the fall of 1982 in one elementary school in Goochland County, Virginia. The experiment has been expanded to all county elementary schools and is currently being implemented in the junior and senior high schools. (MT)

The article presents a five-step model for implementing a consulting teacher model and effective interventions for mildly handicapped students in regular education settings. Interventions include principles of effective teaching, mastery learning, peer and cross-age tutoring, cooperative learning groups, and instruction in metacognitive learning…

Schools which have successfully implemented mastery learning (ML) programs show many similarities in their plans for ML development. These similarities stand out so strongly that knowledge of them can help all schools in planning for ML. The following program commonalities observed during visits to several schools in New York, Washington,…

The School Improvement Through Instructional Process (SITIP) Program, initiated in Maryland in 1980, was concerned with improving classroom and school activities through the application of process-product research on classroom and school effectiveness. All 24 local education agencies voluntarily implemented one or more of four research-based…

John Carroll's concept of mastery learning (ML) is described, and an ML model which can be used by directors of music-performing groups is presented. According to Carroll, any student, when given direction and time to follow that direction, can move along a time line from a state of inability to a state of ability. Tasks defined in behavioral…

This paper examines problems involved in designing an integrated system to teach and assess critical thinking skills in the classroom, and describes the Monitor Achievement in Pittsburgh (MAP) Critical Thinking Project, an attempt to draw upon research from diverse disciplines in developing an effective pilot project in the Pittsburgh public…

The validation of the competency based curriculum (CBC) of the District of Columbia Public Schools, prior to full scale implementation, is described. The CBC includes English, language arts, and science instruction in grades one through nine, and is based upon the demonstrated learning of specific behavioral objectives in the basic skills. The…

This guide was designed for developers of mastery learning materials for competency based learning situations. Topics include: (1) how mastery learning works and how the mastery learning process can be used in the classroom; (2) the advantages of mastery learning; (3) how to determine if mastery learning is right for student needs; (4) how to…

A reading program implemented in the Birmingham, Alabama, public schools in 1974 has produced increases in reading achievement in each of the years it has been used. Prior to 1974, the average Birmingham student's standardized reading test scores ranged from two months below the national average at the end of first grade to one year and nine…

This book is intended to serve as a sourcebook that provides descriptions of some of the best and most popular school- and classroom-improvement programs in America. It offers a comprehensive framework for selecting and adapting these programs to address a local school's particular needs. It was also designed to help school leaders understand and…