Maker-based education holds promise as a method to support students' development of essential skills and content knowledge across the curriculum. Over a five-year period, the authors developed and iterated on an experiential instructional design specifically designed to afford educators with diverse academic backgrounds and divergent career goals…

Transitioning from K-12 to college poses significant challenges due to the shift from guided learning to self-directed engagement. Traditional pedagogies such as inquiry-based learning and flipped classrooms have not fully resolved issues like poor retention and low graduation rates in STEM fields, which are critical for economic growth and…

Girls are less likely than boys to pursue a degree or career in a mathematics-based field. Girls tend to have higher grades and similar test scores when compared with boys. However, girls' affective beliefs, including confidence, fall behind those of their male counterparts. The purpose of this study was to understand how girls perceive the…

In this case study, learn how creation and use of modules, mastery-based grading, immediate feedback and consistent data use, and the reimagining of the school schedule allowed teachers to engage in personalization of the curriculum.

Research indicates there is a need for teachers to experience multiple mastery experiences with engineering teaching in order to improve teaching engineering self-efficacy. To prepare future K-5 teachers to teach the engineering design process, one science methods course integrated 2-day engineering mini-units into the class meeting and…

Prior research found that without the naming cusp, children did not learn from instructional demonstrations presented before learn units (IDLUs) (i.e., modeling an expected response twice for a learner prior to delivering an instructional antecedent), however, following the establishment of naming, they could. The present study was designed to…

This case study highlights a high school math teacher's successful journey of taking the steps needed to move away from traditional teaching methods to innovative pedagogies supporting mastery-based teaching and learning. Mastery-based learning (also called competency-based learning) is a shift away from traditional, one-size-fits-all teaching.…

In Experiment I, I tested whether training teacher trainers to conduct TPRA observations to a calibrated standard by teaching them to 1) measure the accuracy of other individuals presenting learn unit instruction, then 2) measure their own accuracy in presenting learn unit instruction, would influence the accuracy of the teacher trainer's…

Acquiring financial literacy presents many unique challenges for young adults with disabilities. Although financial literacy can and should be taught throughout the lifespan, this review examines the curriculum accessible to students with high incidence disabilities who are 14-21 years old, when they are planning for transition from secondary…

Interest in student-centered active learning pedagogies is widespread, but discipline-specific examples of implemented instructional approaches are needed to bridge the gap between pedagogical ideas and their enactment. One of these approaches, Modeling Instruction, is an active, student-centered approach wherein students learn through…

I conducted two studies on the comparative effects of the observation of learn units during (a) reinforcement or (b) correction conditions on the acquisition of math objectives. The dependent variables were the within-session cumulative numbers of correct responses emitted during observational sessions. The independent variables were the…

This report examined the implementation of Foundations of Algebra, a course designed to provide high school students with low mathematics performance an extra opportunity to review and study foundational mathematics concepts prior to enrolling in Introductory Mathematics and subsequently Algebra I. In the fall of 2009, 877 high school students…

Significantly higher posttest achievement scores and more favorable unit evaluations were achieved in a secondary social studies unit using a feedback-corrective strategy with a manageable degree of specificity. This supports previous research that suggests the strategy is possible within a social studies area. (SB)

Undergraduate education majors participated in a mastery learning situation (unlimited retesting and relearning until the end of the semester) or a modified mastery situation (only two trials per unit allowed). Higher levels of prior achievement and the modified mastery approach were associated with greater learning and retention. (GDC)

The purpose of this study was to provide New Orleans public school administrators and teachers with the information and tools needed to design a systems-based mastery learning (ML) approach to secondary social studies teaching and learning. The following information and tools are provided in this report. There is an introduction to the basic…