Schools are frequently inundated with demands to implement new instructional interventions and teaching methods that are not yet backed up by a solid body of research. Fortunately, many of these innovations include elements of more established strategies for which evidence of positive effects does exist. Guskey describes the core elements of one…

While there are theories about how to close the achievement gap between black students and their white peers, what you need is the real low-down from frontline educators who know what works. Here's a book that gives you that plus a whole-school plan for raising the achievement of these chronically underserved students. Drawing from her work with…

In this interview with Executive Editor Ron Brandt, Bloom answers criticisms of mastery learning and explains why he believes it is so important. (Author/JM)

Examines recent research to show that group-based mastery learning programs have consistently positive effects on student learning outcomes, including academic achievement, material retention, involvement in learning activities, and student attitudes. These programs also affect teachers and have considerable potential for implementation in regular…

This paper discusses a number of contingency arrangements used in studies at the University of Kansas to enhance individualized characteristics of personalized instruction. It begins with an examination of Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) and its five defining features: (1) reliance on the written word, (2) unit mastery, (3) the…

Presents a theory of school learning that attempts to explain individual differences in school learning as well as to determine the ways in which such differences may be altered. (MP)

A strategy called "jigsawing" is described for promoting group work, while ensuring that individual needs of pupils with severe learning difficulties are met. A group activity is broken down into smaller components and each child or group is assigned tasks toward achievement of the overall activity aims. (PB)

A successful experiment in the teaching and learning of expository writing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is described that has been used at both the secondary and graduate levels as well as in regular college composition courses. The approach includes mastery learning, informal atmosphere, product orientation, and development of cooperative…

Mastery learning is a group-based, teacher-paced instructional strategy. Because it is also committed to criterion-referenced evaluation and to a strong emphasis on feedback and correctives throughout the learning experience, it is often confused with competency-based education, individualized instruction, and related innovations. Mastery learning…

Reports on attempts to find alternative methods of group instruction. Discusses the use of mastery learning techniques and the need to improve the students' learning processes, the curriculum and instructional materials, and the home environmental support of the students' school learning. (CMG)

A group-based, teacher-paced mastery learning format was used to instruct students in two sections of an undergraduate course on teaching mainstreamed handicapped children. Students in these sections displayed greater achievement and higher motivation, measured by their number of absences, than did students taught the course by more conventional…

The "class trap" is defined as the problems which can arise when all students in the class are required to progress at the same rate. To illustrate this concept, a case study is presented of arithmetic instruction in a single class, then strategies to avoid the trap are outlined. (SJL)

Summarizes research exploring six solutions to the "2 sigma problem" of devising teaching-learning conditions that will enable the majority of students under group instruction to achieve at levels now possible only when students are tutored. Recommendations include using mastery learning, improving the home environment, and emphasizing higher…

Mastery learning is described as a system for providing a unit-by-unit sequence, and arranging that each unit be successfully mastered by each student before they begin the next unit. This process requires mastery tests to control the rate of student progress. The proper setting of score levels to represent mastery is a difficult task. The claim…

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…