What is the purpose of mastery learning?

Mastery of learning is something that humans do instinctively, right from birth. Think about how babies learn to walk over the course of months and months. They begin with sitting, finding their balance, pushing themselves up again and again in pursuit of their goal. Next comes standing – and a fair amount of toppling over or sitting down with a bump! Then, they progress to cruising, moving around using walls or furniture to keep their balance, before finally mastering the skill of walking.

Table of Contents Show

How do you explain mastery of learning in plain terms?
Effectiveness of mastery learning
Techniques for implementing mastery in schools
1. Set demonstrable learning goals
2. Create effective groups for collaborative work
3. Provide an anchor task
4. Monitor progress carefully
5. Provide additional support for struggling students
Further reading
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Key takeaways:
What is mastery learning?
Bloom's Learning for Mastery
Keller's Personalized System of Instruction
Does mastery learning work?
Mastery learning in Missouri
Mastery learning in 2019

In recent years, a growing number of schools have begun to adopt mastery of learning as a strategy for the classroom.

How do you explain mastery of learning in plain terms?

When learning a new subject, all students must have mastered key concepts before moving on to the next topic. Although the learning objectives are constant, the depth of mastery can vary from student to student, and depends on their own pace.

Maths lead Ellie Kelly uses the analogy of a train to explain mastery of learning:

All the children get on a train and follow the train journey and go to every station. How far they venture from that station is how deeply they are able to explore that subject. The main thing is – they all start from the same entry point, and no child is left behind.

Effectiveness of mastery learning

Mastery of learning offers various benefits to students of different ages. Here are just a few:

Research has shown positive learning outcomes from students, including students at risk of failure.
Mastery learning has been proven to help with mixed ability classes, narrowing the gap between disadvantaged and advantaged children.
It helps combat some of the problems that come with more traditional differentiation methods – instead of putting children into pockets and categorising them in sets, all students are given the same opportunities to learn the same content, and offered additional support where needed.
It has been used across the curriculum, but has been proven particularly successful for reading, mathematics and science.
It encourages lifelong learning – students understand the value of perseverance, and better understand their learning goals.
Many teachers report feeling more empowered, as they are given the flexibility to adapt their teaching and slow down the pace.

Techniques for implementing mastery in schools

So, we can see that mastery learning has clear benefits. But embedding mastery into a school curriculum takes time. To help you on your journey, here are some techniques for success:

1. Set demonstrable learning goals

Before embarking on mastery learning, try asking the following questions: What do we want students to know and be able to do? What does success look like? How will they demonstrate their mastery? How will we measure it?

For example, in a Spanish class, students learning the present tense must be able to write ten sentences about their daily routine correctly. That way, you’ll be sure they’ve mastered the present tense before moving on to more complex grammar.

2. Create effective groups for collaborative work

Mastery learning has been found to be particularly effective when students work collaboratively. This is because students take responsibility for each other’s progress, and help each other move forward.

However, it’s not enough to allow groups of friends to work together. As the teacher it’s important to engineer the groups, as research shows that effective collaborative groups have some key characteristics:

A diversity of learning styles and expertise in the group
A sense of a collective team-based learning effort
An emphasis on different learning styles and ways of sharing knowledge
A view of one another as researchers and resources for learning

3. Provide an anchor task

An anchor task is a problem given to students at the beginning of a lesson. It gives them the opportunity to draw upon prior knowledge, and requires them to ask questions of each other, working together to look for solutions.

For example, in a primary maths class an anchor task might involve one student simply counting some building blocks one by one. Another stronger student on the other hand, may feel more confident in challenging themselves to try multiplication or repeated addition.

4. Monitor progress carefully

To be able to advance in a topic, a clear boundary needs to be established. Typically this happens when 80-90% of knowledge has occurred. This is normally measured with an end of topic assessment such as a written exam, presentation or verbal test.

In a primary maths class, children would normally have to demonstrate they can solve problems accurately and fluently. So the mastery benchmark may be that they can solve 9 multiplication problems out of ten within 4 minutes.

It’s also important to provide clear and consistent feedback to students – highlighting what they’ve done well and areas they need to improve on to demonstrate mastery of learning.

5. Provide additional support for struggling students

In mastery learning there is a shift in responsibility – when a student fails to grasp a concept, it’s not seen as a reflection of their learning ability. Instead, it’s a cue for the teacher to look at their method of instruction, and see if there’s a more effective way to deliver the knowledge that they are trying to impart.

Teachers can vary the way content is presented, such as trying alternative textbooks, using audiovisual methods, or simplifying instruction. Additional tuition or peer support can also be useful tools to help students achieve mastery and progress to the next level of learning.

Key takeaways:

Mastery learning ensures students obtain mastery in a given topic before moving on to the next unit. It assumes any student can reach high levels of achievement given sufficient instruction, time and perseverance.
Bloom’s Learning for Mastery (1968) and Keller’s Personalized System of Instruction (1968) both emphasized that while learning is linked to factors like student aptitude and quality of instruction, students can achieve mastery if they are allowed to learn the material at their own pace.
Over 50 years of research proves that mastery-based learning is linked with higher student achievement rates and positive student attitudes towards particular subjects when started at a young age.
Teaching for mastery encourages lifelong learning. When students are given time to learn and succeed, they’re more likely to value perseverance, have confidence in their skills and understand their own learning needs.

How do students learn best? Common answers include access to well-trained teachers, effective curricula, supportive classroom environments, or even just natural skill.

But what about time?

Imagine a third grade student. She’s flown through all of her math work so far, but struggles when fractions are introduced and the rest of the class moves on before she completely understands. This learning gap means she has difficulty multiplying and dividing fractions, and struggles with quadratic equations in high school.

The result? She hates math.

What is mastery learning?

Mastery learning focuses on ensuring a student’s grasp of a given concept is complete regardless of the time and resources needed to achieve mastery, or total understanding.

“Our basic task in education is to find strategies which will take individual differences into consideration but which will do so in such a way as to promote the fullest development of the individual.” Benjamin Bloom, 1968

In traditional teaching methods, the class learns together and moves on to the next unit when most of the students have achieved mastery. Students who can’t keep up are more likely to develop learning gaps that grow as they tackle more difficult material.

In the 1960s, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom theorized that with a mastery learning model, students could master any kind of content if they were given the right environment and classroom support. According to Bloom’s Learning for Mastery, mastery learning depends on five key variables: aptitude for kinds of learning, quality of instruction, ability to understand instruction, perseverence and time allowed for learning.

This approach to learning moves beyond the idea of student aptitude— the natural ability to do a given task or learn a specific subject — and insists that every student is capable of achieving mastery under the right conditions.

For all students to achieve mastery, classroom instruction had to be re-imagined. Bloom and psychologist Fred Keller developed two unique, but similar, programs in 1968 designed to achieve student mastery.

Bloom's Learning for Mastery

In a traditional classroom, the teacher delivers the unit to students over the course of a few days or weeks, sets a formative assessment to measure student comprehension and moves on once it’s complete. At the end of the year, a summative exam measures overall achievement.

Since this system is time-bound and doesn’t account for students who have not achieved mastery in a given topic, Bloom proposed three changes:

An additional assessment given during the unit to serve as a final assessment if students had achieved mastery, and a diagnostic test if they had not.
Students who had not achieved mastery could be re-taught and given intervention until they reach mastery.
Student who had already reached mastery could move on to more advanced work and enrichment opportunities. Then, they would take the assessment again.

With this system, educators could be relatively certain there were no learning gaps that might lead to problems later on.

As educational research Thomas Guskey puts it:

“In mastery learning, assessments are not a one-shot, do-or-die experience; instead, they are part of an ongoing effort to help students learn.” Thomas Guskey, 2010

But wouldn’t this method of instruction take longer? Bloom (and many researchers after him) theorized instruction would gradually speed up because students would have a more thorough understanding of prerequisite skills.

Keller's Personalized System of Instruction

Similar to Bloom’s Learning for Mastery, Keller also proposed his Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) in 1968, which centered around five key principles:

Students should work through the course at their own pace.
Unit tests must be completed with a high degree of accuracy (usually 9 out of 10) before students can move on to the next topic.
Lectures are “vehicles of motivation,” not sources of critical information.
Teachers and students use written communication in textbooks and study guides.
Proctors bridge the gap between students and instructors through “repeated testing, immediate scoring, almost unavoidable tutoring, and a marked enhancement of the personal-social aspect of the educational process.”

Does mastery learning work?

Between 1968 and 1982, there were at least 1000 articles and publications that tested different approaches to mastery learning.

The results?

Out of 279 studies completed, 90% of them showed mastery learning works in a classroom setting. As a part of these studies, a minimum of 22,373 students were sampled from kindergarten to college.

Source: Kulik et. al (1990)

Two notable studies also found that the average student in a mastery learning classroom achieves the same level as the top 15% of students in a classroom not using mastery learning.

Overall, hundreds of studies in the past 50 years have demonstrated that a mastery learning model can:

Boost achievement levels
Improve students’ attitudes towards learning
Give students more confidence when they’re learning new concepts

Mastery learning in Missouri

Most researchers agree that implementing mastery learning or PSI will have positive effects — especially for weaker, special needs and at-risk students. Here’s what mastery learning looks like in the classroom:

Where?

As part of a key study in 1990, researchers decided to study the impact mastery learning could have on mainstreamed special education students in a Missouri elementary school.

Who?

40 students considered to be mildly disabled or at-risk were put into regular classroom instruction.

How?

The teacher taught the lesson and then administered a formative assessment. Students who didn’t receive between 80% and 90% worked with a special education teacher in the classroom to correct, intervene and re-teach. Students who achieved mastery continued to work with the classroom teacher on enrichment activities.

Results?

Researchers divided students into five groups, based on data from the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test (MMAT). Before the new program was introduced, 40% of students were in the two lowest groups. After only two years of mastery learning, just 10% were in the bottom two groups, and student’s MMAT scores increased by 13.46% overall.

Relevant research also overwhelmingly suggests teaching for mastery can help students love learning. And the younger the better — applying mastery learning in early elementary classrooms can lead to lifelong learning gains.

Mastery learning in 2019

Today, mastery learning can impact all areas of a student’s classroom experience — not just academics. When students are given time to learn and succeed, they’re more likely to value perseverance, have confidence in their skills and understand their own learning needs.

“Mastery learning can give zest to school learning and can develop a lifelong interest in learning. It is this continual learning which should be the major goal of the educational system.” Benjamin Bloom, 1968

New technology and teaching strategies have also made it even easier to implement mastery learning in the classroom and build lifelong learners.

EdTech tools allow teachers to easily differentiate learning, deliver formative assessments, give student feedback and organize their classrooms so every student can achieve mastery.
Blended learning models encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning and give them the opportunity to work through prerequisite skills and essential concepts at their own pace, demonstrating mastery of a concept before moving on.

Personalized learning strategies recognize the individual needs of each student and develop unique learning plans to help every student achieve mastery.

At Prodigy, we believe student engagement and their attitude towards math is vital to a student’s ability to learn. That’s why we’ve created an engaging world for students to explore while they practice key math skills.

Our game-based, adaptive platform doesn’t include time bound elements, so students have the flexibility and freedom to reach mastery in any given topic. Our adaptive algorithm finds and fills learning gaps, and encourages students to move through the game at their own pace. In-game incentives and badges encourage perseverance and reward hard work.

When you provide students with a strategy and environment to suit their individual needs, there’s no telling what they can accomplish.

[Want to know more about mastery learning? Read the full Literature Review here.]

What could mastery learning look like in your school?

Want an EdTech tool that supports mastery learning?

Try Prodigy — the curriculum-aligned math platform used by more than 100 million teachers, students and parents around the globe.