modernclassrooms.org
Mastery-based
learning and grading in a Modern Classroom
Agenda:
Mastery-based learning & grading in a Modern Classroom
modernclassrooms.org
Introductions
The Modern Classrooms Project empowers educators to meet every student’s needs through blended, self-paced, mastery-based instruction.
We lead a movement of educators in implementing a research-backed instructional model that leverages technology to improve educator effectiveness and learner understanding.
modernclassrooms.org
Kate Gaskill
Modern Classrooms Head of Teaching & Learning and former high school social studies teacher
Moira Mazzi
Modern Classrooms Mentor and high school geosystems teacher
The Problem: Traditional Models of Teaching Aren’t Working
modernclassrooms.org
“I’m a failure.
“I can’t catch up.”
“I’m lost.”
“This is too easy.”
Our Model: Changing Classroom Instruction
Through our personalized training programs, we empower educators to implement our research-backed instructional model:
modernclassrooms.org
Our Goals
Cultivate classrooms that personalize instruction to meet the unique needs of every student
Reshape the Student Experience
Train teachers to leverage technology to facilitate a classroom that efficiently and effectively focuses on student learning.
Reshape the Teacher Experience
Free Online Course
Virtual Mentorship Program
School & District Partnership
Virtual Summer Institute
What do we mean by mastery-based learning and grading?
Instructional approach where students have to exhibit a certain threshold of competence with a task before moving on to the next. �
“Contrasts traditional forms of instruction where teachers provide students the same amount of time to achieve competence with a given skill before the entire class moves to the next topic.” �
Each student continues to spend time on a skill until they achieve proficiency.
Mastery-based
instructional approach:
what does the research say?
Enhances learning outcomes for students
Mastery-based approaches to instruction have been found to substantially enhance students’ ability to retain their learning long-term.
Kulik, C., Kulik, J., & Bangert-Drowns, R. (1990). Effectiveness of mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 60(2), 265-299.
Improves student satisfaction in school
Anderson, S.A. (1994). Synthesis of research on mastery learning. Information Analyses (ERIC Reproduction ED 382 567).
Kulik, C., Kulik, J., & Bangert-Drowns, R. (1990).�
Shifts how students think about themselves and their learning
The approach has been found to improve students’ academic self-concept and proclivity to stay “on-task”. Mastery-based instruction has also been found to engrain students with certain aspects of growth mindset
Guskey, T., & Pigott, T. (1988). Research on group-based mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis…
Duby, P. (1981). Attributions and attributional change: Effects of a Mastery Learning instructional
approach.
Students in mastery-based environments have been shown to have more positive attitudes towards content compared to students attending more conventional classes.
What are research-based
best practices for mastery-based
learning and grading?
Divide learning into small chunks
Provide adequate opportunities for practice
Assess frequently and provide constructive feedback
Adjust instruction, as needed
How do these best practices come to life in Modern Classrooms?
How do these best practices
come to life in Modern Classrooms?
Divide learning into small chunks
�
Mastery check example
modernclassrooms.org
Mastery check example
modernclassrooms.org
How do these best practices
come to life in Modern Classrooms?
Assignments | Mastery Checks | |
Practice: All the work which students complete in order to develop mastery. Collaborative: Students should have the opportunity to ask questions and work with their peers if it fits the scope of the assignment. | Assessment: Short, end-of-lesson tasks which students use to demonstrate mastery. Individual: Generally, these should be given individually, to ensure that students can execute an objective on a novel question without support. | |
Provide adequate opportunities for practice
How do these best practices
come to life in Modern Classrooms?
Provide adequate opportunities for practice
Assignments | Mastery Checks | |
Teachers exercise their own discretion how or whether these are graded. Some teachers chose not to grade assignments, while others grade them for completion. Still others grade these for accuracy and don’t put in a final grade until students have an opportunity to revise. | Teachers exercise their own discretion if these are graded as “assessments” or “classwork”. � Teachers generally consider these to be formative assessments. In a mastery-based classroom, teachers enter a grade after students have an opportunity to either revise or reassess. Policies around revision and reassessment are crafted by individual teachers, to reflect the unique nature of their discipline and the age-appropriate needs of their students. | |
How do these best practices
come to life in Modern Classrooms?
Provide adequate opportunities for practice
�
How do these best practices
come to life in Modern Classrooms?
Assess frequently and provide constructive feedback
How do these best practices
come to life in Modern Classrooms?
Adjust instruction, as needed
What is mastery?
We can look to our state/district standards, curricular outlines, students’ IEP goals, and other established markers for guidance on what to measure and where to draw our “mastery threshold”.
Author Larry Ainsworth identifies four criteria to help determine which standards to teach teach:
Endurance: The standard continues beyond one grade level.
Leverage: The standard has crossover value or interdisciplinary connections.
Readiness: The standard is a prerequisite skill for more advanced skills.
Testing: The standard appears on accountability assessments.
What is mastery?
Studies of mastery-based learning environments confirm that teachers should err on the side of “higher being better”.
Multiple researchers have found that having students attain higher levels of mastery can make learning more meaningful and can also increase student achievement relative to lower thresholds indicate that many teachers “find that the best way to identify a mastery level of performance is to identify the level of performance of students who have received A’s or B’s in the past”. Setting assessment performance at this level may be a useful starting point for teachers new to using this technique.
What is mastery?
Whenever possible, we want to communicate where students are in relation to mastery.
The Modern Classroom Project trusts educators to use their professional judgment to find age- and discipline-appropriate ways to emphasize mastery within unique school and district grading policies.
Given that the Modern Classrooms Project works with educators in a variety of contexts around the globe, it is difficult for us to provide specific guidance on setting up a grade book, deciding what to grade, categorizing grades, or designing schoolwide systems.
We can help you connect with educators and show examples from both our classrooms and theirs.
Let’s take a closer look at mastery-based grading in a few Modern Classrooms...
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
Cheyenne
Fourth grade
“I give a completion grade for guided notes to hold students accountable. Mastery checks are formative assessments for me, and the summative assessment is the end-of-unit assessment, which may be a traditional test or a project based assessment task. The end-of-unit summative assessment tests their retention of the mastery they’ve displayed in the formative mastery checks in the midst of the unit.
If students need to revise a mastery check, I work in a small group or one-on-one session. Students are then required to explain an answer to a similar, but slightly different question, to me. If they correctly explain their thinking, they retry the mastery check.
If they cannot explain the problem after my initial mini-lesson, I have them work on the skill again with a student teacher (students who have mastered the content, using the student teaching sentence starters that I created) as I observe and provide feedback. Students are then given a mastery check the next day.
Honestly, I have never had students still struggle after this process, but if they did I would reduce the percentage for mastery from 100% to 80% for this particular student. I would not give up on this concept until they have reached 80%, but I would have them move on in their roadmap and revisit the concept after a few days.”
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
Monte
Middle School science
“My grade book is set up as: 50% classwork, 25% Labs/projects, 25% Assessments. �
In each lesson, a students get one classwork grade. If they complete the ‘must-do’ aspects of the lesson, they get an 80-85%. Completing ‘should-do’ aspects of a lesson can earn them up to 90-95%, while completing an ‘aspire-to-do’ can boost a student to 100%. I consider mastery checks formative assessments.”
Students are allowed to reattempt any assignment they want--for as many times as they want-- until the end of the unit. For mastery checks, I allow students two tries and intervene with encouraging them to check resources or sitting with me for a re-teach before the second try. I give all students the option to boost their grade and show mastery through the final unit assessment. If they can demonstrate mastery a given standard in the assessment, I go back and increase their individual lesson mastery check grade.”
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
Zach
Middle School music in Spanish
“Each lesson in my music class involves a single task (an aspect of creating a song), and upon completing the task, students take a screenshot and put it into a Google Slides document. I consider this screenshot the mastery check. I also grade their final songs as a summative assessment, using the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme arts rubric.
Individual mastery checks don't go in my gradebook. I only check them off as ‘Mastered’ or ‘Needs Revision.’ At the end of a unit, I convert the percentage of mastered lessons to our grade scale. Essentially if a student completes all the mastery checks they receive 100%, and I input this grade as a summative. I also put in ‘progress report’ grades for each student at midway points through the unit; for instance, in a 10-lesson unit, if Lesson 4 is on pace and a student has mastered 3 lessons, they're progress grade would be 75%, and this is recorded as a formative.
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
“When a student submits a mastery check that is either incorrect, missing information, or that I'm unsure about, I put an ‘R’ for ‘Revise’ on the pacing tracker and I make it a point to check in with that student next class (or right away if they submit it in class, and I can grade it, and time permits). On any given day I have between 2 and 5 of these "R's" so this isn't a major lift in class; more than 5 R's is a lot, and in that case I would check my instructions and review my instructional video to make sure I communicated the task and concept clearly.
I've never had a student become stuck on a particular lesson for more than 3 tries because by that point I will be intervening, sitting with the student one-on-one, and really working with them to figure out the problem, fill the understanding gaps, and complete the lesson correctly.”
Zach
Middle School music in Spanish
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
Nora
Middle School math
“In my sixth grade math classroom, I grade Assignments and Mastery Checks.
I categorize them both as ‘Classwork’ in my gradebook.
Mastery Checks are formative in my classroom. I don’t categorize them as assessments in my grade book though and instead call them ‘classwork’. Assessments are just quizzes and tests in my grade book.
My students do have unlimited tries to revise and reassess. I want them to learn and master the material no matter how long that takes. Tests and quizzes can be corrected for half credit.”
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
Tavia
High school biology, including IB Biology
“‘I grade mastery checks and assignments (even if it’s just complete/incomplete for assignments). I break down each assignment into ‘must do (start your engines)’, ‘should do (rev it up)’, and ‘aspire to do (full speed ahead)’ portions. Each portion increases in depth of knowledge.
I consider mastery checks to be summative because they determines whether a student is ready to go on to the next lesson. Students who don't achieve mastery have a one-on-one conference with me to discuss concepts missed, and then students are allowed to retake the mastery check.
For classwork, if students don't achieve mastery, they receive half credit with the option to revise. I provide them feedback on what/how to correct (providing guiding questions, rewording questions, etc.). It is up to the student to revise and resubmit. Students don't reassess they deep dive into understanding what they missed through test corrections.”
“What does mastery-based grading look like in your Modern Classroom?”
Moira
High School geosystems
I provide daily feedback in Google Classroom on a series of weekly tasks.
At the end of each week, I determine a weekly grade that takes into consideration their practice work, but weighs their mastery check more heavily.
In Google Classroom they see a grade and feedback for each STEP. I put their weekly grade in the STEP 7 reflection with feedback on how they did and how they could improve and respond to their reflection answers. In the online gradebook students see one weekly grade.
Revisions and retakes are strongly encouraged!
How can we make mastery-based grading manageable
in our Modern Classrooms?
Our systems
How can we set up our classrooms and create routines to ensure grading is manageable?
Our mindsets
How can we frame grading in our own minds to ensure that it’s manageable for us, as educators, and serves students?
Our planning
What steps we can take in our unit planning to make grading more manageable for ourselves?
How can we make mastery-based grading manageable?
Our mindsets
How can we frame grading in our own minds to ensure that it’s manageable for us, as educators, and serves students?
tracking my kids’ growth and progress
giving my kids feedback that is actually helpful
How can we make mastery-based grading manageable?
Our planning
What steps we can take in our unit planning to make grading more manageable for ourselves?
How can we make mastery-based grading manageable?
Our systems
How can we set up our classrooms and create routines to ensure grading is manageable?
We are a movement of educators.
Connect with other Modern Classrooms teachers today!
Our Facebook Discussion Group is a helpful space for teachers to pose questions and share examples of mastery-based grading.
Professional Development Offerings
Free Essentials Course
✓ Access to content and tutorials
𝗫 No assignments
𝗫 No feedback or coaching
𝗫 No certified credentials
Virtual Mentorship Program
✓ Access to content and tutorials
✓ Feedback on all submitted assignments
✓ One-to-one coaching
✓ Certified Credentials
modernclassrooms.org
Virtual Summer Institute
During our four week Virtual Summer Institute, educators will:
Session 1: June 28 - July 3
Session 2: July 12 - August 6
Session 3: July 26 - August 20
modernclassroms.org/summer-institute
Your Questions
More resources
modernclassrooms.org
Thank you for joining us!