Mastery learning is one of those themes I have returned to throughout my career. It always seemed a great idea, well supported in the research literature, but only made practical by the wide availability of technology. Mastery would be my priority way of thinking about personalization.
I first explored mastery learning supported by technology in the late 1970s. I was a graduate student in the Psychology program at Iowa State and with fellow student Mike Latta we began working with biology professor Warren Dolphin. I had been an undergraduate in biology and was already interested in mastery techniques. I recognized that what Dr. Dophin was doing in his introductory biology course was a version of mastery learning. Yes, this was long before the availability of personal computer-based technology. The large-lecture, introductory course including bi-weekly exams completed on the “fill in the dot” answer sheets scored by computer. The way the exams worked the sequences of questions (1-20, 21-40, 41-60, etc.) corresponded to course units. A student could take an exam over any unit covered to that point with the highest score for each unit counting toward the final course grade. The technology made this system practical as multiple scores with hundreds of students were collected every other week.
Latta, R. M., Dolphin, W. D., & Grabe, M. (1978). Individual differences model applied to instruction and evaluation of large college classes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 70(6), 960-970. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.70.6.960
Mastery learning remained a personal interest for more than 50 years and the role technology could play in individualizing learning only expanded beyond the initial focus on making the assessment component easier to implement.
I return to this topic again encouraged by a recent upgrade to the use of Kahn Academy resources as a mastery system. I think I recognized how such systems might be used for a mastery approach before those who design these systems. I first saw Salman Kahn describe his system as useful for mastery learning in his book – One World Schoolhouse. At that time, his way of describing mastery was fairly primitive. Still, I assigned this book in my grad course focused on technology integration and expanded the description in the textbook with my own explanations of what mastery systems are.
If you are unfamiliar with the free Kahn Academy web site or unaware of the basics of a mastery instructional system, I encourage you to take a look at my brief videos on these topics.
The Kahn approach has grown far more sophisticated and makes a great example of the role technology can play in individualization.
The updates to the Kahn approach is described in a recent announcement.
The changes to the Kahn Academy mastery system include:
Learners now reach 100% mastery from unit mastery alone. The Course Challenge no longer accounts for a separate 20% of mastery points.
Course Challenges remain on the site as an option for learners to accelerate their mastery progress, and an efficient way for a learner with lots of prerequisite knowledge to level up in a course.
Learners can now be moved down based on their performance on a practice exercise as well. If someone is at Mastered and gets between 70% and 99% on an exercise, they will move down to Proficient in that skill. If a learner is at Mastered and gets less than 70% correct, they will move down to Familiar. If a learner is at Proficient and gets anything other than a perfect score, they will move down one level to Familiar
The Kahn Academy makes no assumption that the online system will meet the needs of all. The data collected in student efforts and the efficient way of presenting these data to students and teachers allows the teacher to spot those students who are struggling and focus her/his attention more efficiently.
Kahn offers a sophisticated approach that includes the recognition that the teacher plays an important role and helps the teacher identify those students most in need of her/his assistance. Too often, when technology is used to fulfill part of the need for content presentation, it is assumed that the educator plays no meaningful role. When used appropriately, this assumption could not be further from the truth.
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