May 2022 – Learning Aloud

Components of mastery instructional methods

I explained what I considered the essential components of a mastery system to my educational psychology and educational technology students for years. I used the following list based on my reading of multiple sources and explained using terminology I hoped would be easy to understand. I see different mastery approaches as implementation of these components to varying degrees so I will try to describe the components as ideal and then it becomes useful to explore the degree to which different implementations approach each ideal.

Components of a mastery system:

Objectives / Goals
Small Units of Instruction
Multiple, nonpunitive assessments
Mastery before progress
Keyed remediation

Objectives / Goals – mastery requires the identification of what is to be learned in a way that is more explicit than is the case in a traditional approach. You cannot teach a “bunch of stuff”, but because of the requirements of some of the other components you must specific what is to be learned and what is based on or follows what.

Small units of instruction – mastery approaches attempt to reduce individual differences in existing knowledge. When the pace of instruction exceeds the time required for an individual to learn, a student may be expected to advance lacking prerequisite knowledge. Small units of instruction combined with other components (mastery before progress) to reduce the gaps in knowledge important in learning related material. Smaller units reduced the probability gaps will be missed.

Multiple, nonpunitive assessments – to use assessment to guide instruction, it may be necessary to reteach and retest. Multiple assessments determine when the expected level of understanding/mastery has been achieved. Nonpunitive implies that the number of assessments necessary to demonstrate understanding will not be used in evaluating/grading learners. When content is mastered, it is mastered.

Mastery before progress – a standard for mastery is set and meeting that standard determines when a student moves from one unit to the next.

Keyed remediation – assessment results should be used in targeting instruction when an assessment determines that content has not been mastered. It is also possible that a previous method of instruction will be changed as that method may be partly responsible for a student failing to achieve mastery

It is interesting to note that early approaches were couched in what I would label as a behavioral tradition. For example, the specification of “objectives”. This can be seen in the general focus journals hosting some of the earliest descriptions of mastery approaches. Historically, from my experience, acceptance of some of these ideas may be related to resistance to mastery concepts. I see this as unfortunate as core ideas about what learning is can easily be described within a cognitive tradition. For example, building from what is known fits with Piaget’s notions of assimilation and accommodation or with concepts such as conceptual change theory describing the interaction of existing models with new information.

Identification of these components serve multiple purposes. I ask students to use these components to identify existing practices that may meet individual components. I use these components to contrast different instructional tactics labelled as a mastery or competency-based approach to describe if and how well the different components are addressed. Researchers have studied many studies of mastery tactics in attempts to determine which components are most essential.

Buskist and colleagues (1991) provide one example of the type of component analysis that has been conducted. The components used differ a bit from my list. This is in part results from their analysis of a single mastery approach, The researchers conclude that unit mastery, multiple short quizzes, quick performance feedback, and review units were concluded to generate achievement advantages. Self-pacing (students having freedom work work when they wanted) and time spent with proctors were not.

My final post in this series will use the components I describe here to differentiate a couple of the original mastery strategies and then link these original strategies to my interest in technology-enhanced mastery approaches.

Reference:

Buskist, W., Cush, D., & DeGrandpre, R. J. (1991). The life and times of PSI. Journal of Behavioral Education, 1(2), 215-234.

Research on mastery instruction is extensive

I have decided to write several posts focused on mastery learning. My motivation for doing this comes from a recent Chalkbeat article claiming that mastery approaches are receiving greater attention since the COVID pandemic, but “evidence remains thin”. Having followed instructional approaches labeled mastery learning since the 1970s, I am troubled by the message this title offers. There have been hundreds of studies evaluating mastery strategies using achievement data. The Chalkbeat article is focused on technology-enabled approaches and this happens to be my own interest. Perhaps less is known about mastery approaches that put technology in a central role, but the underlying concepts of mastery instruction are well researched (see citations at conclusion of this post).

So, my effort here will be to offer a broader background on what mastery learning is and to describe some of the original models similar to more recent technology-enabled approaches.

Mastery learning has always intrigued me because the underlying assumptions make so much sense. I would describe the most basic argument of mastery learning to be that learners master content and skills at different rates. I understand these differences in learning rate as the consequence of a combination of aptitude and existing knowledge. These factors are interrelated in practice.

I would describe aptitude as similar to what others might think of as intelligence. As an individual difference, I don’t think it matters much if intelligence is a biologically based variable. This is a different topic. I think it is obvious that the rate at which learners can learn differs from individual to individual. Label this difference as you see fit. I call this capacity to learn “aptitude”.

Aside from aptitude, existing knowledge plays an important role in learning rate. Differences in existing knowledge have been demonstrated in some circumstances to play a more important role than aptitude (e.g., studies of reading comprehension based on reading skill and topic-related knowledge). These two variables are related because education does not assure that learning has occurred when the system of instruction moves on. This means that learners move ahead differing in aptitude and also differences in the existing knowledge and skills that may be necessary for new learning. Variability increases over time in a system that does not adjust to the needs of the individual increasing both the difficulty of learning new skills or knowledge AND the motivation to deal with the personal circumstances that new learning involves.

Individualization does not make the rate of learning equal, it makes the differences more determined by aptitude than the combination of aptitude and existing knowledge. For many content areas, most individuals would learn what is being taught if the learning environment allows them sufficient time. Addressing the “IF” is the key.

Some major reviews of mastery versus traditional instruction:

Kulik, C., Kulik, J. & Bangert-Drowns, R.L. (1990). Effectiveness of mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 60, 265-299.

Kulik, C., Kulik, J. & Bangert-Drowns, R.L. (1990). Is there better evidence on mastery learning? A response to Slavin. Review of Educational Research, 60, 303-307.

Kulik, J. A., Kulik, C. L. C., & Cohen, P. A. (1979). A meta-analysis of outcome studies of Keller’s personalized system of instruction. American psychologist, 34(4), 307- 318

Slavin, R. (1987). Mastery learning reconsidered. Review of Educational Research, 57(2), 175-213.

Research Rabbit

I was by trade a research-focused academic in the fields of educational psychology and educational technology. I conducted research and generated publications based on the data my studies generated. I also wrote and continue to write instructional materials (books, blog posts) for educators based mostly on the research of others. Scientific research builds on itself and you fashion the explanation of your findings from your data, your methodology, and the positions and findings of other researchers. Writing to educate relies heavily on the analysis of existing research and you make your case by summarizing and referencing multiple articles authored by others. There is a tremendous amount of reading that is involved in both types of activity.

Aside from the reading, this type of work requires the storage, organization, and retrieval of information. There is also the challenge of searching the nearly limitless trove of existing work for publications that are relevant to your specific interests. You have to do the work of reading and understanding content, but you can use technology to make the related tasks (storage, search, organization, retrieval) easier. Many of us who do this work are constantly searching for such tools and this quest also ends up being an area of investigation. I have written multiple posts on this blog about tools for taking and organizing notes.

This post is focused on a tool for locating relevant content I should read. There are lots of ways to search (e.g., Google Scholar) for relevant content, but Research Rabbit goes further and builds on the web of citations that exists among published research. Rather than being limited to the citations included as part of a given source, Research Rabbit reveals the web of sources that spread among individual papers – the citations in one paper point to other papers and the citations in these papers point to other papers, etc.

This web is interesting to explore. As is often the case with search, I started by searching myself. Quite a few years ago, I was conducting research on the consequences of distributing lecture notes in large lecture classes. There are interesting related questions. Do students skip class if notes are available? Do students who use these notes perform better than students who use only their own notes? These topics have received more attention lately as educators consider what online resources to make available to students. I began my search with a paper on this topic I published in 2007. From this paper, I can locate papers that cited my work. I can collect the information I need to locate and read papers that offer abstracts that interest me. I can see what papers these authors cited and who now cites them. I can build topical collections of papers and I can offload these collections to another tool better suited to generating and organizing my personal notes after having read some of these papers (see second image showing a collection of papers on Mastery Learning brought into Zotero).

Here is a link to a YouTube video on the use of Research Rabbit.

These tools are free and available online. You don’t have to be a researcher to use such tools (see the YouTube video). Find the title of a paper that interests you and you can then locate related content by entering the title of this paper in Research Rabbit.

First and second brain interaction

Perhaps you are familiar with the new jargon describing Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and second brain. These ideas may have not filtered down to educators yet, but the practices that are related to these terms certainly would apply to educators as knowledge workers. I have followed and explored these ideas as they relate to my long-term interest in developing and applying effective annotation practices (e.g.,note-taking). I will likely eventually write more about the tools and tactics of PKM as they might apply to secondary and students. For now, I want to offer a related proposal.

The core idea of a second brain is that learners can create and cultivate an external record of what they have learned to augment what they retain internally at some later point in time. These tactics can be implemented on paper, but for me make more sense when applied with technology.

As I have several books on the concepts and explored and used several different tech tools for applying proposed approaches, I have what I think is a useful insight. The guiding principles of an effective second brain seem remarkably similar to core ideas from cognitive psychology about what learning is and how a learner can improve the effectiveness of the time devoted to learning.

Here are what I consider overlapping themes. Both an effective second brain and effective learning encourage:

The storage of big ideas / core concepts / personal concepts
The linkage of personal concepts with other personal concepts and with stored examples
The reexamination of stored concepts to activate these ideas and maybe connect them with newly stored information.

The proposal of the components and tactics of a second brain require that these themes be concrete and actionable. Having something to look at and explore can be useful in understanding similar ideas that are more abstract or even invisible.

A personal concept (my term) might be described as a personal summary of an important concept or an idea that can stand alone so that it can be understood in the future without additional context and could be understood by another individual with a good background.

In a digital second brain, linkages can be links among concepts or to examples, citations for context or support, or questions yet to be answered. Links are links that might be the familiar connections among web pages or tags that can be added to indicate a commonality with different elements of information.

The physical store of linked content is intended to be reexamined regularly. This process has some of the same goals as what cognitive psychologists call the testing effect (retrieval practice). Attempts to recall what has been learned strengthen future retrievability and the effort involved can identify new linkages as a by-product of the search for the desired information.

Exploring the techniques and components of an effective second brain makes concrete some of the same mechanisms important in learning and applying these techniques externally may provide practice for the related cognitive skills that are difficult to explain and develop.

Just a couple of examples that may help with the idea of a second brain. After exploring several options, I have settled on the use of a tool called Obsidian. The following images show a couple of features of this tool that illustrate the ideas mentioned here.

This image shows what is called a graph view. The image shows the linkages I have created among individual notes (personal concepts). Individual notes can be accessed by clicking on a node within the graph.

This is an example of an individual note. I have selected an example that shows a personal summary of key ideas, links, and tags.

Inoreader

Independence for creators and readers has become a significant issue with online media. Creators want to retain control of the content they create rather than giving their content to a social media site like Facebook or Medium. Readers want control of the content they consume rather than having the content prioritized by an algorithm the reader cannot control.

The RSS system provides a way for a reader to locate the multiple content providers they want to follow and to make the process of having new content from these providers identified so they can access this content without visiting many individual sites. When enough readers use RSS, content creators can be assured that the good content they create will be accessed while they retain full control of this material.

Inoreader is a powerful RSS reader that is easy to use. It is free with limited features and capacity that should meet the needs of most readers. With experience and commitment to the product, it is easy enough to switch to a paid version.

The following video demonstrates the basic features of Inoreader.

Depolarization

I became interested in the work of the Polarization Lab after reading “Breaking the social media prism”. They propose that social media tools like other tech tools are potentially neutral, but do have great power for negative outcomes. It depends on how tools are used.

The lab is interested in studying social media polarization and testing ways to fight the trend toward polarization. How might more moderate positions be viewed and considered and how to fight the tendency to spiral toward extremism. One of the experiments involves the use of Twitter bots relaying tweets from moderate “opinion leaders” of different orientations toward participants identified as having an opposing perspective. The logic is that such content may moderate disagreements.

It is easy enough to follow these bots yourself. I thought that signing up for both bots and analyzing the content of what is shared could make a great student project or start a classroom conversation. The Twitter “handles” are @Polly4Liberals and @Poly4Conserv. I identify as a liberal so Polly for Liberals sends me “messages from prominent conservatives or right-leaning organizations”. The research body followed me back because I registered and I assume is attempting to see if the Twitter behavior I exhibit becomes more moderate.