#masterylearning

What is the purpose of high school?

Unfortunately for many students, the answer seems to be "to earn good grades so I can attend a good college".

For so many, high school is just a four-year period where the only goal is to get a perfect transcript and then move on to the next phase in their life.

Even worse, the chase for the “A” leads to terrible and unhealthy behaviors: Cramming material to midnight, cheating, and brown-nosing are all too familiar. Adversarial relationships with the teachers are an inherent part of this process as the teacher holds power over the student's prospects. Stress and anxiety are commonplace.

Some of the worst effects are felt by the most gifted of the students. Those who are creative, who are different, and aspire to do something great, are coerced into a system where they are expected to be like everyone else. Those students hate every moment of school, but they know they have to go through the motions, so they get on with their lives.

What a terrible experience for the gifted. What a terrible waste of time.

Ventures Academy believes that school should be a place of learning and mastery. Instead of chasing the "A," by any means necessary, every student should earn the perfect grade by simply mastering the material.

With the mastery system, we provide every student with unlimited time to demonstrate full comprehension of the material. There are no semester limits or final exams with this system. Instead, students continue the learning process until their mentors observe full mastery, and then - and only then - they earn their “A”.

Our students are never graded on a curve and, they never feel threatened by a punitive low score. They also cannot cheat their way to an A or cut corners.

The deal is simple: whenever they can demonstrate mastery, the perfect grade is guaranteed.

The process of mastery-based learning, true to its nature, is meant to break down learning objectives so learners can master them at an individual pace. It became especially influential in the 1960’s during which time teaching methodologies were being re-developed by educators such as Benjamin Bloom with the theory of learning for mastery (LFM).

Mastery learning is a process where learners are developed to master each learning objective broken down into units. Once a unit has been successfully mastered, the learner proceeds to a more advanced learning task and from there, is led on to a journey of learning enrichment where concepts are built on the fundamentals.

Contrary to common belief, mastery-based learning does not require a significant level of commitment by any specific person apart of the process. The ultimate goal of this learning process is to achieve depth of knowledge which can be achieved in several ways. Consider a custom built program where any type of content can be adapted to this process of learning that allows a learner to move through the material at their own pace. This is all done while providing assessment feedback for both the learner and instructor. Thanks to the advancement of Cloud LearningTM technologies, these programs have immense accessibility and added value to implementation.

This sounds like a great idea but the real question is, why adopt it?

It’s clear; mastery learning reduces performance level gaps and improves proficiency. Mastery learning programs have been shown to lead to higher achievement and increased positive attitude from learners toward the instruction they receive and content they are learning.  

Now, while many of us may not be quite ready to give up our traditional ways, change is good and innovative thinking is certainly the appropriate approach to take to new ideas.

WHAT IS MASTERY-BASED LEARNING?

The process of mastery-based learning, true to its nature, is meant to break down learning objectives so learners can master them at an individual pace. It became especially influential in the 1960’s during which time teaching methodologies were being re-developed by educators such as Benjamin Bloom with the theory of learning for mastery (LFM).

Mastery learning is a process where learners are developed to master each learning objective broken down into units. Once a unit has been successfully mastered, the learner proceeds to a more advanced learning task and from there, is led on to a journey of learning enrichment where concepts are built on the fundamentals.

Contrary to common belief, mastery-based learning does not require a significant level of commitment by any specific person apart of the process. The ultimate goal of this learning process is to achieve depth of knowledge which can be achieved in several ways. Consider a custom built program where any type of content can be adapted to this process of learning that allows a learner to move through the material at their own pace. This is all done while providing assessment feedback for both the learner and instructor. Thanks to the advancement of Cloud LearningTM technologies, these programs have immense accessibility and added value to implementation.

This sounds like a great idea but the real question is, why adopt it?

It’s clear; mastery learning reduces performance level gaps and improves proficiency. Mastery learning programs have been shown to lead to higher achievement and increased positive attitude from learners toward the instruction they receive and content they are learning.  

Now, while many of us may not be quite ready to give up our traditional ways, change is good and innovative thinking is certainly the appropriate approach to take to new ideas.