Pages

Thursday, January 12, 2017

A 3-Tier Mastery Approach for Math at a Blended Learning School

Here are my latest thoughts on mastery design for my math courses.  Basically, students will work through 3 levels of mastery.  Students will repeat the 3-level mastery process for each concept, but the actual types of tasks--what they do, and what they produce--will allow for variety.  (At my blended-learning school, students may move at a faster pace if they desire.  This is not traditional lecture-led education.)

Level 1.  Students complete a task in which they explore ideas with an instructor.  Heavy instructor guidance.  The task will be such that it lends itself to guidance with an instructor. 

 Focus:  What scenario produced the concept I am trying to teach and how can I get my students to experience that intellectual need?  

Goal:  I understand this concept.

Level 2.  Students complete a task with a couple of check-in points near the beginning, middle and end with an instructor.  I don't think this should take much instructor time.  At this stage, the instructor checks to make sure they really got it from level 1 and continue to encourage deep thinking.   

Focus:  Mistakes: excepted, inspected, respected.  If we didn't make mistakes, we'd be done so why are we here?
  
Goal:  I can demonstrate my understanding of this concept.

Level 3.  Students complete a final task for that particular concept in which they work mostly independent with possible check-in points in the middle and/or at the end.  This task will conclude the learning for the topic and the student will produce something that demonstrates learning.  Students will keep this and compile with other similar tasks to create a portfolio of learning throughout the course.  

Focus:  What will students do to continue to develop, solidify, and demonstrate mastery of this topic?

Goal:  I can teach this concept.

With this 3-tier structure, I can keep them at level 1 until I feel they are ready to move to level 2 and then on to level 3.  One of the issues with traditional education is that students often arrive unprepared at what is supposed to be the concluding tasks for a topic.  Teachers then attempt to "review" the material until they are obliged to move on.  They don't need to review the material though.  They need to learn it.  They didn't get it the first time.