A Deeper Look At Mastery

It seems that virtually every school in the country is thinking about Mastery Learning, but, from recent conversations with school leaders,very few of them have a clear understanding of what mastery learning is, reports Heather Clements.

The dictionary definitions of ‘Mastery’ would fit different and possibly conflicting ways of thinking about mastery learning including:

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      string(365) "... knowledge moves into the long-term memory, rather than passing through and out of the short-term memory.Key point 2 & 3: Curriculum design – In Mastery Learning, curriculum design identifies the core knowledge and skills needed to achieve mastery and build understanding, incrementally and sequentially, which will enable students to ..."
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      string(5511) "that the pace of learning should be determined by the learner’s capacity to acquire and apply the core knowledge being taught, rather than by an arbitrary time allocation. This means that new knowledge is taught in depth with frequent practice and revision to embed the ideas so the knowledge moves into the long-term memory, rather than passing through and out of the short-term memory.Key point 2 & 3: Curriculum design – In Mastery Learning, curriculum design identifies the core knowledge and skills needed to achieve mastery and build understanding, incrementally and sequentially, which will enable students to work in depth in a highly focused way and create time for deliberate and repeated practice.Key point 4: Formative testing – A key aspect of Mastery Learning is that after a period of learning, a formative test and feedback enables student and teacher to see where the gaps in learning are and then address those gaps through alternative learning strategies. This process requires students to retrieve and apply their learning, and in so doing it reinforces and improves the storage of that information and makes it more accessible in the future – they may forget some aspects, but when they revisit that learning it will be easier to relearn.Key point 5: Summative testing – In Mastery Learning, summative testing takes place after a period of time, allowing the learner to potentially forget some aspects of their learning and it may combine several aspects of learning covered over that period of time – this is aligned with the concept of spacing, making the learning less accessible through the time lapse so the learner needs to work harder to retrieve the information and in doing so, deepens the learning.Key point 6 & 7: High level of challenge and contextual understanding – In Mastery Learning, the level of challenge is high – students are presented with difficult tasks and are required to learn from the difficulty. Additionally, the learning is contextualised into a wider body of knowledge. The challenge and active engagement in the learning process, with increased student contribution, leads to deeper learning and the links to a broader body of knowledge provide a context for the new learning so that it can be stored effectively in the long-term memory. And so to teachingMastery learning has specific expectations of teachers in relation to the climate for learning, which is set out in the table below. This is an essential element of Mastery Learning, which is all too frequently lost when the focus for teachers is on subject content. However, these simple and relatively easy adjustments can transform the climate for learning and have been shown to improve engagement and student outcomes.The table below contrasts positive and effective ways in which teachers show their high expectations of students contrasted with low expectations. The ‘in action’ column exemplifies what this might look like in practice.How teachers’ attitudes and behaviours convey high expectations (or not) High Expectations Low Expectations  In Action  Use of time – Start on time– Few interruptions  – Demand that students be on task  – Specific, challenging time limits  – Start late, end early – Many interruptions – Allow students to be off task  – Open-ended time limits – Excellent classroom routines are established and embedded and learning proceeds without interruption – Quantitative and qualitative targets and expectations are specified and noted  Goal stating and summarising – Goal statements are frequent, clear, specific, challenging    – Goal statements are infrequent, unclear, general, unenthusiastic – Plan sequences of lessons so students are able to master the factual and procedural knowledge required – Ensure that learning outcomes are specific and measurable  Input – Lots of input  – High proportion of new material – Challenging work  – Little input – Little new material; much review – Easy work – Plan for a high level of challenge, believing that virtually all students can learn content and skills to a high level of excellence – Explain clearly and precisely so that students acquire new knowledge and skills – Ensure students engage in deliberate practice  Types of questions – More questions  – More higher-order questions– Few questions – Rote questions – Plan for a high level of challenge, believing that virtually all students can learn content and skills to a high level of excellence – Explain clearly and precisely so that students acquire new knowledge and skills Ensure students engage in deliberate practice  Wait time – pursuing questions – Wait 3-6 seconds after asking a question  – Pursuing questions if answer is wrong or incomplete – Wait less than 1 second after asking a question – Move on if answer is wrong or incomplete  – Allow time for reflection – Develop a culture where students can discuss with each other before responding  – Build extended answers through supplementary questions – Model appropriate transactional language and require students to use full, well-structured answers   Encouraging students to express confusion – Climate where students aren’t afraid to ask  – Clear sense of what they are supposed to be learning  – Climate where students are afraid of"
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Assessment

Mastery Learning is Where it's At

9 May 2018

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      string(372) "... as part of the national exchange programmeReview the NCETM website on mastery, which outlines a range of things that they are doing to support schools. Look for mathematics conferences involving the NCETM, organisations who have specific expertise or schools that offer training in mastery curriculum design. www.ncetm.org.ukContact ..."
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      string(5856) "thinking. Still, despite all the advice and programmes available, teachers are still trying to understand what mastery means. This has been complicated by the term being used across the curriculum which has led to a range of conceptualisations and the whole notion of mastery has now, for some, been debased. The challenges are significant and ASCL have identified a number of barriers that currently prevent schools from adopting mastery learning models:The conflation of different ideas, expressed under the same umbrella term of ‘mastery,’ has made it difficult for people to understand what exactly ‘mastery learning’ really is.There is currently a dearth of training available to teachers and school leaders and, where it is available, the provider is unlikely to distinguish what they mean by mastery in contrast to the alternatives.The curriculum re-design required to move from a spiral model to a mastery model is significant.The change in curriculum can mean re-inventing resources which can cause a substantial amount of work for teachers.At least at secondary level, pre-existing textbooks that follow a mastery model are difficult to find.The change in the philosophy underpinning a curriculum’s design is likely also to require a different approach to assessment.For further information then please see: www.ascl.org.uk/help-and-advice/guidance-papers/ascl-guidance-mathematics-teaching-for-mastery.htmlJust good teachingMastery has a certain aura to it along Kung-Fu lines and can come across as being quite mysterious and exotic but in essence, mastery is high quality maths teaching supporting all pupils to achieve age-related expectations. Problem-solving is integral to mastery, it aims for fluency with understanding and supports the development of mathematical reasoning. This is maths taught in a powerful and potent way.It is characterised by the following: class working together on the same topicchallenge provided by going deeper not acceleratingteaching is focused, rigorous and thoroughspeedy teacher intervention to prevent gapsmore time on teaching topics – depth and practicecarefully crafted lesson design – scaffoldingengaging pupils in reasoning When whittled down to the essentials we can see that mastery isn’t ‘new’ or even revolutionary as teachers with 10,000 hours under their belts will tell you – it’s a way of teaching maths that has come back into fashion and many teachers will instantly recognise as their own brand of natural teaching. Arguably, the mastery way isn’t something that has come full circle but something that teachers are doing all the time anyway. The National Association of Mathematics Advisors (2015) note,..”mastery in mathematics involves a commitment that all children can and will achieve; teaching less but in more depth and effective questioning to root out misconceptions and rapidly address these. We would argue that these practices are evidence of good teaching and are not solely attached to one approach.”    Depth, not acceleration and good use of models and images is key but the bottom line is great teaching and deep subject knowledge where teachers follow a lesson structure of exploration, clarification, practice, extension and review.And finally….The DfE have trained 280 mastery specialists and by 2020 they want to have another 700 specialists to train other teachers. More mastery teachers in the system can only be a good thing but this doesn’t make them master teachers. It is excellent teaching that produces successful maths learning and this is a complex cocktail of knowledge and understanding of many approaches not just the mastery way. Have we been hoodwinked into trying something that doesn’t fit? Is East Asian mastery a transferrable method?  We need to proceed with caution and whether mastery ‘works’ is hard to pin down because we need more evidence of its long-term impact over several years after teachers have had more experience of the approach. Mastery as a concept has now gained wide currency but there are competing interpretations and there isn’t a common understanding of an overall approach and so the existence of a single definition is a myth. Until we can agree on what maths mastery actually is, measuring its effectiveness will be problematic.    Adopting a mastery approach requires a whole-scale change to teaching maths and senior leaders must have a clear vision and create whole school buy-in but which mastery route do you choose if indeed you choose mastery as an option at all? The ASCL recommend that school leaders should consider the following: Contact local Maths Hubs to ask what training they are able to offer. www.mathshubs.org.ukLook for information being gathered by teachers visiting Shanghai as part of the national exchange programmeReview the NCETM website on mastery, which outlines a range of things that they are doing to support schools. Look for mathematics conferences involving the NCETM, organisations who have specific expertise or schools that offer training in mastery curriculum design. www.ncetm.org.ukContact schools who have adopted a teaching mathematics for mastery approach; many are happy to enter into exchanges that involve knowledge-sharing. For information on the King Solomon/Ark approach see www.mathematicsmastery.orgWhether the mastery approach is for your school or not is a big decision that needs to be informed from many sources. What we really need is a national study to investigate the effects of maths"
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Leadership

Maths Mastery – Is It Just Another Fad?

7 Nov 2017

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      string(5636) "more ‘work’ is too strong. The great thing about the approaches we’ve adopted are that it gives teachers more time to assess and give feedback within lessons. We believe that engineering high quality student talk is critical to learning. EEF Research shows that giving feedback given in class is far more successful than distance marking referred to a day or two later. More immediate feedback, during lessons, is designed to improve the pupil’s understanding and not just the work.  The work is simply the evidence that points you to what kinds of improvements are possible and desirable. These approaches have significantly led to a more appropriate understanding of pace, which, quite often, needs to slow down as well as improve the depth of learning day by day. Incrementally, this has had a cumulative effect on the overall learning gains across the year. A way of demonstrating understanding and learning, which is used very effectively by the children, is through the use of classroom based visualisers. Visualisers give an immediate reflection of learning which has been represented in books or on a white board and allows children to use their work as a scaffold to justify and explain their learning.Again, one of the concerns of senior leaders and teachers is that if there isn’t enough work in the books then Ofsted might consider that the teacher hasn’t done their job. 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Under the new OFSTED framework “Culture for Learning” is an essential aspect of any inspection. As a senior leader, I would be asking myself, “Do we have a culture for learning where children thrive, love learning and support each other to deepen their learning?” If you do then OFSTED will recognise this as they are looking for it!Like all articles such as this, this process sounds to have been seamless for us and without problems. The truth is that, like all change, it is not without turbulence.As the senior manager in school, with a passion for Assessment for Learning and the development of a Culture for Learning, it was critical that this passion was shared. It had to be a whole school project, in every class, with all staff on board. We had carried out some training in Assessment for Learning (AfL) previously but the spark for the progress that we made last year came from two training sessions for teachers and TA’s at the start of the school year. This ensured that we were all on the same page. It’s important, in my view, that the staff regularly engaged in informal and formal professional dialogue, a coaching culture and peer learning to ensure that they had opportunities to take risks, innovate and share their practice in order to further cultivate a positive can-do culture. Our assistant head teacher became our school teaching and learning coach and worked with all staff to help develop their confidence and skills and this also allowed her to build consistency across our 2 form entry school. We were increasingly surprised by what the children were capable of. Children, who previously, were passive and were asked to absorb information, became active and developed skills which allowed them to construct much deeper learning and created a thirst for further learning and a real sense of enquiry. We saw children, who were once passive recipients, standing at the front and demanded that their peers justify their thinking.We continue our journey this September and look to build on what we have started convinced that it is the right thing to do. As for data, over the last two years we have had 100% 2 levels progress in reading, writing and maths with in between 50% and 60% three levels progress in all subjects. This year, all progress measures are significantly above the average for schools with similar KS1 scores. The attainment and progress of all groups is up with our significantly large group of Gypsy Roma Traveller children achieving well in excess of all pupils nationally.With data like this, we went into our OFSTED inspection in March with confidence but also hoping that OFSTED would see that, in their words, pupils were “confident, self-assured learners” and their “excellent attitudes to learning have a strong, positive impact on their progress.”The inspectors were thrilled to see the extent to which pupils were leading learning, were enthused to learn, had a resilience to making mistakes and saw these as positive. Children were described as confident and enthusiastic. We’ve found that once you have these qualities and a learning culture in the classroom, the workload of the teacher becomes much easier to manage. The"
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Family

Giving pupils the green light! Improving outcomes for all pupils through independent learning

16 Oct 2017

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      string(282) "Is it worth the effort to invest in a personalised learning system? Deputy headteacher Simrat Mavi has found that taking the leap into the world of edtech has had a transformative effect on pupils, including increased inclusivity, greater self-awareness and enhanced meta-cognition."
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      string(319) "... excitement for homework! Never in our wildest dreams did we think the latter would be possible, but the impact of instant feedback loops that encourage deeper learning and mastery has instilled a hunger to improve in our students. It’s almost as if their schooling has become a fun challenge ..."
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      string(4244) "personalised learning resources, we have witnessed a significant change among our pupils from reception through to Year 6. There is a noticeable buzz around their learning, and in some cases, even excitement for homework! Never in our wildest dreams did we think the latter would be possible, but the impact of instant feedback loops that encourage deeper learning and mastery has instilled a hunger to improve in our students. It’s almost as if their schooling has become a fun challenge rather than something they have to undertake.Support SENDOne of the other key challenges we also faced was creating a more inclusive environment. This gap has also been closed with the help of our new personalised learning pedagogy. Instant feedback has again played a key role, but so too has the ability to pair their online learning with tangible progress reports and activities. This has been particularly relevant for our students with SEND. As a school, edtech and personalised learning has also encouraged us to adopt a multi-sensory approach for our SEND pupils. For example, if a student struggles with a particular concept, we make a diligent effort to avoid imparting any sense of fail and instead look to more individualised instruction and activities that can overcome this knowledge gap, empower them with the skills to rise to the challenge and facilitate guided discussions with teachers based on the results that are being fed back through their dashboard. All-in-all, Edtech in our school has been invaluable in building the self-esteem and feelings of inclusion of our students, particularly our SEND community—achievements of our school that have since been praised by Ofsted.Supporting parentsThe implementation of Edtech has also allowed us to more successfully invite parents into the fold. Our parents have loved our commitment to introducing more curriculum-aligned resources as well as the creative gamification tools that are now being used. In fact, we’ve found the latter to be a particularly powerful tactic for increasing our parental engagement. Parents now see first-hand their child’s enjoyment as they improve with encouraging messaging that making mistakes isn’t a bad thing, it is instead the space where learning occurs, and greater attainment is achieved. Sharing login details with parents for homework activities has also allowed our teachers to share the responsibility with parents—no longer can parents claim that their child didn’t show them their homework or discuss what they learned in class, because it is also shared with them directly. This level of accountability has really helped form stronger ties with our parents, particularly those who have historically been hard to reach or less inclined to engage.To what end?All of the above may seem well and good, but as a teacher or educator, I know you’ll be asking for results beyond the supplementary educational aspects of engagement and meta-cognition. The results speak for themselves. In our weakest subjects of reading, writing and maths, we have progressed in leaps and bounds. In 2016, our results were 56 per cent, but researching and making informed and strategic education technology decisions and adopting a holistic approach to personalised learning has improved our results to an impressive 69 (RWM combined) per cent in 2018 at the end of KS2—a result that we’re proud to report was higher than the national average.My cautious outlook on broad-sweeping claims for Edtech remains; however, after onboarding our personalised learning resources I’m much more of an advocate than cynic, and this, in part, has a lot to do with the ethos embraced by our staff, technology partners, pupils and parents. We’re all working for the very best outcomes for our community so will happily try anything to support this goal. That said, like many schools, resourcing and budget also tend to go hand-in-hand, so ensuring a thorough screening process for products has also been central to our approach and I encourage my fellow leaders to adopt our own approach and assess Edtech with fidelity, rigour and drive. Simrat Mavi is Deputy Headteacher and SENCo at St Giles’ Church of England Primary School."
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Digital Learning

Is it Worth Investing in a Personalised Learning System?

10 Mar 2020

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