Mastery Learning - What a Struggling Student Needs

There are two main learning approaches that are typically used in public and private schools: Mastery Learning and Spiral Learning. From what I have seen, Spiral Learning is the most common approach to learning, yet research has shown Mastery Learning to be one of the most effective methods. Children who are struggling benefit the most from a Mastery Learning approach to a subject.

You may be asking yourself, "What is Mastery Learning?" The simplest definition of Mastery Learning is when a child achieves the understanding and the ability to do certain skills in a subject area, moving ahead only after showing a high competency level in those skills. During the process, a child is always provided with feedback so that he can know what areas to focus on. At each skill level a test is usually given, and a student has to show 80% or better mastery to move on. Otherwise, he will have to continue studying the material in preparation for retaking the test until he scores above an 80%.

How does Mastery Learning differ from the usual method? Most schools use a method called Spiral Learning where small amounts of different topics are repeated in a yearly cyclical fashion with a gradual increase in information as a child gets older. Remember back to your elementary school days, when science textbooks would spiral through a whirlwind of different subjects? I remember back in the fifth and sixth grades spending some time on the human body and weather, but my teachers did not use a standard science textbook for those units. Instead, they pulled from a variety of different sources to provide an in depth study on the topic, which is why I remember doing those units to this day.

My purpose in this article is not to say that you should always use a Mastery Learning approach with your children to the exclusion of Spiral Learning. Instead, I want to encourage you to use Mastery Learning with your children in the subjects that build upon each other (i.e. math). For example, if you were to go to a surgeon for an operation, you want a surgeon who has specialized and knows the ins and outs of everything related to that surgery (Mastery Learning). If you have a nagging pain on your arm, you're going to go to your Internist and will want him to make a diagnosis based on his general knowledge of many different body systems (more of a Spiral Learning approach).

Some children can learn well with either the spiral or mastery approach, but with the mastery approach they will learn quicker. Other children struggle, and with them the mastery approach is necessary in order to achieve success. The repeated focus on a skill until it is mastered is what struggling students need.

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