Mastery Based Classroom

Maybe you’re thinking about switching your classroom system to mastery based. You’ve heard great things about the method and how it raises expectations for students and you want to give it a try. But then, you get pulled to the side after a staff meeting and have the following conversation with a fellow teacher. “Psst. I see that you have (name of unmotivated student) in your class this year. I had such a hard time getting them to do anything last year. Nothing seems to work with that kid.” You’ve heard the stories about that student. All of a sudden, you’re not so sure if you should go mastery based.

Teachers start the school year full of hope and ready to give each student the benefit of the doubt (or secretly watch them like a hawk). As the year goes on it becomes obvious that the traditional motivators don’t work with a growing number of students. To the teacher and to their classmates, these students look like a human-shaped blob that does nothing but talk to their friends, surf irrelevant websites on their phone, or simply daydream the whole hour.

What we have here is a student who has lost their agency in one way or another. They have taken on the role of either victim or spectator in their classes or maybe even in their lives. They don’t feel in control of their educational journey.

In previous blog posts we analyzed the roles that students can take in the classroom in the context of a story/game. I recommend you go back and read those if you haven’t but here’s the shortened review.

Roles That Students Take In The Classroom

Hero – this is the ideal student role with the student’s agency intact. This student takes ownership and makes decisions for their own educational journey. This student knows what is expected ahead of time and plans accordingly.

Victim – this role is often in response to the presence of a villain. This is a student who has lost their agency. They don’t actively make decisions, they simply respond to the decisions inflicted upon them. This student is often very reactive and only does a task when they have privileges removed.

Spectator – this is the student who has lost their agency and checked out completely. They don’t make decisions (good or bad) and they don’t really care about consequences. Often this student has tried in the past and failed. These students become trapped in learned helplessness and don’t try anymore.

The Problem With Traditional Motivators

For many students, the traditional motivators like grades, teacher interventions, or an eventual diploma, don’t motivate anymore. Grades often feel biased or unfair, more like an abstract concept than a goal to strive for. Then as teachers, we often buy into the unempowered narrative that the student is selling us. If the student acts as a victim, reactive and only works when threatened, teacher becomes the villain and threatens the student. If the student is a spectator, the teacher becomes an NPC (non-player character = a character with little purpose and no personality) and simply allows the student to sit and do nothing because it is easier than fighting. Then the student just gets passed from grade to grade without actually engaging in learning.

The role of a teacher is to be the wise and respected guide who encourages the student hero to claim their destiny. The teacher guide creates an environment of opportunities for growth and allows the student hero to choose to step into their destiny. The teacher guide will also provide the support and encouragement for the student hero when the journey gets to be difficult.

Empowering the student hero with their own agency to make purposeful decisions and accept the consequences and benefits of their decision is one of the main objectives of the mastery based classroom. This system encourages student heroes to grow and learn outside of the traditional grade motivators.

How to Use Mastery Based Classrooms to Empower Student Heroes

Mastery based classrooms have high expectations for students. This gives students the time they need to master the material before moving on to the next topic. In my gamified and mastery based classroom, students choose when to take their tests/do their final projects so they know that they are ready. There is not one defined day that the whole class takes the test together. This encourages essential study and planning skills that students need to succeed:

1. Students take responsibility for their own education. They can choose to study for their test in class and prepare to take the test tomorrow. Or they can choose to take the test at a later date if they have 3 math quizzes, an English essay, a physics lab, and 25 homework assignments all due tomorrow. The student is given their own agency and they make real decisions about their education. This encourages students to become the hero of their story.
2. Student take on the high expectations for themselves that the teacher guide sets for them. The teacher guide sets the “mastery level expectation” for the class. In my classroom the mastery level expectation is 75% on the unit test. Students have to achieve the 75% grade in order to move on to the next unit. The student has unlimited retakes in order to achieve the 75% requirement. Since there is no other option available, students push themselves to achieve the 75% minimum. This is much higher than the 60% minimum passing grade of a D- or simply being ok with failing.
3. Effort = outcome. In the current grades system, many students don’t see the correlation between their effort and grades. To many, it seems like they try their best on their own, submit it to the “teacher grading matrix” which is a combination of teacher bias, teacher mood, and then maybe also how hard they worked on the assignment. Then a week later they get a grade on an assignment that they have forgotten all about. My mastery based classroom gives students immediate feedback, a more direct correlation between effort and outcome, and purposeful teacher intervention when needed.

These elements empower students to take responsibility for their own education and be the hero of their own educational journey.

A Day in the Life of the Mastery Based Classroom

Generally what happens in a mastery based classroom is that students naturally sort themselves into ability groups. This is THE BEST system for differentiation. As student passes the units, they move on to the next unit. The students who pass the units faster need less teacher intervention. These students need little teacher support and can practically teach themselves. The students who take a little more time to pass the level need a little more teacher attention and support. Then the students who take longest to pass the units often need more direct intervention. These students will often need help learning study skills in addition to the content.

As the students naturally form their ability groups, the teacher can schedule time with each group. This allows the teacher to teach to the level of each student instead of simply “teaching to the middle” like so may teachers have to do. Student needs don’t get missed in the crowd and no one falls through the cracks. This is differentiation at its finest!

Is It Worth It?

Some teachers take a look at the mastery based classroom and immediately feel overwhelmed. But the great thing is that all the students start on the same unit at the beginning of the year. Then as some students pass the unit, they create a second group, and then a third, and it continues slowly growing. This gives the teacher guide time to create a schedule that works for the classroom and gives enough time to each student ability group.

The benefits of this system in the form of differentiation, student responsibility, and student ownership help to teach students many necessary skills outside of the actual content objectives. This mastery based system of only moving on to the next unit when the previous unit is mastered helps to motivate students and equate their effort with the outcome. Students can no longer simply exist as a blob in the classroom and still get passed on to the next level.

So if you are going to have “that student” in class this year. It’s a great year to switch your classroom to mastery based. Even if you aren’t planning to get “that student” this year, the benefits for the students make it worth it.

If you want to join our community of dynamic educators who want to change education in order to meet student needs, check out our facebook group. See you there!