Reflections on Mastery Learning

Students can vary greatly in their aptitudes for learning, but Bloom believes that the vast majority of students can master anything if given enough time to do so. He advocates developing ways of teaching that take into account the differing aptitudes and abilities of each student. He challenges teachers to motivate and help each student achieve mastery in their subjects, something which he feels is possible for up to 95% of all students. In the decades since this paper was written, research in this field has, for the most part, shown Bloom to be correct (Snowman & Biehler, 2006).

Among numerous examples of successful mastery learning programs, I was most intrigued by an application of this instructional approach to teaching what many people consider a very tough subject: chemistry. Chemistry has played an important role at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was, at one time, a required course of study for all students there, regardless of their major (www.umass.edu, retrieved November 4, 2006). Faced with the challenge of teaching a subject that many students find unusually challenging to a huge and diverse group of incoming students, some members of the UMass faculty decided to develop computer modules on basic chemical principles that could be mastered outside of class on the student’s own time and at his/her own pace. They turned to the experts, their own students, to help determine what specific topical areas were the most difficult to master. They asked students majoring in chemistry to develop the first modules, originally as a way to interest them in possibly teaching chemistry under a STEMTEC grant from the National Science Foundation or NSF (Stamm, Fermann, Whelan, Bourdy, Botch, & Vining, 1999).

The resulting mastery learning program, now called OWL for “On-line, Web-based Learning” has proven to be very successful in preparing students for subsequent chemistry and/or other science courses. In fact, the program has been so successful, that the university has recently licensed the OWL program to a major science textbook publisher for inclusion with basic chemistry texts. It claims to be the only chemistry teaching system that was specifically designed to support mastery learning “where students work as long as they need using instantaneous feedback to master each chemical concept and skill” (www.thomson.com, retrieved 11/5/06).

Thus the computer serves as a tutor, which Bloom considered one of the most useful mastery learning strategies, without the expense in human resources required of a one-on-one tutoring relationship. Once again the media (a computer) is used to facilitate an educational method (here mastery learning) and we are left to tease out which of these factors is most important in creating student success.

[References]

Bloom, B.S. (1968). Learning for Mastery, Evaluation Comment, 1 (2), 1-12.

Snowman, J. & Biehler, R. (2006). Psychology Applied to Teaching. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Stamm, K.M., Fermann, J.T., Whelan, T., Broudy R,R,, Botch, B., and Vining, W.J. (1999), The Chemical Educactor 4, 1, 19-22.

www.umass.edu, retrieved November 4, 2006.

www.thomson.com/content/learning/brand_overviews/pf_mastery_learning-owl?vie, retrieved November 5, 2006.