Chapter 2-Fair Isn't Always Equal: Mastery Learning

Chapter two of Fair Isn’t Always Equal discuss the importance of mastering materials that are learned within a class. Mastery of materials is more then just comprehending what being taught. Simply put mastery involves applying information learned within class into everyday life. The chapter also discusses different ways to assess a student’s mastery of a subject. A student has not mastered a subject area if he or she can simply recite definitions about the subject. If a student has truly mastered a subject area, they should be able to fully understand concepts within the six facets of understanding. These facets include explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy and self-knowledge. The chapter suggests that if a student is able to successfully show proficiency in all these facets in a subject area they have gained mastery of that subject area. To show the difference between memorization and mastery the chapter gave an example about spelling. The example consisted of a student who had memorized all the words on a spelling list and done very well on a spelling test. While this student can remember those words on their spelling list, they have not mastered every rule of spelling. Mastery is not the same within all subjects. Within Math and English mastery can be tested within examinations that ask for knowledge to be applied within different areas. For Social Studies mastery may be proven by comparing and contrasting different concepts to show that facts were really learned and not memorized. Assessments of students can be done in several ways including performance tasks, panel discussions, examinations and checklists. For teachers it is important to give assessments that really reflect a student’s mastery because it allows teachers to see how advanced their students mastery is. This can be done through the backwards design model which we discussed in class. It is also important for teachers to teach the correct areas within a unit that they want their students to master. However, for new teachers this can be challenging because their inexperience and the wide range of units available to teach about. New teachers can find guidance within teaching resources, assessment guidelines, state learning results and with conferences with other teachers to help determine what they should be teaching about. While guidelines are important, the chapter suggests that teachers should go outside of comfort zones to enlist some new ideas when researching for lesion plans.

Overall the class liked this chapter because it gives many helpful suggestions about mastery learning. Most of the class liked the section that discusses what are the good parts of education units that teachers should be focusing on. The class tended to agree that teacher resources like curriculum guidelines would be very helpful to them as a teacher. You also liked how the chapter describes how backwards design model and the six facets of understanding fit in with mastery learning. Many members of the class found that this chapter helped put the bigger picture together on how the backwards design model and the six facets of understanding can be used within teaching.