What is mastery learning and why is it important?
This was the question posed to me by a mother, who wanted her daughter to be enrolled in our online tutoring services.
Mastery learning is a way of making sure a child has comprehensive knowledge and understanding of a particular topic or academic concept before moving on to the next stage. It is a super important part of personalizing education and ignoring this is the real reason students could be in school but not learn. Moving a child to the next stage (could be a class, grade, topic, or concept) before they master the initial one compromises the entire foundation of their academic success.
Now that we know why mastery learning is so important, let’s discuss how to calculate a student’s mastery.
How Gradely Calculates Student Mastery
The education system has evolved with the aid of technology, giving students an adaptive and personalized education to help them academically and also build mastery where they are struggling.
Gradely is an online learning platform that uses learning resources and tutoring to improve children’s grades. The app makes it possible for students to learn at their own pace and gain mastery in academic concepts and subjects that they have difficulty with, in fun and interesting ways.
To calculate a student’s mastery in a particular subject on Gradely, the student takes an initial pretest within the app that comprises 15 questions in that subject.
For instance, Chris is a Grade 7 (JSS1) student that took his initial pretest in Basic Science & Technology on Gradely. Here’s what his result looks like.
The result of the pretest Chris did shows that he’s average in topics like “The Earth” and ‘Environmental Conservation & Safety. But he’s struggling in topics like “Disease Vectors, Environmental Pollution, and Immunization”.From it, you will see that Chris has a 4% Mastery in Basic Science & Technology and has various topics in the subject that he’s struggling with.
Under normal circumstances, this would be discovered by the end of a school term or session, and his school and parents will be faced with the dilemma of moving him to the next grade, hopeful that he’ll catch up. Meanwhile, with Gradely’s mastery learning, the learning gaps are found and fixed with recommended learning resources (practice questions and video lessons) during the school term before it’s too late.
The more the child learns and practices with the recommended questions and video lessons, the more his understanding of the subject or topic. You will also be able to monitor their progress in their report dashboard in real-time.
You can find out your child’s mastery level in any subject, and how you can increase it by signing up on Gradely and taking a free pretest here.
Share Post:
Eniola Makinde
Get our latest articles in your inbox. Sign up for email alerts.