DIFFERENTIATING TIME TO LEARN
Benjamin Bloom’s work on mastery learning has added another important concept to the knowledge base about time to learn or time a student needs under optimal learning conditions to reach some criterion of learning (Ber- liner, 1990). The idea is that most students can learn anything if they have the prerequisite pieces of knowledge and skills in place and are given adequate time to learn it. Giving students adequate time to learn doesn’t mean giving them material and just waiting until they’ve gone over it long enough to ab- sorb it. It means task analysis of new learnings, careful ongoing assessment, and reteaching loops for students who need it—and for only those who do. The view of time from mastery learning puts teachers on the spot along with students. Mastery learning brings with it a requisite set of assumptions: that all
Most students can learn anything if they have the prerequisite pieces of knowledge and skills in place and are given adequate time.
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PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
students are capable of achieving mastery of appropriate learning goals; that when learning isn’t taking place, something isn’t yet right about how it is be- ing presented to the student or the time given for the student to master it; that mastery is essential in order for the student to progress; and that modifications, adaptations, adjustments, and reteaching are all options available to support that happening. In other words, one doesn’t blame the students if learning isn’t taking place. Instead, there is a search for how to adjust, adapt, modify, and reteach until the student is on board and “getting it.”
Mastery learning is a form of individualizing instruction. But individualizing means more than self-paced here, more than marching through programmed material. It means clear and comprehensive sequences of instruction laid out in advance, broken down into pieces, and with options for how to deliver instruc- tion of those pieces to students. Above all, it means monitoring what students know and not giving up until they have met mastery criteria.
Finally, it means planning reteaching loops and simultaneous extension activi- ties for students who got it the first time around. Such a two-ringed circus pres- ents management and planning challenges that are a stretch for teachers who are unused to managing multiple events in a classroom. In other words, mas- tery learning requires differentiating learning experiences (one size doesn’t fit all) and is once again an example of how the areas of performance of teaching are interdependent and ever present. A sincere and focused effort to address and afford students time to learn requires an exploration of concepts addressed in the chapters on Momentum, Lesson Objectives, Differentiated Instruction, and Classroom Climate.