Educational Leadership - October 2010

learning experiences. Having successful learners simply bide their time, doing more, harder problems or completing busywork while others are engaged in corrective instruction would be highly inappropriate. Enrichment activities must provide these students with opportunities to pursue their interests, extend their understanding, and broaden their learning experiences.

Sustaining and Extending Success

Researchers today generally recognize the value of the core elements of mastery learning. As a result, fewer studies are being conducted on the mastery learning process itself. Instead, researchers are looking for ways to attain even more impressive gains by improving students’ learning processes, curriculum and instructional materials, and the home learning environment and support and providing a focus on higher level thinking skills. Work on integrating mastery learning with other innovative strategies appears especially promising (Guskey, 1997b).

As we strive to improve achievement even further, we can continue to learn from the core elements of mastery learning. Attention to these elements will enable educators to make great strides in their efforts to close achievement gaps and help all students achieve excellence. EL

References

Anderson, S. A. (1994). Synthesis of research on mastery learning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 382 567).

Astleitner, H. (2005). Principles of effective instruction: General standards for teachers and instructional designers. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 32( 1), 3–8.

Block, J. H., Efthim, H. E., & Burns, R. B. (1989). Building effective mastery learning schools. New York: Longman.

Bloom, B. S. (1971). Mastery learning. In J. H. Block (Ed.), Mastery learning: Theory and practice (pp. 47–63). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Mastery learning’s
diagnostic
assessment is
similar to universal
screening in RTI.

Bloom, B. S. (1974). Time and learning. American Psychologist, 29( 9), 682–688.

Bloom, B. S. (1976). Human characteristics and school learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Bloom, B. S. (1984). The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Leadership, 41( 8), 4–17.

Bloom, B. S., Hastings, J. T., & Madaus, G. (1971). Handbook on formative and sum-mative evaluation of student learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Conroy, M. A., Sutherland, K. S., Snyder, A. L., & Marsh, S. (2008). Classwide interventions: Effective instruction makes a difference. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40( 6), 24–30.

Deshler, D. D., & Schumaker, J. B. (1993). Strategy mastery by at-risk students: Not a simple matter. Elementary School Journal, 94( 2), 153–167.

Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. S. (2006). Introduction to Response to Intervention: What, why, and how valid is it? Reading Research Quarterly, 41( 1), 93–99.

Guskey, T. R. (1997a). Implementing Mastery Learning (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Guskey, T. R. (1997b). Putting it all together: Integrating educational innovations. In S. J. Caldwell (Ed.), Professional development in learning-centered schools (pp. 130–149). Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council.

Guskey, T. R. (2008). The rest of the story. Educational Leadership, 65( 4), 28–35.

Guskey, T. R. (2009). Mastery learning. In T. L. Good (Ed.), 21st century education: A reference handbook (Vol. I, pp. 194–202). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Guskey, T. R., & Pigott, T. D. (1988). Research on group-based mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Research, 81, 197–216.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The
power of feedback. Review of Educational
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Thomas R. Guskey is professor, Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology, College of Education, University of Kentucky, Lexington; Guskey@uky.edu.