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Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to be looking at Reflecting on CBE, Mastery and Pacing. Reflection is such an important part of what we do as teachers. And for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Albert Einstein, which states, "It is not that I am so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer." And that's what reflection is all about. By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to apply the five essential learning questions in your reflection on competency-based education, mastery, and pacing.
Now, let's go ahead and take a look at those five essential questions that are associated with Dufour's work. These are questions that all teachers should be asking themselves when developing those instructional plans. These are really important as you look at how you plan your lesson, your unit, and your curriculum level to ensure that you are planning in order to help the student achieve what they need to know.
The first question is, what do students need to know and be able to do? First and foremost, what do they need to know? Because if I don't know where I'm going, I won't know when they've gotten there.
Two, how will I get them there? Once I know the end point, what is the path I'm going to use to help them get there?
How will I know if they are there? What will I be able to see and recognize to know that students have achieved mastery at a certain level?
What will I do if they're not there? Have I planned differentiation into my classroom in order to ensure I can get them there and help them if they're not getting it?
And what will I do if they're already there? If some students are achieving this mastery faster, what can I do to help still make the time in class relevant to them?
Now, let's take a look at the way in which we can reflect on the connections between competency-based education and aligning that to students' mastery and self-pacing. First, a really important question to ask yourself as we go through the development of a lesson plan or looking back on sort of the instruction that we've been doing as we begin the reflection process, there are a number of questions you want to ask. So I am going to model through how to kind of reflect on one of your lessons using a lesson discussed in a previous tutorial about students working with the text To Kill a Mockingbird.
So the first question is, how does objective development or working on developing those objectives assist in defining what students should know? What I love about this question is it really forces you to look at two different elements, first at those standards and those elements, and then also looking at the objectives that you create from those standards, really forcing you, as a teacher, to say, do I know what I want my students to know? And is that clear in the way I write those objectives? Especially when it comes to ninth graders, using a text like To Kill a Mockingbird, having those clear objectives can almost provide something of an incentive to students as they see where they're going, and it's not just, oh, look, I'm reading another English book.
The second question you're going to want to ask yourself is, how do standards and objective influence teaching practices? If I know the standards and the objectives that I want my students to know at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, my class time becomes less about relishing in my enjoyment of the storyline or the intricacies of the characters, and becomes more about using that storyline and those characters as a vehicle to help get across those skills and knowledge elements to those students. This is also a really helpful way for teachers to step back and say, OK, just because I'm interested in this, doesn't mean my students are. And making sure that you are keeping the skills and the knowledge at the forefront rather than your sheer love for a particular text or poem.
The third question you want to look at is, how do standards and objectives influence assessments and measurements? Once I know where I want my students to end up, that can drastically change the way in which I assess them or measure their mastery. Suddenly, you're not only left with write a paper, take a test, but there are lots of different ways, especially when you've broken down those elements to really focused in and say, do I know if a student has met this? I find that it's very freeing, and it broadens up the possibilities for what I could do.
So, for example, in To Kill a Mockingbird, I know that I want them to be able to reflect on theme. And so as we go through I do a lot of formative assessments on them tracking the major elements. We begin with elements of theme within the first few chapters. And they continue to refine and adjust that. So by the end, I've had many opportunities to check in on student proficiency and mastery within that specific standard.
Question number four, how do standards and objectives influence intervention? Again, it can seem really daunting to say to a teacher who is doing so much already, hey, on top of all of that, provide individual interventions for all of your students that are struggling because they are not yet reaching that element of proficiency. But when you really look at the idea of competency-based education and student pacing, it frees you up to be able to say, I'm already looking at each student as an individual. So where as with some, they are pacing themselves, with others that frees up just a little bit more time for me to work with them to make sure they're achieving mastery at their individual level.
Finally, the last question you want to take a look at is, how do standards and objectives influence advancement after mastery is determined? So this is offering a way for students who are ahead of their other classmates to really move forward. And competency-based education makes this a great possibility. When I look at a lesson like the ones that I have for To Kill a Mockingbird, I see many opportunities for some students to just move ahead in their reading, while others are still working. And even for those who are finished quickly to either start applying the things that they've learned to their own writing, they can move forward and begin applying some of the major themes to other texts that have similar themes. Or we can even take it in to a cross-content area and have them work within that time period that the book is referring to investigate what the world was like at that time.
So there are lots of opportunities that are freed up that some students can do and take on. And when every student is working at their own level, it really allows students to kind of see the learning process as unending. So there's always something else that they can be doing. Remember, any type of reflection that you do on the work that you're putting into your classroom is going to help your teaching.
Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, you are able to apply the five essential learning questions in our reflection on competency-based education, mastery, and pacing, especially when it comes to the individual lessons that you are teaching. Now, I want you to take just a moment to reflect. Given everything that you've learned on the way in which we can reflect on our lessons using those essential questions in competency-based education's mastery and self-pacing, what do you think would be the most difficult part of employing some of these elements into your own teaching practices?
As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you might want to explore the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore new ways to apply these newly acquired skills.
(00:00-00:22) Intro
(00:23-00:31) Objectives
(00:32-01:41) 5 Essential Questions for Teachers
(01:42-06:44) Reflection Questions & Examples
(06:45-07:01) Review
(07:02-07:40) Reflection
Mastery Learning Resources
In this blog post, Laura Candler explains why she values mastery learning and teaching. In addition, she provides resources with links for teachers considering using mastery teaching and learning in their practice. Check out her infographic on the mastery learning model for a quick visual of the process.
http://www.lauracandler.com/strategies/masterylearning.php