Once you’ve collected blended instructional resources and developed a self-paced structure, you'll need to design assessments for your students.  Modern Classrooms use mastery-based assessments: instruments which give students credit only when they show, under discipline-specific criteria, that they possess authentic understanding. Mastery-based assessments:

• • Show students and teachers alike whether students are prepared to move on, and

  • Provide clear feedback as to ways that students can improve their content understandings.

  • Shift the focus of a classroom from simple completion to authentic understanding.

By the end of this module, you will:

• 1. Describe the assessments that students will complete in order to demonstrate mastery,

  2. Explain how you will determine whether or not students have actually mastered course material, and

  3. Develop the tools that students will use to reflect on their learning.

This video will explain the theory and practice of mastery-based assessment.

Resources for Mastery-Based Assessment

As you begin Module 4, we recommend that you check out some best practices/resources that explain both the theory and the practice of mastery-based assessment.  These are some of the same resources that inspired us, and we are confident that they will help you to articulate your own vision for mastery-based assessment:

• Sal Khan, “Let’s Teach for Mastery, Not Test Scores” (TED Talk) -- The case for mastery-based education and assessment, from the founder of Khan Academy.  Highly recommended.

• Kareem Farah, “Building a Culture of Revision, Reassessment and Reflection in Pursuit of Mastery” (Education Week) -- Modern Classrooms co-founder Kareem discusses the importance of the “new 3 R’s” in building a mastery-based classroom.

• Rob Barnett, “A D.C. Teacher’s Bold Vision to Improve Scandalously Poor Student Performance” (Washington City Paper) -- Modern Classrooms co-founder Rob explains why mastery-based learning is essential for students and teachers in struggling schools.

Example Mastery Rubrics

One tool you may want to consider creating is a flexible, subject-specific rubric that you can use to assess student mastery on regular, informal assessments.  (We recommend that you create assignment-specific rubrics for major projects, tests, etc.)  You can see a few examples of rubrics like these below.

Your Turn!

The final task of this module is to design a mastery-based assessment plan for your own classroom.  This should clearly indicate:

• 1. The criteria you will use to determine whether students have mastered a specific skill or standard (and thus to determine whether or not they are ready to move on),

  2. The actual types of assessments you will use to measure student mastery, along with any rubrics that you will use for these assessments.

Please answer the reflection questions in your Unit Planning Template, and then present your plan for mastery-based assessment.

Module 4 Self-Assessment

Take a few minutes to reflect on your learning about mastery-based assessment, through the survey below.

One module to go!  Please move ahead to Module 5: Metacognition.