Mastery Teaching

Variables in Education

Teacher Decision Model

Content Decisions

Task Analysis
Task analysis is the ordering, in sequence, of learner behaviors necessary to meet an objective.

Steps involved in Task Analysis

• Identify the objective
• Develop a baseline -- In order for students to be able to meet an objective they must possess certain entry level skills.
• Establish the criteria for determining mastery of the objective
• Brainstorm to identify components of the objective
• Determine which are essential components and which are desirable components
• Develop a sequence for instruction

Diagnosis and Prescription
Steps in the diagnostic/prescriptive process

• The teacher selects a long range objective.
• The teacher performs a task analysis of the long range objective, identifying the skills needed to achieve the objective.
• The teacher designs, implements and evaluates a diagnostic instrument to be used in determining the learner's needs.
• The teacher prescribes an educational plan based on the results of the diagnosis.
• The teacher designs an appropriate lesson or series of lessons to teach the necessary skills to meet the long range objective.
  Rules for diagnostic instruments
• Short (half hour or less)
• Easy to administer
• Easy to score
• Provide yes/no answer to student mastery of concept
• Range - floor to ceiling (simplest to most complex)
• Order - easy to hard
• Build in success (include questions the least capable can do)
• Include complexity as well as difficulty (Bloom's Taxonomy)
• Answer several questions with one instrument (eg. various forms of plural endings)
• Avoid conflicting factors (remove distracting elements)

Factors Affecting Motivation

• Concern: Create anxiety or tension - not so much as to divert the learner's energy.
• Raising level of concern
• Visibility
• Accountability
• Short time - no help
• Lowering level of concern
• Invisible
• No consequences
• More time - extra help
• Feeling Tone: Pleasant, Unpleasant, Neutral
• Interest: We are motivated to do things which interest us
• Success: Success tends to stimulate interest. Success requires putting forth effort into something possible to fail in.
• Knowledge of Results: The more feedback provided the more the learner is likely to become motivated to improve performance.
• Intrinsic/Extrinsic: Both are effective, with intrinsic motivation the chance of reward is 100%.

Factors Affecting Rate and Degree of Learning

• Meaning: Relationship of new learning to student's past experiences.
• Active Participation: Overt/Covert
• Degree of Original Guidance: How well something is learned in the first place.
• Hemisphericity: Both hemispheres of the brain engaged.
• Knowledge of Results: Specific and immediate.
• Level of Aspiration: Set by learner.
• Modeling: Simultaneous verbal and visual.
• Motivation: (intent to learn)
• Practice Schedule: Massed for new learning / distributed for old learning.
• Reinforcement: Positive / Negative / Extinction
• Transfer: Positive / Negative
• Vividness: Different than anticipated.

Factors Affecting Retention

• Meaning: Relationship of new learning to student's past experiences.
• Degree of Original Guidance: How well something was learned in the first place.
• Feeling Tone: We remember best the things which seem pleasant, to a lesser degree the unpleasant, and almost nothing of those things which have no feeling tone attached.
• Positive Transfer: Occurs when one learning experience assists with a new learning; esp. as similarities are noted.
• Negative Transfer: Occurs when one learning experience interferes with new learning.
• Practice Schedule: Short practice for a short time: Massed, then distributed. Followed by specific knowledge of results.

Transfer

• Transfer refers to how old learning affects new learning. (facilitates or hinders)
• Transfer is important for:
• Problem Solving
• Decision Making
• Creativity
• Transfer affects (increases or decreases) time required for new learning.
• Transfer results from an individual's perception (conscious or unconscious) of elements in a present situation as similar to elements in a past situation.
• Teaching to Promote Transfer
• Promote a Perception of Similarity
• Identify and label the similarity
• Provide Examples that:
• Highlight the similarity
• Avoid ambiguity
• Relate t the learner's knowledge and experience
• Eliminate distracters (emotional, perceptual)
• Keep nonrelevant material constant
• Contrast exemplars with nonexemplars to highlight the difference
• Simulation
• Pair Desirable Associations
• Teach Generalizations
• Rules
• Critical attributes
• Identify the critical attributes
• Present simple, teacher generated examples (label the critical attributes)
• Present more complex teacher generated examples (label the critical attributes)
• Solicit student generated examples
• Identify the limits (exceptors)
• Promote a High Degree of Original Learning

Practice

Question 1: How much material should be presented at one time?
Answer: A short meaningful amount.

Question 2: How long should a practice period be?
Answer: A short time so students exert intense effort and have intent to learn.

Question 3: How often should students practice?
Answer: New learning - massed practice. Old learning - distributed practice.

Question 4: How will students know how well they have done?
Answer: Give specific knowledge of results.
The 3 M's
Meaning: The learner understands what he is learning and why he is learning it.

• Explain whole - part relationship
• Establish relevance wherever possible

Modeling: The teacher demonstrates the correct procedure desired.

• Remember the first exposure "sets the cement."
  
• Remember that modeling is a powerful
  psychological tool

Monitoring: The teacher gives close guidance during initial stages of learning.

• Check to see that work is correctly done.
  
• Adjust work to needs of individual child.

Reinforcement

Positive Reinforcer: Anything desired or needed by the student. It strengthens the preceding response and makes it more likely to reoccur.
Negative Reinforcer: Anything unpleasant or not desired by the student. It weakens the response preceding it.
Extinction: A response is extinguished by withholding reinforcement.
Schedule of Reinforcement: Regular at first, then intermittent.

Seven Step to Planning Behavior Changes

• Identify the behavior to be changed - and the replacement behavior
  
• Decide what constitutes positive and negative reinforcers.
  
• Determine if negative reinforcers are needed or if extinction will work.
  
• Develop a strategy to get the child(ren) to practice the new behavior and reward it every time.
  
• As the old behavior is likely to reoccur, remove any negative reinforcers and substitute extinction.
  
• Change to an intermittent schedule of reinforcing the new behaviors.
  
• Know the old behavior may spontaneously reoccur, but now you know how to achieve the new behavior.

Questioning Procedures

• Plan your questions.
  
• State the signal first - - then ask the question.
  
• Expect loud, clear answers.
  
• Ask the questions - - then wait 3 -5 seconds following the question and following the answer.
  
• Do not repeat questions or responses.
  
• Avoid asking a question of someone you know does not have the answer.
  
• Use proximity and eye urging.
  
• Provide prompts.
  
• Make mistakes productive. (Dignify the student's response)
  
• Ask the question, then call on the student.
  
• Split long answers.
  
• Give neutral response for higher level questions.
  Questions to Avoid
  
• Yes/No
  
• Tugging questions
  
• Guessing questions
  
• Leading questions

Monitoring and Adjusting

What is it?
Observing learner behavior during the lesson and choosing appropriate alternatives when necessary.
How do you do it?
A teacher monitors by having students overtly demonstrate what they are learning, interpreting the information and appropriately adjusting the lesson when necessary.
Why do it?
• To communicate the expectation of achievement.
• To determine the initial accuracy of diagnosis and prescription.
• To assess progress toward the achievement of the lesson objective.
Who does it?
The teacher generates overt behavior, interprets it, modifies the lesson and keeps records.
When do you do it?
• When certain symptoms appear - - confusion, too many questions, material becoming too difficult, boredom, off-task behavior.
• At critical points in the lesson -- times during input as determined by task analysis.

Sponges

Definition
• A learning activity that "sops up" or makes good use of waiting time that would otherwise be wasted.
Purposes
• Provide students with an opportunity for additional practice in a selected area.
• Fill idle time when discipline problems often develop.
• Review previously learned material.
• Provide opportunities for interaction.
Criteria
• Wide range - must be applicable to a wide range of students.
• Easy in/easy out - the activity can start and stop at any time.
• Minimal materials - best when they require no materials at all.

Hemisphericity and use of a Chalkboard

• Say it before you write it.
  
• immediately engages the brain
  
• no guessing errors
  
• silence to process into short term memory
  
• Use only key words: diagrams should be simple (don't bring an elephant into the classroom to teach the color gray)
  
• Position equals relationship
  
• Erase old material before writing down new material.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Differences Between Deficiency and Growth Needs

• Individuals act to get rid of deficiency needs (e.g. hunger): they seek the pleasure of growth needs.
  
• Deficiency motivation leads to a disagreeable tension and restoration of equilibrium; growth motives maintain a pleasurable form of tension.
  
• The satisfying of deficiency needs leads to a sense of relief and satiation; the satisfying of growth needs leads to pleasure and a desire for further fulfillment.
  
• The fact that deficiency needs can be satisfied only by other people leads to dependence on the environment and to a tendency to be other-directed; growth needs are satisfied more autonomously and tend to make one self-directed.
  
• Deficiency-motivated individuals must depend on others for help when they encounter difficulties; growth-motivated individuals are more able to help themselves.
  

Educational Implications of Maslow's Theory

• The implications of Maslow's theory are provocative. One down-to-earth implication is that a teacher should do everything possible to see that the lower level needs of students are satisfied so that they are more likely to function at the higher levels. Students are more likely to to be primed to seek satisfaction of the need to know and understand in your classes if they are physically comfortable, feel safe and relaxed, have a sense of belonging, and experience high self-esteem. Since the satisfying of deficiency needs involves dependence on others and since teachers have the primary responsibility for what takes place in the classroom, it is worth emphasizing again that you, the teacher, play an important role in the need gratification of your students' needs. The more effective you are in assisting them to satisfy their deficiency needs, the more likely they are to experience growth motivation.
• Even though you may do your best to satisfy the lower level needs in this hierarchy, you are not likely to be successful in establishing a situation in which all your students will always function at the highest levels. A girl who feels that her parents do not love her or that her peers do not accept her may not respond to your efforts. If her needs for love, belonging, and esteem are not satisfied, she is less likely to be in the mood to learn. Only when the higher needs come into play is a person likely to choose wisely when given the opportunity. Maslow emphasizes this point by making a distinction between bad choosers and good choosers. When some people are allowed freedom to choose, they seem consistently to make wise choices. Most people, however, frequently make choices that are self-destructive. Maslow explains this by describing growth as it takes place under ideal circumstances and as it, ore often, actually occurs:
• Growth takes place when the next step forward is subjectively more delightful, more joyous, more intrinsically satisfying than the previous gratification with which we have become familiar and even bored... the only way we can ever know what is right for us is that it fells better than any alternative. The new experience validates itself rather than by any outside criterion. It is self-justifying, self-validating...
• Then arises the inevitable questions, What holds the child back? What prevents growth? Wherein lies the conflict: What is the alternative to growth forward? Here we must become fully aware of the fixative and regressive power of ungratified deficiency needs, the attractions of safety and security, of the functions of defense and protection against pain, fear, loss, and treat, of the need for courage in order to grow ahead.
• Every human being has both sets of forces in him. One set clings to safety and defensiveness out of fear, tending to regress backward, hanging on to the past, afraid to grow... afraid to take chances, afraid to jeopardize what he already has, afraid of independence, freedom and separateness. The other set of forces impels him forward toward wholeness of Self and uniqueness of Self, toward full functioning of all his capabilities, toward confidence in the face of the external world at the same time that he can accept his deepest, real, unconscious Self.
• Growth, as Maslow sees it, is the result of a never ending series of situations offering a free choice between the attractions and dangers of safety and those of growth. If a person is functioning at the level of growth needs, the choice will ordinarily be a progressive one.

The Archetypal Teaching Process
(lists of strategies are by no means complete)

Madeline Hunter Lesson Design: "Archetypal Teaching Process"

	Writing Process	Content Reading
1. Anticipatory Set	Pre-Write (fluency) fast write, brainstorming, clustering, mapping, drawing, journals, learning logs	Pre - Read curiosity arousal, bubble puzzle, brainstorming, prediction guides, agree - disagree
2. Statement of Objective Purpose
3. Instructional Input	Write (form) writing, composing, directed assignment "showing, not telling", essays, poetry, "I-Search", sentence syntax modeling	Read selective reading guides, literal/applied interpretation levels of comprehension, concept guides, pattern guides
4. Modeling
5. Guided Practice	Re-Write (corrections) editing, revising, response groups, grammar, mechanics	Review / Reinforcement event sequencing, questioning strategies, context puzzles, prediction guides (review), definitions and meanings
6. Check for Understanding
7. Independent Practice	Post Write (publishing)	Extension