We all know that Khan Academy has revolutionized online access to education. I have even referred to it and used its resources for Advanced Placement U.S. History. It’s not just for math and science topics, you can learn so much on the website through the simple videos and explanation for multiple subject areas. The checkpoints allow students and teachers to check for understanding before moving onto a more complicated standard. Furthermore, it’s free, and democratically allows every student from every background in any corner of the world to benefit. Salman Khan discusses this in his Ted Talk called Let’s Teach for Mastery – Not Test Scores.
How do we account for the material missed?
During his Ted Talk, he discusses how our grading system is based on test scores that were developed during the industrial age and were structured as a pyramid that resembles a factory of bureaucracy. CEOS are on top which represents the As, the managers are represented by the Bs and the workers are the Cs and below. This system does not account for or respect mastery of the subject. When a student receives a 75% on a test, do we reteach the 25% of the material they missed? When a student receives a 95% on a test, what about the 5% they missed? Do we just ignore that 5% and applaud the 95%? Both students would move on to the next topic and are expected to perform at a mastery level even though they did not attain it.
For me, this reflected the weakness of the system if we treated doctors the same way. Would I really want a surgeon to perform my surgery if they missed 25% of the surgical material required to perform the surgery? Would I risk my life for a doctor who missed 5%? What if we told both doctors to review the material, practice more, and attain 100% before they are allowed to perform surgery? We actually do that. How come we don’t expect that same mastery performance from our students?
How can I allow students to become masters?
While listening to Khan speak, I was brainstorming how I can achieve a pursuit of mastery of a subject in my own classes. If I utilize flipped learning, students can learn topics using their own pace and relearn the material according to their own convenience. If they don’t have adequate notes, they can refer to the flipped videos. The flipped videos can also have detailed topics that allow students to explore the material in depth. In class, I often run out of time when I want to cover topics in-depth with examples and connections to the real world. I could do that in the flipped videos.
Another way I could achieve mastery is to allow students to look at their summative assessments and do test corrections. If that student who missed 25% of the material was allowed to look at every question they missed and figure out why they got it wrong and find the right answer instead. Would they most likely do better on the next assessment? I would think yes. Students would be less likely to hit roadblocks when covering the next topic.
With the transition from our society going from the industrial age to the information age, every student should have the opportunity to excel in any subject area they choose to become experts in. We don’t want students to graduate high school and become a jack of all trades but master of none. When students go into college, they should know where their strengths and weaknesses are and choose a degree based on that powerful knowledge. With personalized learning, flipped learning, and fluid assessments, students will learn for mastery, not just test scores as Salman Khan says.