What is Mastery-Based Learning?

January 11, 2023 Robert Barnett

Mastery-based learning is one of the three core practices of a Modern Classroom, alongside blended instruction and self-pacing. But what does the term mastery-based learning really mean?

You may have heard the term ‘mastery’ used in different contexts - both in and outside of education. And unfortunately, it’s one of those terms that means something different to everyone. In the context of a Modern Classroom, mastery is the goal for each lesson. We begin our lesson planning process by first asking, “What skill do I want my students to master from this lesson?” and working backward from that central point. Together, let’s explore:

How this might differ from other takes on mastery
The history of mastery-based learning
The theory behind the concept
How mastery evolves throughout a student’s educational journey

Mastery-Based Learning: A Definition

The basic idea of mastery-based learning is that learners progress from one skill, activity, or lesson to the next only when they have shown that they are ready to advance. In other words, they move to more complex learning tasks only once they’ve shown an authentic understanding (mastery) of the fundamental skills they need in order to truly learn (master) those complex tasks. In a mastery-based learning environment, each new thing that students learn builds on itself, helping students develop sophisticated skills and understandings that prepare them for complex learning. The progression from lesson to lesson prevents learning gaps from forming, and also helps learners develop confidence and self-esteem along the way.

Mastery-based learning is like building a pyramid. First, you need to build the bottom layer. Then you build the next layer, and the next, and the next… all the way until you reach the top. You can build pretty high! But you can’t get to the top unless you’ve built a solid foundation first.

Mastery-Based Learning vs. Traditional Learning

Mastery-based learning seems pretty logical. But if you think about it, most classes don’t operate based on mastery at all. Instead, the teacher delivers the same lesson to all learners each day - whether those learners have the background knowledge and skills to achieve mastery, or not! If a student misses a day, they are lucky if they can access the practice work the class completed in their absence. But most will never be able to access the instruction they missed unless they can meet with their teacher one-on-one. In these courses, learners advance based on the teacher’s calendar - not their skills or readiness. This means that learners may develop gaps that never really get fixed.

Here’s an example. Imagine that you’re taking a US History class, and you’re learning about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Except you’re sick on the day that the teacher explains the Constitution. The next day, you come back, and your teacher is teaching the Bill of Rights.

If you step back and think about it, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Bill of Rights was a direct response to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it contains the first 10 amendments to the Constitution! It’s impossible to truly understand the Bill of Rights without understanding the Constitution - not to mention the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, etc. But if you missed the day when the Constitution was taught, you’re out of luck.

Mastery-based learning provides an alternative approach. In a mastery-based classroom, you wouldn’t learn about the Bill of Rights until you’d shown that you understood the Constitution. That way, when you get to the Bill of Rights, you’d be truly prepared to understand it.

This type of learning is more student-centered, but educators struggle to make the shift without the infrastructure and support they need to learn a new method of instruction.

Other Examples of Mastery-Based Learning

This approach doesn’t just apply to U.S. History classes! Here are some of the many ways that mastery-based learning might work in other subject areas:

English: Making sure that students have understood Chapter 1 of a novel before assigning them Chapter 2, or making sure that students know how to write a topic sentence before assigning them to write a paragraph (or an essay).
Math: Making sure that students are comfortable adding before teaching them to multiply, or making sure that students can graph linear functions before asking them to graph quadratics.
Science: Making sure that students have understood the safety procedures before performing a lab, or making sure that students have properly formed a hypothesis before conducting an experiment.
World Languages: Making sure that students can use the present tense before moving to the past or future tenses, or making sure that students understand key vocabulary words before asking them to present on a topic.
Media Literacy: Making sure that students know how to use a tripod before starting to record videos, or making sure students know the different features of a camera before using it.
Band: Making sure that students know how to read the notes before attempting to play their instruments, or making sure that students know the rhythm before playing together.

You’ll notice that I’ve used the term “making sure” many times. That’s because it’s what mastery-based learning is all about: making sure that students are truly ready to learn the next skill or piece of content.

If we ask students to learn content or skills that they aren’t prepared to access, then we risk setting them up for failure.

How does Mastery-Based Learning Work?

Mastery-based learning sounds great in theory. But how does it actually work? Is there really any practical way for educators to ensure that every student is working on something they are truly ready to master?

In my experience, there is. In fact, it’s called the Modern Classroom Model! The entire point of our blended, self-paced approach is to set classrooms up for mastery-based learning.

Here are the two techniques we use to facilitate mastery-based learning:

Blended Instruction. In Modern Classrooms, educators replace traditional direct instruction (teacher lecturing from the front of the room) by creating their own instructional videos. The teacher is still teaching, but each student can watch the video on the content or skill that they are ready to learn next. If students already understand the content, they can move to the next video; if students struggle to understand, they can rewind or rewatch. (To use my example above, the student who was absent can watch their teacher’s video on the Constitution, while a student who already understands the Constitution can watch their teacher’s video on the Bill of Rights). Each learner is working on a lesson they are truly prepared to master.
Self-Pacing. Students learn different things at different speeds, so they need to be able to set their own paces. Instead of choosing a pace that is too fast for some learners and too slow for others, teachers in Modern Classrooms create structures - such as progress trackers and lesson classifications - that help learners stay on track while achieving mastery at the pace that works for them. Every learner gets the time they need to reach true mastery, and the teacher is there to provide support as needed.

Creating a mastery-based learning environment that uses blended instruction and self-pacing is not easy - it requires commitment and careful planning. But Modern Classrooms like these provide the conditions for each learner to achieve true mastery.

Is this just the latest fad in education?

It’s true that Modern Classrooms often use modern technology to facilitate mastery-based learning. However, the ideas of mastery-based learning go back hundreds of years, long before the idea of an instructional video ever existed!

Consider the one-room schoolhouse. These schools, which often served students of varying ages under the supervision of a single teacher, were, by necessity, mastery-based learning environments: because it didn’t make sense for all the students to learn the same thing every day, students progressed through the curriculum based on their own understanding, with the teacher there for support.

Or, think about the way that you learn things outside of school. When you’re learning a new skill, you have to start from the bottom and work your way up, getting progressively better as you go. It’s like learning to run - you can’t just start running when you reach a certain age. First you need to crawl, then walk, then run. This is mastery-based learning at its purest.

So if you really think about it, it’s not mastery-based learning that’s unusual - it’s the one-size-fits-all system that we consider “traditional!” That system reflects the demands of industrialization and efficiency much more than it reflects the way that humans actually learn.

What we at the Modern Classrooms Project are trying to do is to use modern technology to return learning back to its fundamental human roots.

Other Approaches Involving Mastery

Fortunately, we aren’t the only ones promoting this more natural approach to learning. As you read about innovative approaches to education, you’re likely to come across terms that seem similar to mastery-based learning. Here are a few of those - and how they compare to mastery-based learning.

Mastery-based grading: This typically refers to grading systems that replace the traditional 0-100 scale with a scale that’s based more explicitly on student understanding. It may also refer to efforts to replace standard report cards and or GPAs with descriptors based on students’ mastery of particular subjects or skills.

We like this term a lot - in fact, we used to use it! (You’ll still see it in our Edutopia videos.) However, we moved to the term “mastery-based learning” in order to emphasize that the entire learning process, and not just the outcomes of grades, should revolve around mastery.

Mastery-based assessment: I’ve heard this in the context of alternative methods for formative and/or summative assessment. Rather than giving a multiple-choice test, for instance, a teacher might allow students to demonstrate their understanding through a project- or performance-based task.

These kinds of assessments are fantastic - we love project-based learning and assessment - but, again, the focus on assessment didn’t go far enough for us. In our opinion, everything that happens in a classroom, including but not limited to assessment, should be designed to foster mastery.

Mastery-based progression: This term reflects our fundamental idea of mastery - students should progress through a course or unit based on their understanding. We ultimately decided against using this term, however, because “progression” felt more technical than did “learning” - and we want everyone (students, parents, administrators, etc.) to understand mastery-based learning as easily as possible.

Competency- or proficiency-based learning: Many educators prefer these terms to mastery, which makes sense to us. Whenever we see others talk about competency- or proficiency-based learning, we know they are speaking our language.

The reason we’ve chosen the term mastery-based learning over these is because we feel that the word “mastery” implies a degree of expertise that the alternatives don’t. We want our students to be true experts - masters - in our content, rather than simply competent or proficient.

With that said, we understand that others may feel uncomfortable with this term, and we encourage those educators to choose the language that works best for them! Part of what we love about our model is that it is so customizable to individual educators’ contexts, beliefs, and preferences.

Ultimately, we’ve chosen to focus on mastery-based learning, as we feel that it’s the most comprehensive term. It isn’t just grading or assessment that should be built around understanding - it’s the entire learning experience! And we feel that the term “mastery” best reflects the high standard of understanding we want every learner to achieve.

How to Foster Mastery-Based Learning

You now know everything you need to know to get started with mastery-based learning. (If you’d like to learn more about the history and theory of mastery-based learning, see the additional resources below). So, how can you get started?

As I hope I’ve shown above, mastery-based learning can transform your entire approach to teaching and learning - but that doesn’t mean it needs to be intimidating. Here are three things you can do, today, to support the development of authentic mastery in your own classroom:

Create a Mastery Check. Think of mastery like a checkpoint in a race - students need to get through it to get to the end. For your next lesson, create a checkpoint by defining the one question that every student must answer correctly to advance - then promise that you’ll make every student get it before they move on. If you like, you can access our Mastery Check Template to get started.
Test your own understanding. We’ve created a five-question self-assessment that you can complete to test your mastery of mastery-based learning! You’ll have the chance to earn a digital badge upon completion.
Take our Free Online Course. We’ve built a completely free online course that helps educators implement all three elements of our instructional model: blended instruction, self-pacing, and mastery-based learning. Each of these three elements supports each other - like a three-legged stool - and the course is designed to walk you through both the theory and practice of each. You’ll also have the chance to hear from real teachers who use mastery-based learning every day, and to earn a certificate of completion as well.

Creating a true mastery-based learning environment won’t happen overnight - it requires commitment, experimentation, and constant nurturing. But if you commit to making it work, you can!