Zen-derived sense-of-mastery account of mastery learning's accumulated benefits¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The paper develops an account, drawn from Zen training traditions, in which a learner intensely focuses on a very small domain, masters it, and then uses "this sense of mastery as a guide to the tackling of new tasks." The traditional Japanese arts student began "by the tedious mastery of a very small domain," then, having achieved mastery once, knows what mastery feels like and can accomplish it again. The paper parallels this with Japanese students working on just one or two mathematics problems and with Mastery Learning's emphasis on mastery at one stage before moving to the next.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Learners must achieve mastery in an initial small domain so the felt sense of mastery can guide subsequent tasks

Constraints¶

• The paper states that whether Mastery Learning students develop a generalizable sense of mastery is an aspect that has yet to be investigated

Target Learners¶

• elementary school mathematics students

Target Learning Objectives¶

• deep mastery of mathematics problems
• transfer of a sense of excellence to new tasks

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

Examples¶

• Teach fewer mathematics problems more deeply rather than covering more problems broadly

Key Sources¶

• Waddington, Tad S. H. (1995). Why Mastery Matters. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED394982