Aysnchronous Mastery Learning
These are my notes and takeaways from the session Aysnchronous Mastery Learning in a Hybrid Classroom from Science teachers, Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams from Woodland Park, Co. I first found out about these guys about a year ago from THIS STORY. These guys have inspired me quite a bit and I’ve shared their story with a lot of teachers. This should be a good session.
Welcome. Intro. “Jon is into triathalons and I’m into beer” -Aaron
Jon talks about the strengths and weaknesses of brick-and-mortar and online classrooms. They choose to create a blended/hybrid classroom to capitalize on the strengths and minimize weaknesses. The have a f2f class in which the lectures and instruction are done via podcasts. They pre-cast their lectures and make them available on the school network. Students can take them home on the laptops, cell phones, ipods, flash crive or dvd. Students watch these at home and then to their homewmore during classtime, essenitally flipping from the traditional method. They call the Reversed Classroom.
They build their course by unit and create one 15 minute podcast per objective. The course is “almost” self paced and students advance to the next unit based on mastery. Teachers pass out a check list at the beginning of each unit listing objectives, podcasts, assignments, labs, informal assessments and tests for each unit. Most assessmnet and differentiation is done verbally and it stengthens connections w students. Each checklist item is a 1 or 0 and teachers walk the room checking progress and understanding every day. Test grade must me 75% before students can move to the next unit. They are calling this Mastery Learning.
The role of teacher has changed to more of a coach. They not a performer (except on the podcasts), but more of an interactor now. The benefits they are seeing are: 1. students as indepentent learners,2. no gaps in leaning because it it is mastery based, 3. immediate feedback, no place to hide, daily connection with students.
NOTE: They do have a “slush unit” at the end. It is a non-essential unit to cover for the slow kids, who may not make it that far ina year.They don’t believe in grading for seat time, so when a kid has mastered all objectives, he’s done. Even if that is in April. Cool.
Check out their “mastery revealed” video…I think its this one…for more information. Also check out thier websites at educationalvodcasting.com and blendedclassroom.blogspot.com.
NOTE: I taught using this model (even though I didn’t know I was) for three years teaching Web Mastering in Irving ISD during 2003-2005. It worked GREAT for me, but their version is even better. This session today has convinced me to get back to work and build up a 2.0 version for my classroom for this fall.
Best session of my ISTE10 experience so far!
