MASTERY LEARNING: BENJAMIN BLOOM

The Outcome Based Education and mastery Learning started in the 1970s at the point that I was completing my Bachelor of Education from the University of Queensland. I really did not understand for several years, the significance of the study.

The foundation of Mastery Learning for me was set in place in 1964. I was having trouble with Grade 12 physics. So my parents sent me for a year on Saturday mornings to Hubbard Coaching Academy. What a pleasant shock as I found physics easy to understand.

The problem in Education of the 1960s was that assessment was elitist. Education was designed in terms of norm-referenced assessment. That meant that a percentage of students passed brilliantly. Most passed well and the rest failed. The curriculum was designed to let the genius be brilliant and others to pass while the tail failed.

The grade 12 physics book was designed so that there was limited problem solving so that the class genius could do well. Only the genius could solve the last two problems at the end of each chapter.

But Benjamin Bloom pioneered criterion referenced assessment. This meant that criteria and mastery exercises were set for all students to pass. But in Grade 12 mathematics exams in Queensland, the examiners were humane in the papers they set.

The Taxonomy of Learning and Benjamin Bloom - The Gold Scales

Levels of learning and knowing; A Look into Benjamin Bloom's Life Work;
Mastery Learning .... Taxonomy of learning is one help, mastery learning another.
Joy of learning can come by learning in a fundamentally positive way from the
start. ...oaks.nvg.org/taxonomy-bloom.html - Cached - Similar

Each question had two parts. The first required the student to reproduce the theorem learned by heart. The second part had a problem based on the theorem. So if the weaker student had learned the theorems, he would get almost 50% for the paper. If he could solve one or two of the problems, that was enough to pass overall.

Our physics text book at high school had about 12 problem exercises at the end of each chapter. That was not enough. The Hubbard physics book had about 150 problems just like exercises in the report below. The Hubbard Academy made the work easily understood for the weaker students.That applies to PNG students too.

The patron of Mastery Learning and Outcome Based Education was Benjamin Bloom who designed a Taxonomy of Educational Objectives some 50 years ago.

Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Reflections on the development and use of the taxonomy / Benjamin S. Bloom
Excerpts from the "Taxonomy of educational objectives ... handbook 1: Cognitive ...

krummefamily.org/guides/bloom.html - Cached - Similar

Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains

5 Jun 1999 ... However, Bloom's taxonomy is easily understood and is probably

Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. ..

www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html - Cached - Similar

IMPROVING SCIENCE EDUCATION USING MASTERY LEARNING ...

The mastery-learning model is suitable for new science and technology
education program, because, this new program aims to ... experiences gained
through the family, environment, and rate of ... If a reinforcement, student's
participation, feedback and and life. ... student along with the teaching activities
are positive, the ...www.idosi.org/wasj/wasj5(1)/10.pdf - Cached - Similar

It may be that the Department of Education of this country started Outcome Based Education without any understanding of Bloom's Taxonomy. This country has been poorly prepared. To go back to the old strategy is to ignore the higher levels of the taxonomy and just focus on KNOWLEDGE and perhaps COMPREHENSION.

There will be no ANALYSIS or APPLICATION of ideas. Students will not SYNTHESIZE what they have learned into their own plans and EVALUATE. No wonder students do badly at university particularly those studying overseas. Diplomatic passes do no one any good.