Teaching for Mastery

by Mark McCourt

There are many models of schooling; some work, some don't. Mastery is an entire model of schooling with over 100 years of provenance, its impact has been researched for decades, with many of the world's greatest education minds testing and refining the approach. It's one of the models of schooling that actually works. In this book, Mark McCourt examines the history of a teaching for mastery approach, from its early beginnings to the modern day when cognitive scientists have been able to bring further evidence to the debate, demonstrating why a model that was first proposed in the 1910s has the incredible impact on both pupil attainment and attitudes to learning that it has had all around the world over many decades. Drawing on examples from cross disciplines, the story of mastery is one that all educators can engage with. Mark also draws on his own subject, mathematics, to further exemplify the approach and to give practical examples of pedagogies and didactics that teachers can deploy immediately in their own classroom.

Genres: Education, Teaching

329 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 28, 2019

Reviews

[Jon Howlett]

It's such a unique privilege to read a book about something you think you know a fair bit about and realise you are in fact a moron compared to the author.

[Olly Colluphid]

Hmmm...

Lots of positive stuff but lots of problems too.

Firstly it's nice to read a "general" education book with the emphasis on maths. Most general books seem to think that all subjects are basically humanities. They aren't. But this isn't a general book either: it's maths.

Also he redefines terms (ability for example)for rhetorical purposes. I'd love to hear how we can set based on his definition of ability, and also he has an issue to address that ability as he defines it is orthogonal to attainment and setting on it would give mixed attainment classes which I don't think he likes.

He is right about the conveyor belt problem but seems to blame schools and teachers: this is a problem built into our system from the top.

There are other issues too.

BUT there is a lot of good and thought provoking stuff in here too. I'm glad I've read it.

The writing is pretty awful though.

[Sarah Stainbrook]

Useful, evidence based and well-articulated ideas about teaching in the first 111 pages. The rest of the book seems discipline-specific to mathematics. Still a worthwhile read for the first bit.

[Kevin Fulton]

The book is well researched and there is a useful, brief history of mastery teaching at the beginning:
But I did not particularly enjoy the writing.