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Alex Randall
FIAE Chapter 2 This chapter is on the mastery of knowledge. I enjoy the quote from Benjamin Franklin: "Tim was so learned, that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant, that he bough a cow to ride on" (p. 11). I read on and saw that Howard Gardner says that understanding "...involves the appropriate application of concepts and principles to questions or problems posed" (p. 11). So, essentially, mastery is more than just knowing information; it is about understanding and application. Reading further, the Six Facets of Learning are mentioned as proof that someone has mastery of a topic. The chapter goes on to talk about the difference between mastery and non-mastery and then has a section on "Determining What's Important to Master" on page seventeen. This chapter made me think about the importance of mastery because there are clearly things that we should be expected to master. However, there are also going to be things that we will push out of our minds. Often times, friends of mine will talk about how they survived high school by studying and learning the material and then, when it was no longer needed, they completely threw it out of their minds and forgot. What is sad about this is that this is usually how a lot of schools and teachers work because they have to pump so much information into our heads so that we can get good test scores and move on. So, when thinking about mastery, I end up brainstorming (as I read) about ways to help my students master information and the easiest way to do that is to make what you are teaching MEAN something. To be taught as something actually significant. Something that they do not simply need to memorize for long enough to spit it back out on a test and move on.

Ethan Guthrie Herrell
Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Chapter 2

Of course, a great question teachers must always be asking themselves is, “What exactly am I assessing these kids for?” Is what I at first thought they needed to know as important in the modern world as I once believed it? Does a student actually understand how democracy works, or does he just list checks and balances? Ultimately, it is this central question, and often as much the confusion or lack or answers that has created so much conflict over education, perhaps as much as bad answers. Terminology sometimes causes the problems rather than clarifying them. What does “smart” mean? Do we want schools to give equal access or equal success? Do we teach timeless values and lessons present since the days of Aristotle and Plato, or do we teach kids vocational skills to fill the labor needs of an increasingly technologically centered world? Do the goals of differentiated instruction match any one of these? Or all of them?

The chapter settles on the answer that the education process changes something about the students thinking, such that their view of the world is different. They don’t come out of it with a list of factoids and basically the same outlook or personality. No, they need something more than that.

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Sam Leal
Chapter 2 in FIAE brings up an important topic in teaching to think about: What does it mean to master the material? One thing I know and that this book highlights is that mastery means something different for everyone. I’m going to develop a different definition of mastery than my coworkers will. For me will mastering the content be the only way for a student to receive a 100. Probably not, I probably won’t always even consider myself a master at the material, but I do want to assess the students understanding. Understanding to me is a step above knowing the material. Knowing it might mean you memorized it and can do it again without any help, but understanding is when you have learned it, it stays with you, and you can make applications of it. Another topic I pulled from the chapter and stood out to me is determining what’s most important for the students to master and understand. Curriculum and textbooks are huge and it would be unbelievable to expect for a student to learn, understand, and master all of it. This will be something that’s a work in progress as a new teacher. The book lists resources that will help in sorting out what’s most important. In my classroom and what I’ve learned in the past in my math classes is that assessments typically are where teachers will put what they want the students to really learn and understand. I believe that will be one way I’ll highlight what’s most important.

Elizabeth Sargent
FIAE Chapter 2: Mastery

“Tim was so learned, that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant, that he bought a cow to ride on”(11). This quote by Ben Franklin helps illustrate the issue of teaching students too much curriculum without making sure students understand any of it. As teachers, we cannot simply teach to get through to a grading period to show which students are or aren’t doing well. We need to teach for understanding, so that students can master the concepts that we throw at them. That they can access, analyze, evaluate, and create new learning and ideas from previous learning.

In the classroom, it is often hard to access if a student has mastered the concept. There are many ways in which one can access learning, and I recommend as many as you can possibly do. As a teacher, I need to learn how to track my student’s progress through multiple assignments and evaluations. In the classroom, I cannot just look to see if my students grasp the concept. I need to see total understanding and mastery of their future ability to apply this concept when needed to real life situations. Have a variety of resources will help me in and out of the classroom. Colleagues, guides, standards, benchmarks, textbooks, and reflections will all help me create good lesson plans that target not just differentiated instruction but mastery. What constitutes as mastery can vary from teacher to teacher based on the subject. I know I have to be able to prune out the parts that students can live without, and make sure they truly understand the ones they will indefinitely need.

Colby Hill
FIAE Chap 2

Although I agree with this chapter immensely, I do remain a little bit skeptical. I want to teach my students master. I want to teach my students proficiency. I want to teach the students more than just facts so it settles into their long term. The more I think about it, the more daunting it is, and the more it seems unlikely to happen. The students all learn differently, so can each student achieve master if not taught to their learning style? Can every single topic become mastery? Does that take too much time? I assume it does, and that is why teachers don’t focus this proficiency idea on every single matter brought up.

Page 16 refers to the idea of memorizing vocab words and then receiving an A. Instead, identify misspelled words in general, or use previous knowledge to discover a new one. I hope to do something along these lines. In my practicum class students answer questions from the book //The Giver.// When the students answered the questions they literally //answered// them. That was it for them. Misspellings included “machore,” “relest,” “colect,” and many others. All of these words were in the book if the student would have given it the time of day to double check. To get a student to do this would be something I could see myself doing. Take a point off for each spelling error—and some of these kids would have failed if this had applied for them. Maybe this will help the students become proficient, both with spelling and double checking their work.

Karina Sprague
This chapter was mostly about the importance on comprehension and understanding. Although I agree that students should learn to understand and comprehend, I do not believe that students should have to go into great depth when understanding something. Honestly, most of the stuff that teachers spend too much time on is the least important stuff, and students are bound to forget some things, anyway. I know I forgot a lot of things, no matter how in depth the teacher went. However, I strongly agree that students should never have to memorize things without having to prove or apply some sort of understanding. For example, students should not have to memorize definitions that they will never use again. Lessons like this are a waste of time and energy for both the students and the teachers. If I was to do a lesson like that, I would carry the vocabulary words throughout the course. This way, students will use the words in many contexts and they will become familiar with it without having to memorize it.

I also agree that teachers should track their students’ progress and understanding. It is unfair to the students to judge their understanding based on one worksheet, one problem, or one test. It is very possible that stress outside of class would cause the student to be distracted and perform poorly. Likewise, it is possible that the student could cheat or guess correctly. This is why they should have multiple forms of assessments so the teachers can gauge their progress and understanding more accurately.

Jordan Hale
‘Having mastery’ or ‘demonstrates mastery of’ are two phrases thrown around in education way too loosely. Chapter 2 tried to normalize and help describe what is meant by //mastering a subject.// The definition I agree with most, is that given from the Center for Media Literacy, “If we are literate in our subject, we can: access (understand and find meaning in), analyze, evaluate, and create the subject or medium” (12). In my head, mastery means to understand front and back. I believe this definition describes mastery ‘front and back’. There are two ways to get acceptable evidence of mastery. By using multiple assignments, and tracking the progress of a few important works over time (13), it is easier for teachers to check for mastery.

One question I had that I am glad they answered was how to determine what was important to master. Luckily, on page 17 there is a list that helps answer that question. I will definitely talk to colleagues to determine the mastery topics. Also, standards from the state will definitely shape where I need to focus my lesson plans. On the other hand, I don’t believe that textbooks are a great guideline for essential mastery. Textbooks are out to help us, but sometimes it is easier to teach if you don’t follow the chapters in the book because you might need background information that the students don’t have yet. After talking to a lot of teachers, one theme seems to come up that this book has covered; personal reflection will help mold your lesson plans more than anything else. Seeing what works and what doesn’t can help aid the teaching for the better.

Cidney Mayes
The most crucial concept in chapter 2 is the idea of beginning with clear and precise objectives of what we want students to learn before differentiating instruction. It is also important to consider what the definition of “mastery” is, as it can differ from teacher to teacher and school to school. An educator must begin with the end in mind, if they are to differentiate their instruction purpose. Knowing what students should be able to do by the end of a lesson or unit will allow the teacher to make informed choices about the types of differentiation to use in their teaching and the types of assessment to gauge student learning. By defining the concept of “mastery”, or what we want students to achieve, it is easier to build lessons and units that have purpose.

As an educator using the Backwards Design model, this makes perfect sense. Beginning with the end in mind, or have clear definitions of mastery and what I want my students to be able to do, will allow me to create units and lesson with purposeful differentiated instruction. When I know what I want to be assessing my students for, I can choose appropriate activities, lessons, and assessments that will help students reach those goals and acquire skills needed to obtain mastery.

Emily Haskell
Chapter 2 FIAE

I think one of the most important things to take away from this chapter is the idea that “anyone can repeat information; it’s the masterful student who can break content into its component pieces, explain it and alternative perspectives regarding it cogently to others, and use it purposefully in new situations” (Wormeli 12). We have to teach to students in such a way that they really and truly understand the material.

Then we have to assess them in such a way as to prove their overall understanding and mastery of the concept. Like the author says, you cannot simply ask one question and use a student’s answer to gauge their understanding. You cannot just give them a short quiz or test at the end of the week either. In the book the author uses the example of a vocabulary quiz. Though the kids may memorize the words it does not really ensure that they know how to spell them or understand their meanings.

I have also seen quite a bit of this in the schools as well. Last week the students taught their own lesson and learned about homonyms such as too, to and two, your and you’re, and their, they’re and there. They had a quiz on all of these homonyms and many of the students did fairly well on the quiz. However, later in the week I assigned a project where the students were to retell a common fairy tale from another perspective.When correcting the stories this week I saw that nearly all of the students had used the incorrect words. This is a prime example of how memorization does not equal mastery.

Spencer Hodge
Chapter two of Fair Isn’t Always Equal addresses two extremely important questions concerning teaching: what is mastery and how do we measure it? Wormeli says that having the ability to just regurgitate information is not good enough; students need to be able to actually understand the content and be able to use what they have learned outside of the testing environment. Teaching for mastery can be achieved by acknowledging the six facets of true understanding: Explanation, Interpretation, Application, Perspective, Empathy, and Self-Knowledge. This also ties into the Backward Design Model that we learned about in class; it is a beneficial tool because it provides a framework for how to plan lessons with purpose. Examples of things that do not help with the true understanding of the content are things such as busy work and extrinsically motivating students with awards. In the school setting collaboration among professionals is key; it will be easier for the students if everyone is in agreement on the content the students should learn, and generally have more support. The chapter also gives the advice of using multiple assessment techniques. When students are given more opportunities, they are more likely to succeed.

As a social studies teacher, it will be less important for my students to know specific dates in history, but to understand important concepts and themes throughout time and throughout the world. I will try my best to engage student in actively learning about the “deeper meanings” in social studies.