| News
& Views
- Aug, 1993 Issue #23 |
MASTERY EDUCATION AT ORME
SCHOOL
Todd Horn, Headmaster
Mayer, Arizona
602-632-7601
Orme School in Arizona,
a non-Special Purpose boarding school, is instituting several
initiatives stemming from recent research in how children
learn. "The first is curricular. Current educational research
indicates that students learn best when mastery of concepts,
rather than coverage of material, is emphasized.... Courses
will be designed for different mastery levels, rather than
grade level.... As the brain functions best in integrated
learning exercises, introductory math and science courses
are being combined." Much of this comes from the concept called
MASTERY EDUCATION.
"MASTERY EDUCATION is a concept
very much related to the latest business management buzzword
'TQM' (total quality management).... Adapting TQM principles
to education via the mastery concept involves taking similar
quality control methods of business and applying them to the
education process.... The main emphasis in mastery education
is to enable students to master concepts at a certain level
before they progress to the next. By realizing that all students
do not learn and can't advance at the same rate, the intent
is to modify the existing curriculum to allow students to
work at a level they are adept in, rather than assigning
With the expectation that 'success
breeds success', students will be encouraged to excel in areas
where their talents and interests lie, rather than placing
undue emphasis on the broad based coverage of different material.
"The faculty and administration
are confident that we will do a better job of educating if
parents, students, and ultimately colleges, are comfortable
with the fact that students have advanced through levels of
proficiency within a subject area, rather than just complete
selected coursework."
Copyright
© 1993, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper
publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
|
