Let's teach for mastery — not test scores by Sal Khan
The key information that I learned from the text was the negative impact that standardized testing has on students. Sal Khan talked about how students are given a set time to learn a set amount of information, then are tested on it. After the test they are shown what is wrong, but then given another set time and another set amount of information to learn before the next test. This causes the students to be learning new knowledge based with the wrong basics. He went on to talk about how students achieved better marks when tests and worksheets were given to suit the students abilities. He showed how studies done 100 years ago using this concept were very successful, but he felt it wouldn't scale to a full
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He talks about how this was the case 100 years ago, but now we have the technology to make it work. He stated the benefits of this, “One, students can actually master the concept. But they are also building their growth, mindset, they are building their grit their perseverance, they are taking agency over their learning. Instead of being focused on the lecture students can interact with each other, they can get deeper mastery over the material.“ Before ending his speech the last piece of information he gives us is that if we learned on mastery based teaching, people wouldn’t be discouraged from become a doctor or a cancer researcher or a mathematician. He explains that this is because they hit a wall where they don't know how to do something and they think I can't do this. Today's education would identify that they were wrong, but then move on with the next lesson, building on that incorrect information. Where mastery teaching would allow them to stay on