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How does a True Mastery-Grading System work?

1. Brief Overview  Mastery based learning is a system that helps students become proficient in the various subjects in school. The system achieves this by focusing on mastering various learning objectives set by the teacher or administration. The main purpose of mastery learning is to emphasis practice, persistence, and the opportunity for all students to succeed. In a true mastery based learning style, grades such as A, B, C, D, and F are not included in the report cards, but the report cards instead focus on what principles the students did or didn’t master. This style has recently been being pushed by famous educators including Sal Khan, an educator with his own mastery based online school. Khan mentioned this approach in a recent TED talk titled “Lets Teach for Mastery, Not Test Scores.” Mastery based learning has a lot of benefits, and provides ways for students to learn to their full potential. 2. How Students Advance? Interestingly enough the whole education system would
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Essay on Mastery Learning

Derek Schetselaar Dr. Smith English 2010 31 July 2017 Are Grades Failing Us? John F. Kennedy once said “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.” ( Satyamsuarezdash) Education has been a huge part of society ever since the beginning of time. It causes us to think about famous educators like Aristotle, Plato, Ann Sullivan, Einstein and many others, these great teachers changed aspects and thinking in their societies. As JFK said education has a profound effect on the progress of the nation. It’s interesting to think about how the United States is such a powerhouse by the world, yet has a sub-par education system compared to the rest of the world. Although it’s a controversial debate where exactly the United States education program falls in comparison to the world, one study that focused on measuring 15-year old’s in 72 countries in math, reading and science---said that the United States did not ran
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Evaluation of the Education System in Finland

Its interesting to think about how the United States is around 17th on the list of the most effective education systems in the world. Most people and countries consider the United States to be one of the most powerful countries in the world. Is this going to change with all these countries better educating their children? Tough to say, but today I wanted to look at one of the highest ranked education systems and what makes it so successful. The education system in Finland is very unique, and has some very interesting parts to it. Part #1- They don't start school until the age of 7- Finland allows kids to have a actual childhood. The children learn from growing up in the world. They learn very similarly to when a kid touches a stove and learns what hot is. The process of allowing these kids to have more of a childhood also allows them to be a little more mature and ready for sitting in class for long periods of time. Contrast that to the United States which starts their kids in s
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Article Response to-"Too smart to fail" by Joseph Holtgreive

Article Response             In an article by Joesph Holtgreive titled Too Smart to Fail, Holtgreive talks about students focusing too much on grades. Holtgreive starts off the essay by sharing an experience he had as a professor at Northwestern University. He had a student come in asking if she could drop the class after the drop date. After some discussion, he found out that she wanted to drop the class, because she had done poorly on the midterm exam. She was expecting that the class would be easy enough, where she could get an A without effort. Holtgreive points out that although she really liked the material discussed in class, she was not willing to learn it for a bad grade. He discusses that this is becoming widespread problem, and names two potential causes. Firstly, he talks about how students who breezed their way through high school creates a “inverse relationship between grades and effort.” He states that this means that when grades exceed effort the student feels smar
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Summary of Five Articles

Derek Schetselaar Dr. Smith English 2010 26 July 2017 Five Summaries Van Etten, Shawn, et al. "College Seniors' Theory of Their Academic Motivation." Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 100, no. 4, 01 Nov. 2008, pp. 812-828. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ823714&site=eds-live.             In the Journal of Educational Psychology, Shawn Etten, Michael Pressley, Dennis McInerney, and Arif Liem published an article titled “ College Seniors’ Theory of Their Academic Motivation . The purpose of the article was to enlighten the world to their study that they conducted about college students. The authors felt like in the past studies were created to prove a predetermined point that the study creators wanted to prove. This caused some bias in past surveys. The authors wanted this study to be more “Qualitative and inductive.” The study was conducted from a group of 91 college seniors
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Grades cause Students to Focus Less on Learning

Grades have a powerful effect on many students. Grades affect a variety of things including scholarships, GPA's, college admission, and future opportunities. It is natural for students to feel some stress about getting good grades in college. Additionally, grades help to influence students to study the material, prepare for tests, and strive for excellence in their assignments. There are however many issues that have come about because of the grading structure, which have caused many educators to look for other solutions. A major issue that has been noticed by educators in the United States is how students are focusing less on learning the material and more on getting good grades. Dropping Classes A determinant to the learning process of college aged students has been the fear of failure. The fear of messing up or getting a bad grade in a class can prevent a student from pursuing a major or class. An Engineering professor named Joseph Holtgreive at Northwestern University menti
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History of Letter Grades

School seems like it has been around for forever. At least that's what millennials think, ever since they were turned Preschool age they have been going to school. Day in and Day out students go through the same routine. They wake up and go to school, come home and repeat the process the next day. Additionally, the letter grading system has become ingrained into our very culture. Its common knowledge to know that an "A" is good and and "F" is bad. How did letter grades start? Why don't we have an E? Some things become such common knowledge that they are never given a second thought to why they work the way that they do. Well here's to changing that---What is the history of letter grades. In the beginning of the 1800's education was starting in the newly formed United States of America. The education at this time period was very limited, most classes had one teacher and a mix of all ages and backgrounds for the students. The education was focused o
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