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 need to be changed to implement mastery based grading. Mastery based grading is focused on mastering the principles and then advancing to more advanced systems, compared to the traditional divide between age and seat time. Another benefit is that students move at their own pace, compared to being forced into more of a system. Students may move quickly through some material, and then take more practice and time implementing other principles. 
3. How do Students Demonstrate Mastery? 

There are various ways that students can show mastery of various principles including tests, assessments, talks, essays, etc. A common principle found in most Mastery based programs is that teachers collaborate about the best way to test the students mastery of subjects. This allows the teachers to grow in friendship and also gain additional ideas from each other. The focus of the whole system is to focus on mastery and learning compared to grades. The report cards don't have the traditional A,B,C,D,F grades, but instead focus on individual responses from the teacher about the students progress in various subjects.
4. Implementation-
Implementation is a tricky subject for mastery based grading, because it has not been implemented in its true form very often yet. We are so used to traditional grading that we know the pros and cons of the whole system. Educators are still discovering the pros and cons of mastery based grading. A couple principles that have helped in implementing mastery learning in the past are. Students who fall behind schedule need to get rapid help from a teacher, or tutor. A common way to help the schools be individualized is through modern technology. (ex-computer courses) This allows for the teachers to help students mastery the various principles without having to teach to all different levels. The implementation will be discovered more fully as it gets implemented more and more.