Neil Pergament is a founding Assistant Principal at Brooklyn Frontiers HS, a Mastery Collaborative Active Member. He describes here how he supports experienced teachers who are new to a mastery system.
Brooklyn Frontiers High School has been doing outcomes based grading since we first opened in 2011. Having said that, over the years we’ve experienced many of the same road bumps that schools new to mastery encounter. Here’s a bit about how we handle them...
Supporting experienced teachers with practice shifts of mastery learning
We’ve had many experienced teachers join our team who, before working with us, only taught within a traditional grading system. Switching over to the mastery based approach has been challenging for these teachers, but we do several things to ensure teachers successfully transition to mastery-based teaching.
Set expectations: When we hire teachers we let them know that every class in our school is based on outcomes based grading.
Establish structures: In our orientation for new teachers we devote a lot of time to our structures and systems for outcomes.
Give support: We schedule time for each teacher to meet with other teachers in their department around how the outcomes work in their academic subject area.
Personalize feedback: I personally meet with teachers to go over their specific course outcomes and to support them in using these outcomes to drive instruction and to grade students.
Supporting experienced teachers with mindset shifts of mastery learning
“The big difference is that, instead of just giving these assignments and grading them, each of these assignments has to be clearly aligned to the specific outcome(s) for the course”
From this work I have a sense of the biggest struggle that experienced teachers have in transitioning to a mastery-based approach: the major concern many teachers express is that they will no longer be able to do many of the things that they found valuable and that worked in their previous schools.
Teachers have expressed concern that in a mastery-based approach they can’t give essays, multiple choice questions, Regents style tests, mid-terms, etc.. I assure teachers that, in our grading system, you can do every one of these things.
The big difference is that, instead of just giving these assignments and grading them, each of these assignments has to be clearly aligned to the specific outcome(s) for the course. You need to be clear and purposeful as to what is included in the essay, Regents-style test, or multiple choice questions. It means some redesign of material. Instead of simply giving a bunch of multiple choice questions, the questions should all be aligned to the course’s predetermined learning outcomes. Then, instead of just giving a number grade that averages how many questions were right or wrong, students will be graded according to how well their responses demonstrate understanding of the given outcomes. A test, essay, or piece of homework is only given if it’s aligned to the outcomes of the course.
“Once teachers truly see and understand that in a mastery system they don’t have to lose approaches that they know are effective and that positively support students, much of their anxiety and apprehension go away.”
Once teachers truly see and understand that in a mastery system they don’t have to lose approaches that they know are effective and that positively support students, much of their anxiety and apprehension go away. This process can take a while. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve told teachers who are new to our school that they can give a test or an essay in a mastery system, but they still hold off because they still see mastery based grading as somehow different from or incompatible with these approaches. Once they come around they understand how you can not only do these tasks, but also how in pushing yourself to clearly align them to the outcomes, you make the assignment more purposeful and ultimately more effective in supporting the students.
Neil Pergament, Assistant Principal of Brooklyn Frontiers HS
In 2000 I started working as an English teacher at Bushwick Outreach Center/Bushwick Community High School, a transfer school for overaged, undercredited students. In 2011 I was part of the team that created Brooklyn Frontiers High School, a high school for students who've been held back multiple times in middle school and for students who are unsuccessful in high school and want to transfer to a new school for a fresh start. I've been one of the AP's at Brooklyn Frontiers since 2012. I enjoy reading, movies, music and spending time with my family.