SummitLearning is an organization that helps implement personalized learning in K12. In their curriculum I've read, the emphasis is on learning skills and growth in learning more than on measuring the distance to specific achievement levels (as in traditional grading). What references, in addition to Bloom's work on mastery learning and it's large subsequent research base, and Jain et al. are there to support this approach? Or is Mastery Learning sufficient to justify the approach of Summit Learning?
Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning for Mastery. Instruction and Curriculum. Regional Education Laboratory for the Carolinas and Virginia, Topical Papers and Reprints, Number 1. Evaluation Comment, 1(2). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED053419
Jain, C. R., Apple, D. K., & Wade, E. (2015). "What is Self Growth?" International Journal of Process Education, 7(1). Retrieved from http://www.pcrest.com/research/2015%20What%20is%20Self%20Growth.pdf
https://www.summitlearning.org/
http://www.pcrest.com/research/2015%20What%20is%20Self%20Growth.pdf
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED053419
Might it be that teaching skills is perceived to be easier, and therefore learning objectives will be more likely to be met, than teaching subject-specific conceptual knowledge?
I would hypothesise that Summit learning's model is based on research that is a composite of several issues.
It appears to be a design process that aims to maximise the desired outcomes of these research issues.
Why choose growth in learning skills? Probably as Ian Abrahams suggests it is easier to measure as growth because it has been described in levels implying growth. I am not in the American system, but a look at the subject curriculum suggests that it is framed in a way that is unsuitable for description as a growth model, hence the choice of learning skills as the primary measure.
Thank you, Mark and Ian.
Rephrasing what I read from your answers: Measuring growth (vs learning skills themselves) is easier than getting every student to grow sufficiently to be above the cut score. By ensuring that students are always making progress and rewarded for it (as opposed to a deficit model or slicings of the normal curve where they are judged deficient) is the best way to keep their cooperation (ie engagement) in the learning process knowing that some take longer to get there based on many factors, including where they start from. The different theories explain how the cooperation is maintained and the mastery model is the method used, and the SummitLearning "grading system" is the adaptation to the American model that fits well enough with expectations.
Is the remaining research question the following?
Determine the relative value of rewarding learning skill growth (call it level 2 or meta-cognitive) and rewarding growth (call it level 1 or cognitive). The research method would include measures (metrics) of learning capacity and careful measurement of implicit learning skill growth reward (control) vs explicit reward for learning skill growth (experimental).
It could be done somewhere, SummitLearning or other mastery learning program, where the growth (level 1) is the measure of learning productivity per unit time, even if the ultimate evaluation is whether mastery was met.
All constructive criticism is welcome as are any references to frameworks for measurement of metacognitive skills.
Just to check my understanding of your purpose: you want to research the relative motivational impact of measuring growth in learning skills vs measuring growth in cognitive skills. Is that correct?
Also I think I understand this "Determine the relative value of rewarding learning skill growth (call it level 2 or meta-cognitive) and rewarding growth (call it level 1 or cognitive)" but not so sure what you mean by this "careful measurement of implicit learning skill growth reward (control) vs explicit reward for learning skill growth (experimental).". Would you mind clarifying the latter?
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