Cole Camplese, Suzanne Beinert, and I were in a session at the Penn State "e-Education Council" meeting today, where we heard a report by professor James Sellers of the math department, in which he described the results of their new mastery learning approach to Math 21. The slides are available here: Math21-EEdCouncil.ppt. As you will see from slide 5, the program resulted in far more students getting a grade of "A" in the course, and approximately the same number failing the course. They allow each person to take each of the 12 tests up to three times, and when they reach 80% or higher the content is considered "mastered" and the student gets one point. At the end of the semester, students who have attained 10 or more points get an "A" in the course. As a student of Assessment and learning, what do you think about this approach? (Cole or Suzanne, anything to add?)
