Abstract
Children differ greatly in what they know and are ready to learn when they enter school. However, when their individual needs are assessed and addressed, even very young children can learn and can greatly surpass grade-level expectations. This chapter discusses the partial implementation of a research-based personalized mastery-based learning ecosystem (PMLE) that uses My Math Academy, a games-based learning program and personalized teacher resources to deliver learning outcomes for young children at scale. The implementation of the My Math Academy PMLE with nearly 1000 prekindergarteners at a high-need school district resulted in significant learning gains, including gains beyond grade level, despite large learner variability in students' prior knowledge and learning progress. Teachers also felt empowered to deliver differentiated instruction, building on the personalized learning students experienced through My Math Academy. Results showed that the PMLE framework can help close equity gaps and help children excel in ways that defy expectations.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Personalized Mastery-Based Learning Ecosystem (PMLE): The PMLS plus all components that exist outside of the PMLS, including all the people (e.g., the learner, peers, teachers, parents, and caregivers, etc.) and offline materials (e.g., worksheets, projects, teacher-led lessons, parent-child interactive content, etc.). The PMLE encompasses and is driven by and informs the PMLS ( Betts, Thai, & Gunderia, 2021 ).
Adaptive Instructional Systems: A class of software that is used to optimize instruction for a learner or groups of learners by tailoring instruction and recommendations to the learner or learners’ needs, goals, and/or preferences in a specific learning domain.
Learner Variability: The individual variations that occur among learners due to the naturally differentiated development of young children, their family background, the environment they grow up in, and the experiences they have. These variations impact how children learn and acquire skills.
Personalized Mastery-Based Learning System (PMLS): An adaptive instructional system developed by Age of Learning that includes the instructional design, data collection, analytics, and information delivery mechanisms (i.e., through dashboards) to assess in real-time what the learner already knows, doesn’t know, and most ready to learn next, and deliver appropriate instruction and scaffolding at a granular skill level ( Dohring et al., 2020 , 2021 ).
Personalized Learning: An approach to instruction that aims to customize instruction for each student based on each student’s unique skills, abilities, preferences, background, and experiences.
Mastery Learning: An approach to instruction proposed by Benjamin Bloom (1984) that requires students to acquire knowledge and demonstrate mastery of a skill before moving on to successive ones, and that delivers instruction through appropriately individualized scaffolds, feedback, and enrichments.
Objects of Change: A term coined by Benjamin Bloom (1984) in his seminal paper referring to the four factors that when modified or enhanced would have the greatest potential to increase student achievement. The four objects of change are the learner, the instructional materials, the teacher quality and methodology, and the learner’s environment (at home, school, and socially).