Pushing For Mastery

Hey

Hope you didn’t miss me too much. Let’s get straight to it…

Big idea 🍉

There are a few things that the most effective teachers tend to place a slightly greater emphasis on, with substantial impact.

Some of these are curricular: like thinking really hard about exactly what they want their students to learn. Some are cultural: like demanding more because they believe in their students. And some are pedagogical: like encoding lots during explanations.

There is one final tendency I want to pick up on: the pursuit of mastery.

The most effective teachers I've seen consistently push their students to demonstrate mastery. What do I mean by this? Basically, knowing the thing really well. Getting to the point where students can recite their times-tables quickly, under pressure, while being tripped up. Where they can outline the causes of various events, from multiple perspectives, with ease. Where they can recreate the nitrogen cycle from memory, without hesitation, and explain each step different orders.

How do they achieve this? There are many things, but one of the biggest is the sheer volume of retrieval they do with students. They practise more, and they practise more often.

In education, we tend to over-emphasise acquisition over consolidation. We think of learning as being mainly about new stuff, rather than remembering. To the point where we sometimes don't even think of practice as learning.

This is an error in how to think about teaching.

Consolidation is at least as important as acquisition. Partly because, without it, knowledge can't be accessed and so can't be used. But also because the very act of consolidation, over time, restructures that knowledge. It builds connections, forges patterns, helps us see things in new and different ways. Retrieval doesn't just ossify knowledge, it actively grows it.

As Doug Lemov puts it: don't teach till they get it right, teach till they can't get it wrong.

🎓 For more, check out this new paper on learning and memory.

Summary

• The most effective teachers push students towards mastery, where knowledge can be used under various conditions.

• Sometimes, we overemphasise acquiring new knowledge over consolidating existing.

• This matters because consolidation restructures knowledge, builds connections, and deepens understanding.

Little updates 🥕

• Paper on growth mindset → finds it can support maths attainment (although the effect is smaller than socioeconomic status).

• Longitudinal study on teacher knowledge → shows our pedagogical understanding improves significantly during the first 15 years (at least).

• Paper on board games and learning in math(s) → suggests they have the potential to boost geometry knowledge.

• New framework on inclusive teaching from Ambition Institute → connects teaching theory and practice to key areas of needs.

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