Teaching to Mastery

Teaching to Mastery

Teaching to mastery is a key component of Direct Instruction (DI) programs. DI programs are designed so that tasks are carefully scaffolded, and lessons contain a manageable amount of new material. Each lesson contains 10–15 per cent new material, which allows students to master the content in each lesson.

All exercises in RMT 4–5 should be taught to mastery. If students can master content in each lesson, we can be confident that they have the prerequisite skills to be successful in the next lesson. This does not mean that students won’t make mistakes. If errors occur, the teacher should correct the error and repeat the exercise until students are have a firm understanding. The goal is that by the end of the lesson students are 100 per cent correct after the teacher has provided error corrections and firmed exercises. You will learn more about error corrections in the next activity.