Mastery Based Learning in Physics: Empowering your Child’s Educational Journey

The mastery of physics in school is something that opens the gateways to a child’s bright future in a variety of professions ranging from that of an engineer and a scientist to a professor and meteorologist. This is something that is well known to students in Malaysia who look forward to mastery in education. Quite often mastery in learning is achieved by way of project based education, which is why international schools in Senegal offering the Cambridge curriculum, as well as international schools in Malaysia are great votaries of it.

How to Achieve Mastery Based Learning in Physics

The Mastery Based Learning approach differs from traditional learning in that it does not follow a one size fits all approach in teaching the children. Unlike the traditional approach where everybody is taught the syllabus at the same pace, in this new approach the students are allowed to study and understand the concepts at her own pace, ensuring that nobody gets left behind when it comes to gaining mastery over physics. What’s more, under this approach the students are provided access to diverse resources that enable them to learn independently. Besides, this approach also encourages students to collaborate and consult with their fellow students in order to get a better understanding of the subject, by obtaining perspectives from others.This helps them hone their critical thinking abilities allowing them to grasp the subject better.

What Makes the Mastery Based Learning Approach so Impactful in Mastering Physics

• Bespoke Learning

The most striking aspect of the Mastery Based Learning approach is that it respects every child’s need to learn at his or her own pace. This allows the students to engage meaningfully with the subject based on their own appreciation of the various aspects pertaining to the subject matter. In other words, it lets the students assume ownership of the subject, leading to better learning. This is a major reason why many secondary schools in Malaysia are now adopting this approach to better cater to the unique needs of their students.

• Regular Advice and Feedback

Unlike traditional learning where one has to wait till a formal assessment occurs to learn how well one has understood he subject, the Mastery Based Learning approach has an ongoing feedback system that involves teachers clarifying the doubts and misconceptions of the students on the spot allowing them to have a real time peek into the progress they have made in learning the subject.

• Inculcates Self Discipline

Since the onus of earning is largely on the students themselves in the mastery based learning approach it inculcates a sense of self discipline in the students. They become more self reliant and, therefore, more confident leading to enhanced academic performance. This method aligns perfectly with the teaching ethos followed by international schools in Selangor and international schools in Malaysia, which emphasize fostering independence and academic excellence.

• Fear Free Learning System

One of the reasons why students often don’t fare well in subjects like Mathematics and Physics is their fear of criticism and failure. By allowing students to learn at their own pace and learn and relearn till they understand a concept, the Mastery Based Learning system ensures that they have no fear of poor performance, when it comes to learning the subject. This allows them to understand the concepts of physics much better than they normally would have.

Conclusion:

Mastery based learning in physics works so well because it is a very rational approach to teaching children to learn. By expecting everyone in the classroom to learn at the same pace is a very faulty premise to proceed from and naturally leads to far from satisfactory results, when it comes to how well students end up learning.

Allowing students to learn at their own pace and not forcing them to move on to the next concept without mastering one, lets them learn and absorb what they are trying to learn in a much better way. Besides the individual attention they get from the teachers and the assistance they get from their peers in helping them master a concept ensure that they learn in a very satisfactory manner indeed.

Physics is the kind of subject which cannot be learnt by rote and requires the students to thoroughly understand its concepts. A rushed approach can never help a student obtain mastery over it. The mastery based learning approach is a “scientific” one because it is based on understanding the psychology of a child when it comes to learning. Allowing them the time and space to understand the concepts of physics has a much better chance of finding success, instead of teaching all of them at the same pace regardless of the fact that every child has their own pace of learning.

Going forward one can expect more and more schools to opt for the mastery based learning system considering the fact that it is a very effective way of empowering the students to learn logic based subjects like physics. You cannot have a one size fits all or a cookie cutter approach to anything for it to succeed well and most certainly not for something like education.