Descriptions: This article is related to student masteryconnect. The writer primarily tells you mastery-based and self-paced learning which were started by a school board in Piedmont help the students and community improve themselves and have a brighter future.
This is our city of Piedmont, we’ve nestled at the foothills of Appalachians. It’s a small city with 5,000 residents, but over the last couple of decades, we have had our textile base such as cotton mills, factories that started in the 90s. As a school board, we have a responsibility to change the outlook for our children. The traditional instruction in this country has lasted to the middle and last year at Piedmont Middle School.
We started mastery-based and self-paced learning. Every student is on a team. We have stayed with the team for three years. It’s like a family. We get to know them. I know every standard that they passed. I know who’s behind. We meet three days a week. Our mastery connect tracker tells us much information about where you’ve gone or where you need to be.
The students can articulate and explain their ownership of where they are and where they’re learning. This is what I know and this is what I don’t know in that conversation between teacher and students. It has changed one of the things that we’ve started this year with a growth of mindset.
Every year, I hear the children say, I can’t do that, I’m not smart enough. So we try to get them to understand it even if I don’t know this answer or I do not know how to do it at this time. I can always learn how I think. That’s the key.
Maybe their parents did not graduate from high school or they didn’t go to college. But you can make them have high expectations. That’s the key. I think that we will achieve them when they pass that standard, the high-fives and the fist bumps. I did it. That’s what I live for.
Sometimes the test might take the children four or five times to take it. Finally, they passed the test. It’s more important that we celebrate it to create a new self-image for themselves. Children feel good about themselves, it means something.
There’s something going on in that community. I want to be a part of it. We think that they’re stronger. We want to empower our community and our next generation with the way to do that.