The idea behind mastery grading
Traditional grades average everything, including the first attempt at a hard skill and the last. A student who struggled in week two and nailed it in week six carries the early score for the rest of the term. Mastery grading flips that: what matters is where the student ended up on each skill, and they get chances to get there. The mastery learning tradition goes back to Benjamin Bloom, whose 1984 work argued that most students can reach a high level of mastery given enough time and good feedback. ClassSense gives you the tracking half of that. The feedback and the time are yours.
How a state is decided
For each skill, ClassSense looks at a student's practice answers and assigns one of five states:
| State | Roughly means |
|---|---|
| Not started | No answers yet |
| Struggling | Recent accuracy below about 40%, or a poor start on very few answers |
| Developing | Roughly 40% to 70% |
| Approaching | Roughly 70% to 85%, or high accuracy without enough evidence yet |
| Mastered | At least five answers at about 85% accuracy, with consistent, recent results across a spread of difficulty |
Those numbers are the working rules, and the labels are what you see on the grid. The point is that Mastered asks for more than one lucky streak. A student who gets three in a row right is Approaching until there is enough evidence behind it.
The teacher override
Practice data misses things. A student who clearly knows the skill from a conference, a lab or a paper test can be moved up by you. A student who guessed their way to Mastered can be moved down. To do it, open the student, find the skill, and Override the status. You must give a reason, and the override takes precedence over the calculation. It also stops the later re-check for that skill, because your judgment is treated as final. See spiral review for how re-checks work.
Use overrides for evidence, not for kindness. If you move a state because you saw the student do the skill, that is mastery grading working as intended. If you move it to avoid an awkward conversation, the grid stops meaning anything.
From mastery to a grade
ClassSense does not do this step, on purpose. No letter, no percentage for a course, no conversion table. The overall mastery figure you may see averages every published skill and counts any skill not yet attempted as zero, so it is not a grade and should not be copied into a gradebook as one. Your options are yours:
- Count skills at Mastered against the skills you expect by now.
- Use the four-point scale your school already has and decide what each state maps to.
- Combine app mastery with other evidence: lab work, writing, presentations.
Whatever you choose, tell students and parents the rule in advance, in one sentence they can repeat.
Running it in practice
Publish the unit's skills
Students work through the skill packs at their own pace.
Watch the grid weekly
Look for stalled students and skills nobody has secured.
Reteach and let them retry
Small groups, a new explanation, another round of practice. Retrying is the whole point.
Record in your own system
Enter the grade where your school keeps it, by hand, on the date you choose.
The honest limits
- Evidence is multiple choice. Mastered on the grid means strong performance on those items, not on essays or labs.
- No gradebook sync. Not to Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology or anything else.
- Practice is not a proctored test. Students can retry and may help each other, so treat the states as evidence for you to weigh.
For related reading, see mastery tracking, competency-based learning and standards and learning targets.
Common questions
What does Mastered mean in ClassSense?
At least five answers on a skill at about 85% accuracy, with enough consistency and recency behind it. A teacher override can also set the state.
Can I change a student's mastery status?
Yes. Override the status on a skill and give a reason. Your override takes precedence over the calculation.
Does ClassSense give a final grade?
No. It tracks skill states and an overall mastery figure, but turning that into a grade is your decision, and nothing syncs to a gradebook.
Can students retake practice to improve?
Yes. Practice can be repeated, and the state updates from their answers.