Abstract
This paper presents a case study detailing our experience applying a combination of Mastery Learning and Specs Grading to a section of a Discrete Mathematics course with 128 students. Our principle reason to use this pedagogy was to improve the learning outcomes of our students, so all students would have a good chance of succeeding, regardless of their previous experience. The course was focused on 10 main skill areas. Each week a new skill area was introduced and a quiz for that skill area was provided that week and each week thereafter. The quizzes were graded pass/fail, either they demonstrated complete mastery or they did not. Students who demonstrated mastery were no longer required to take the quizzes on that skill area in later weeks. The amount of extra work required for this approach with regards to grading was roughly twice as much as would have been required with a traditional midterm/final exam structure and three times as much for creating quiz questions. Despite this increase in the number of items that required grading, the overall time spent grading was greatly reduced due to the use of pass/fail grading. The Mastery Learning approach provided a strong incentive for students to attempt to master all of the core skill areas. By the end of the semester, 75% of the students had mastered at least nine of the ten skill areas. In this paper we discuss this approach and its implications for CS courses more generally.
