Using Mastery Checks to Assess Student Learning

To be useful, the assessments you give students must meet two conditions. First, assessments must be appropriately challenging at the moment when they are given. A question that’s clearly too hard or too easy for any individual learner wastes that learner’s time—not to mention your time spent grading it. Second, assessments must provide both you and each learner with clear guidance on that learner’s next steps. If your assessments don’t, what’s the point?

You may already have good assessments planned. But if you assess your whole class at once, you won’t appropriately challenge each learner—your questions will be too easy for some and too hard for others—and the results may not clearly indicate what to do next. If half your class shows understanding and the other half doesn’t, for instance, whose needs should you prioritize?

Regular simultaneous assessments (such as daily Exit Tickets) are rarely worth the time and effort they require. Instead, I recommend that you:

1. Identify questions that cover each of your learning objectives.

2. Give each learner one of these questions when and only when that learner is ready to demonstrate understanding of the objective(s) in question.

I call questions like these, which assess understanding of specific learning objectives at the moments when learners are ready to demonstrate it, Mastery Checks. Mastery Checks show you and each of your students whether or not they have understood a particular lesson’s content. And because students take them only when ready—which is what I mean by “just-in-time”—they are always appropriately challenging.

More importantly, Mastery Checks tell you whether or not each of your students should advance to the next lesson. If a student has understood Lesson 1, they should move on to Lesson 2. If not—and if Lesson 1 is worth learning, as all lessons should be—then they should go back and master Lesson 1 first.

implementing just-in-time Mastery Checks with your own learners

Cover one learning objective per Mastery Check. If your Mastery Checks are too frequent or cover too little, you’ll be inundated with assessments to review. If your Mastery Checks are too infrequent or cover too much, they’ll take longer to review, and they won’t provide you or your learners prompt or clear insight into next steps. Effective Mastery Checks, therefore, cover a single learning objective; learners in your class should ideally take a new Mastery Check once per day or so. This lets you track and respond to learners’ needs without making class an endless stream of assessments.

Use what you’ve got. Creating Mastery Checks from scratch can be a lot of work, so try to find existing questions that cover your learning objectives. If you’re not sure where to find questions like these, I suggest looking at school- or district-provided curriculum, or at corresponding questions on standardized year-end assessments.

Make Mastery Checks brief and efficient. The best Mastery Checks contain one or two questions, which you can grade in a minute or less. (The faster, the better.) This helps you focus narrowly on the learning objective in question, and lets you review each learner’s work—and determine their next steps—as quickly as possible.

You can also use online platforms to assess learners’ understanding, but I prefer paper Mastery Checks for two reasons. First, making students show mastery on paper helps ensure that each student will demonstrate their own understanding: if your Mastery Check is online, a student might get help from a friend or relative at home. This defeats the purpose of Mastery Checks, which is to see what each learner individually understands.

Second, I’ve found that seeing students’ work on paper facilitates feedback. In my experience, automated feedback from a computer just isn’t as relatable as feedback delivered with a human touch, and sitting down with a learner over a piece of paper often stimulates better conversation than does looking together at a screen. Taking the time to review Mastery Checks yourself also helps you understand where your learners may need extra support.

And if you’d like to try different forms of Mastery Checks, go for it! I’m always in favor of experimentation. I’ve seen lots of Modern Classroom educators do lots of different things.

Outline clear criteria for mastery. On each Mastery Check, both you and your students should understand: what exactly constitutes mastery for the learning objective in question? Mastery doesn’t require perfection: David can understand composite functions, for instance, and still make calculation errors. But mastery does require that he know how composite functions work. In my math classes, therefore, my Mastery Checks required students to apply the proper problem-solving techniques, even if they made minor mistakes. You’re the expert in your own content area, so you know what real understanding looks like for you. Make that clear to your learners, and you’ll set everyone up for success.

Finally, once your criteria are clear, you can ask learners to self-assess before starting any new Mastery Check. This is a great exercise for learners, who can reflect on what they do and do not yet understand. Pausing to reflect also increases the chances that learners will demonstrate mastery the first time around: if they aren’t yet ready, they can go back and review first.

Create multiple versions of each Mastery Check. In a large class, you may have several learners take the same Mastery Check simultaneously. To minimize the risk that students copy from one another, I recommend creating (or finding) multiple versions of each Mastery Check. Having two versions is a good start; if you’re able, having three or even four versions is ideal. Creating multiple versions of each Mastery Check also facilitates reassessment: you can show a student the correct answer to a failed Mastery Check, then give that student another version to try again.

Keep your Mastery Checks organized. Students should take Mastery Checks as soon as they are ready, so it’s important that you and your students can access each Mastery Check as quickly as possible. When organizing your Mastery Checks, you have a few options. Some teachers prefer to keep Mastery Checks themselves, so that students can’t see in advance what questions they’ll be asked. These teachers often carry around a folder or binder of Mastery Checks so they always have the right one ready. Other teachers store Mastery Checks in a place where students can access them independently, as soon as students are ready. This means that students can see how they’ll be assessed in advance, and take just-in-time assessments without waiting for their teacher.

Other teachers prefer to give Mastery Checks only at specific times. You might let students take Mastery Checks only at the start of each class period, for instance, or only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This limits the “just-in-time” nature of Mastery Checks, but for good reason: it creates a clear structure, encourages students to be better prepared for each Mastery Check (as their chances to show mastery are limited), and reduces some of the organized chaos that just-in-time mastery assessment can create. You want Mastery Checks to be efficient, but you also want learners to take them seriously—this will maximize their chances of success, and give you fewer assessments to grade too. (Students will need to reassess less often.) As with all Modern Classroom practices, you should find the option here that works best for you and your learners.

Ensure individual assessment. No matter how you design or administer Mastery Checks, it’s essential that learners complete these assessments individually. This tells you whether or not each individual student is ready to advance, and prevents any learner from advancing before they are ready. One way to achieve this is to require that students take their Mastery Checks in the independent-work area of your classroom. Some teachers install dividers between desks to reinforce the importance of individual assessments, while others print Mastery Checks on colored paper. These strategies remind students to complete Mastery Checks independently, and help ensure that students do.

Ultimately, just-in-time Mastery Checks fulfill the real pedagogical purposes of assessment: they tell you what each of your learners actually understands, and give you the information you need to respond accordingly. And because learners take them only when ready, they don’t waste anyone’s time.

Excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, from Meet Every Learner's Needs: Redesigning Instruction So All Students Can Succeed by Robert Barnett. Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. This book is available wherever books and eBooks are sold.