Promoting excellence through mastery learning

James H. Block University of California, Santa Barbara M astery learning is a topic currently creating much controversy and excitement in national and international education circles. The controversy centers around mastery learning's views about human potential to learn and teach; the excitement around mastery learning's classroom practices. This article provides an introduction to mastery learning. See Anderson and Block (1976), Block (1971, 1974), Block and Anderson (1975), Block and Burns (1976), Bloom (1976) and Torshen (1977) for more detailed treatments. First, the article defines what mastery learning is. Then it examines how mastery learning works. And lastly it indicates how well mastery learning works.