There is a difference between truly understanding a subject and being able to rattle off facts on it. When one can explain, interpret, apply, have perspective, emphasize, and display self-knowledge concerning a subject area's event or idea, then they have truly "mastered" the understanding of the subject. For example, an example of mastery as compared to non-mastery is listed on page 13: Mastery: "The student uses a variety of basketball passes during a game, depending on the most advantageous strategy at each moment in the game. Non Mastery: The student uses primarily the bounce pass in the basketball game regardless of its potential effectiveness because that's all he knows how to do." What if the kid who only did the bounce pass won the game, but so did the student who used the most "advantageous strategy"? Does that mean that the bounce-driven student was just as good as the one who used multiple passes? No, it just means that some dumb-luck may have been involved.
What's the best way to determine whether a student has mastered a skill? Well although the book didn't call it by this name, they suggested a set-up similar to backward design, which is something I plan on using in my future classrooms. Why do I want to use it? Backward design allows you to pick a goal first, and puts secondly how to tell if a student has mastered the goal and curriculum. By working backwards with the ultimate goal closer in mind, I think it will be easier to decide how to define "mastered" for that particular lesson.
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