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Troubled Teens Mastery Learning at Abundant Life Preparatory

Abundant Life Preparatory is a Christian boarding school for troubled teens that has adopted a mastery learning program for struggling students. Here are the reasons why a mastery learning program, like the one at Abundant Life Preparatory is better for troubled teens than a normal public school program. 

Almost all school settings are scheduled by strict timelines. This creates a teach, test, and go on criterea that is not understood by struggling students.  If a student gets a D on chapter 1, they move on to chapter 2 with minimal instruction on how to improve. This doesn't change from chapter to chapter avoiding the real issue for most struggling students --- learning how to learn.

Abundant Life Preparatory focuses on the techniques and strategies that will help make struggling students successful in the learning process. Students must pass all tests and assignments with atleast  80%.  This allows teachers and students to focus on the student’s personal learning technique, to improve study skills and test preparation strategies as they retake tests as needed to master the content.  As study skills and ability increase, student confidence in the learning process improves, thus allowing students to develop newfound positive attitudes about school.

The Abundant Life Preparatory educational program is based on “mastery”, meaning that the student “masters” each component of each class before moving on to the next. Each class is broken down into small sections where they are able to grasp the material and score well on the self-paced tests. Our students don’t test until they’re ready, and there is plenty of time to finish each test. As a matter of fact, our teachers don’t allow a student to take a test unless they are confident that the student has studied well and learned the material. Our rebellious teens actually begin to like school again (some begin to enjoy school for the very first time). ALP provides the students with certified teachers who function as individual tutors (one-on-one instruction and support) rather than classroom instructors, thus giving personal attention to the student in need.