The question we receive more frequently from students is, “If I do not do very well on a test, can I retake it?” Many times we hear students walking into our classrooms on the day of an assessment talking about the opportunity to “retake” a test before they even take the test! The answer to the question is, “No, there are no retakes.” Let me explain:
- A retake is providing an opportunity for a student to take the same test they took the first time and to show that they now know the information that was on the test the first time they took it!
- A retake is not a true test of what a student knows, it is a test that simply asks a students to go home, look over the test (and the answers), and memorize the answers to the test. In most cases (not all), this is exactly what takes place, the student simply memorizes the test and then retakes the same test, with the same questions, in the same order, and turns it in and is graded on their ability to memorize the information and not spend time learning from their misconceptions to create new meanings of the concept(s).
Granted, in life and in many professions, adults are allowed to "retake" an assessment, but is this due to convenience or is it because there is no other way to assess the information?
When we respond to a student question about retakes we respond with, “No,” but there is more to our answer. We then explain that we do not believe in retakes (using the examples and reasoning above), but we believe in reassessing student abilities and understanding of content that they may have misconceptions about and displayed those misconceptions on their test.
The reassessment technique(s) that we use are listed below (this list is not the only available reassessment techniques that are available to our students):
- We will sit down with each student, individually, to go over their test(s) with them. During our time with the student we may ask them to look over their test(s) and then provide us feedback on things that they notice are incorrect and provide them an opportunity correct their misconceptions right there. Some students are very particular in their methods of explaining/demonstrating their understanding of the content, so we provide ample opportunities for students to “show” us they know it:
- Verbally explain their understanding to the teacher
- Verbally explain their understanding using the Camera app on the iPad/iPod Touch
- Verbally explain their understanding using the Instacorder app on the iPad/iPod Touch
- Verbally and visually explain their understanding to the teacher using the Camera app
- Verbally and visually explain their understanding to the teacher using the ScreenChomp app on the iPad
- Use materials (manipulatives) to demonstrate and explain their understanding to the teacher
- Use materials (manipulatives) to demonstrate and explain their understanding using the Camera app on the iPad/iPod Touch
- Diagram and describe, through writing, their understanding on paper and submit it to their teacher
- Diagram and describe, verbally, their understanding to their teacher
- Other???
- If a student has a better why they would like to demonstrate their understanding of the concept(s), we are open to any/all suggestions and ideas!
- If a student is able to explain, demonstrate, etc. their understanding of the misconceptions they demonstrated on their test, we will credit the points that were lost when they took the test.
- If a student is not able to explain, demonstrate, etc. their understanding of the misconceptions they demonstrated on their test, we will then create an individual lesson plan (mini-lessons) for each student to help them clear up their misconception(s) over the content within a unit.
In the end, we would like for our students to understand the concepts before they move forward in the curriculum, which is the reason we are using the Flipped Mastery approach in our classrooms. For many years, we simply provide a grade and regardless of how well (or not so well) a student understood the information, we move forward in the curriculum, regardless. We were not (and in most cases are not) holding our students accountable and in most cases, our curriculum is set to build a foundation for the next unit we are going to cover. So, if a student doesn’t have the information that is needed for the foundation is it understandable why a student may continue to struggle in a class where the foundation has not been built before moving forward in building the structure? Math, along with many other subject areas, is a great example of how a continued push forward, before the information is understood, can lead to bigger issues later in the year, a few years down the road, and maybe later in life. We need to make sure our students have a good, solid foundation before we ask them to move forward, otherwise our foundation is unstable and creates the issues and problems we are facing in education!
As we have shared with our students, we understand that you just want to gather the information and then brain dump that information and move forward, but we are going to challenge you to think differently, act differently, and engage differently.
We want students to explain, demonstrate, write about, talk about, collaborate with others, and share what they have learned in a format the best suites their abilities, their learning style...period! If a student can do this, the student has proven that they know and understand the concept(s)...try brain dumping that information!!!
