Teacher who doesn’t offer retakes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In FCPS if something isn't mastered we are supposed to re teach and retest until the kid gets it. This is for elementary. The report card is based on whether they finally got the skills, not when.

That’s interesting...At my kid’s school they seem not to care about it. They only care about the donations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a third grade teacher and I don’t offer retakes.

I'm betting you are over 50, OP.

The idea of a rigid "sink or swim" approach to childhood education is very Old School. Is the goal to evaluate performance or to gain mastery of a concept or idea?
If your goal is mastery, then retake-retake-retake UNTIL mastery is the name of the game. If it's just to tick the Pass/Fail box and give a gold star to the kids who got it on the first go (either by studying or b/c they didn't need to!) then that is a completely different system.

And what about the kids who do all their homework, listen carefully in class, ask questions when they don't understand something, study hard for exams and basically take personal responsibility for themselves and their own learning... what are they learning? Aside from not to bother.

This is just yet another step in the direction of "a trophy for everyone" which anyone who has been paying attention can easily see has NOT been working out well for the youth of today.

My guess is you don't have multiple kids with differing strengths and abilities.
My son works *so* hard in school. He does his homework every day, on time. He also does extra work with me or DH. He listens in class, and his teachers report he participates and asks good questions. He studies hard all the time. He pretty much never forgets his homework, or loses assignments, or anything like that. He is absolutely the paragon of taking personal responsibility for himself and his learning.
And yet.... he doesn't get As on the first try. He works hard for Bs, and when he pulls out an A it's usually because he took advantage of relearning and retake opportunities.

Meanwhile, my daughter has very different strengths. School is easy for her and things come quickly to her. She doesn't work hard in school, rushes through her homework, yet still gets basically everything right. As are trivial. Her A on the first try on her tests aren't because she has some better work ethic or better personal responsibility.

I couldn't care less about DS getting a trophy or about DD getting the initial gold star. I want both my kids to learn and if it takes my son a little longer to learn things, than that's *way* more important to me than having my daughter think she's some uber-responsible kid just because she gets an A on the first try.

When do you think it would be reasonable for your son to get the Bs he deserves? Or you think he should continue getting As throughout high school and college? What about in the workplace? Should he be promoted and given opportunities over better candidates just because he's a nice kid who works hard? Surely it needs to end somewhere, right? (or not?) I'm curious where you think this ends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally, I don't think teachers should offer test retakes at any grade level. I do think that students should review their tests and make corrections for learning purposes.

Yeah, that's what used to happen in the good ol' days. We got our assignments and exams back, and we carefully checked them and figured out where we were wrong and why. But then again, those were the days where we had one shot. And we knew we were only going to have one shot the next time too. Making the same mistake twice, and having it cost us twice, was not an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach middle school math, and I love the effect of retakes. Students actually care about their grades now. Before retakes, a kid would fail a test, trash it, and walk out of the room and forget about it.

Now, they fail the test, and immediately ask what they did wrong, if they can have extra practice on the topic, and what I suggest they do to prepare for the retake. My after school sessions are packed with kids trying to solidify their learning. It's not free points--they have to do a remediation assignment, and retake a second version of a full length test after school. They are learning. My end of year state scores are higher than before, study habits are improving, and kids are more engaged.

This makes me cringe as a high school teacher as my freshman keep asking about retakes and ways for extra credit because they didn’t study for the test and didn’t take it seriously. We don’t offer retakes and have noticed that yes, students care more about their grades but that retakes are inflating grades and not helping with long term mastery of the content.[i] They have seen the test and are quickly memorizing to get a higher score. Study habits have gone downhill be they believe there is always another chance. You can’t meaure mastery by your SOL scores.

That really surprises me that you don't think/haven't experienced rework to improve long term mastery of the content.

I’ve experienced that a lot. We always review and have them correct mistakes because mastery of the content is vital. That’s different than offering retakes and changing grades. I’ve experienced that relearning to achieve mastery can absolutely be done without these open ended retake policies. You are partly hearing my frustration as a parent since my children attend an FCPS school with mandatory “retakes for mastery.” They accomplish this with old SOL questions and ecart. This is simply checking off boxes. No one is checking for deep understanding of content, application and mastery through multiple choice questions.

[Anonymous]

Test corrections are where a student relearns and can demonstrate mastery. However, these are generally done st home with a parent or a tutor. The test is where a student demonstrates his true comprehension of the unit—there are no teachers, tutors or parents helping. This is why quizzes are important so students can pace their mastery before the big test.

Retakes are not always the answer, and there are too many variables. Where does the cut off end — no retakes over an 80%?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test corrections are where a student relearns and can demonstrate mastery. However, these are generally done st home with a parent or a tutor. The test is where a student demonstrates his true comprehension of the unit—there are no teachers, tutors or parents helping. This is why quizzes are important so students can pace their mastery before the big test.

Retakes are not always the answer, and there are too many variables. Where does the cut off end — no retakes over an 80%?

Our FCPS middle school only allow retakes under 80% and even if you score 100% on a retake, it’s only worth 80%.
I think middle school is the time to focus on mastery and retakes seem appropriate to me.
Now by HS they should have developed appropriate study skills and I think retakes should be limited to less than 70% because if they can’t get at least 70%, they will continue to be lost in class moving forward and that’s not good for anyone.

[Anonymous]

OP is talking about 4th grade people. Grades don't matter. Mastery does.

[Anonymous]

Oh the bane of high school is stupid retakes. Forget it. No. Terrible practice.

[Anonymous]

I am boggled that any FCPS high schools are getting away without offering retakes. This has been county policy for at least 3-4 years. Each school got to decide if it would be 80% max on the retake or a higher grade, but some opportunity to retake had to be available.

And the the PPs who suggested kids were just memorizing answers or checking off ecart multiple choice answers--those are poorly designed retakes, not flaws in the theory of retakes. When I given them to my (*gasp*!) high school students, they are completely new versions of tests requiring work shown, written explanations, etc. There is nothing to memorize.

I will concede that I am not teaching AP level courses. Many of my students are not college bound, and most of those that are head to NVCC. The critical piece for me is learning, not the grade. The grade is just the carrot that gets my students invested. I don't know that I'd feel the same way if I were teaching advanced, college prep coursework. Those students have their own internal motivation, and grades are a ranking system for college admissions. DCUM forgets that for a large part of FCPS students, that's not the case...

[Anonymous]

My kids are ages 10 to 19. I've experienced one teacher giving a retake to the whole class once after reteaching the material.

Also my daughter's friend was offered retakes the week after her mom passed away. The school and her teachers all worked with her due to her circumstances.

Retakes should not be commonplace. If they are repeatedly necessary for the class, there is a problem with the teacher. And a student requesting them often needs to learn better study methods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are ages 10 to 19. I've experienced one teacher giving a retake to the whole class once after reteaching the material.

Also my daughter's friend was offered retakes the week after her mom passed away. The school and her teachers all worked with her due to her circumstances.

Retakes should not be commonplace. If they are repeatedly necessary for the class, there is a problem with the teacher. And a student requesting them often needs to learn better study methods.

Or that the students aren't taking the work seriously. Imagine that.

[Anonymous]

So this is why my graduate level students want to know if there is extra credit or a retake after they bomb the midterm?

[Anonymous]

Former teacher here.... If the goal is actually to help students LEARN the material, retakes are a good thing. If the goal is to get a grade to put in the grade book, retakes are not given.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former teacher here.... If the goal is actually to help students LEARN the material, retakes are a good thing. If the goal is to get a grade to put in the grade book, retakes are not given.

Teachers have posted in this thread that retakes don't actually help students learn the material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former teacher here.... If the goal is actually to help students LEARN the material, retakes are a good thing. If the goal is to get a grade to put in the grade book, retakes are not given.

Teachers have posted in this thread that retakes don't actually help students learn the material.

Actually, they've posted the opposite. Retakes don't help the student learn the material sooner, but they help them learn the material eventually. As a society, we need to determine if the goal of school is to educate kids on subjects, or to grade/rank/compare kids for college. It's very difficult to merge the two.