Teacher who doesn’t offer retakes

[Anonymous]

I am a HS teacher and I don't allow retakes nor does my department as a general policy. We are measuring mastery. If you know exactly what you got wrong and then retake a test that artificially inflates your grade based on that, that's not mastery.

I also get really annoyed with kids who receive an assignment back with points marked off and want to make corrections to resubmit. No. I am assessing what you KNOW and can show me you know. Kids really really seem to struggle with the notion that they may need to work to improve. I am not trying to see that you can redo an assignment after specifically being told what you did wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a HS teacher and I don't allow retakes nor does my department as a general policy. We are measuring mastery. If you know exactly what you got wrong and then retake a test that artificially inflates your grade based on that, that's not mastery.

I also get really annoyed with kids who receive an assignment back with points marked off and want to make corrections to resubmit. No. I am assessing what you KNOW and can show me you know. Kids really really seem to struggle with the notion that they may need to work to improve. I am not trying to see that you can redo an assignment after specifically being told what you did wrong.

IF the point is mastery..why not let the second test show that. Or is the only important thing mastery on Monday rather than Friday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a HS teacher and I don't allow retakes nor does my department as a general policy. We are measuring mastery. If you know exactly what you got wrong and then retake a test that artificially inflates your grade based on that, that's not mastery.

I also get really annoyed with kids who receive an assignment back with points marked off and want to make corrections to resubmit. No. I am assessing what you KNOW and can show me you know. Kids really really seem to struggle with the notion that they may need to work to improve. I am not trying to see that you can redo an assignment after specifically being told what you did wrong.

IF the point is mastery..why not let the second test show that. Or is the only important thing mastery on Monday rather than Friday?

Pp, re-read the teacher's last sentence.

[Anonymous]

Retaking can help learning but grades in 4 th grade do not matter so who cares.

[Anonymous]

These are the kids who will expect retakes in college and retakes when they are in the working world. I'm grateful none of my kids went to schools that tolerated such nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a HS teacher and I don't allow retakes nor does my department as a general policy. We are measuring mastery. If you know exactly what you got wrong and then retake a test that artificially inflates your grade based on that, that's not mastery.

I also get really annoyed with kids who receive an assignment back with points marked off and want to make corrections to resubmit. No. I am assessing what you KNOW and can show me you know. Kids really really seem to struggle with the notion that they may need to work to improve. I am not trying to see that you can redo an assignment after specifically being told what you did wrong.

IF the point is mastery..why not let the second test show that. Or is the only important thing mastery on Monday rather than Friday?

Pp, re-read the teacher's last sentence.

+1

There's a HUGE difference between someone who actually knows the material and can answer unknown questions about it on any unseen test and someone who has seen a test, seen the questions*, and then goes away and comes back and can answer the questions correctly.

* even if the teachers change the questions (and I hope they do), they need to be similar in style/complexity as the ones originally given. In practice, this means changing names and numbers but essentially keeping the question the same.

That's the reason why having seen previous exams (either in a leak/"cheating" situation or just during normal study sessions if the old tests have been legitimately released) is such a huge advantage. People simply stop studying when they think they could answer the questions on a test like the one they think they're going to get. If they haven't seen the test, they need to study WAY more.

- previously straight A student who has also taught classes, created exams and graded exams at college level

[Anonymous]

"There are no retakes in real life"

Bogus. Everything I do in life has retakes! The proposal my husband worked on all weekend was submitted to his boss a dozen times for review/rewrites. The design the contractor submitted for our kitchen took 3 attempts before we were happy. The software I designed last year was shown to the client on 100s of occasions before sign off. Life is a series of do overs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"There are no retakes in real life"

Bogus. Everything I do in life has retakes! The proposal my husband worked on all weekend was submitted to his boss a dozen times for review/rewrites. The design the contractor submitted for our kitchen took 3 attempts before we were happy. The software I designed last year was shown to the client on 100s of occasions before sign off. Life is a series of do overs.

Taking a test isn't handing a proposal to a colleague or supportive boss to look over before it's due, it is handing it to the client. Which you don't get to do a second time.

Taking a test isn't making a design of a kitchen that everyone knows is a collaborative effort and needs to be discussed with the client several times before getting sign-off. It's having the actual kitchen built... in a bad way... after sign off. Which you'd absolutely lose business over and cannot undo/redo in an easy way.

The test is a final end point from which there is no return and no way to "do over". Start looking at it like that and get your kids to do the same, and you might find that your kids actually take the subject seriously, do the work, and get the grade you think they deserve when they actually take the test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a HS teacher and I don't allow retakes nor does my department as a general policy. We are measuring mastery. If you know exactly what you got wrong and then retake a test that artificially inflates your grade based on that, that's not mastery.

I also get really annoyed with kids who receive an assignment back with points marked off and want to make corrections to resubmit. No. I am assessing what you KNOW and can show me you know. Kids really really seem to struggle with the notion that they may need to work to improve. I am not trying to see that you can redo an assignment after specifically being told what you did wrong.

IF the point is mastery..why not let the second test show that. Or is the only important thing mastery on Monday rather than Friday?

Honey, read again. If you've seen what the test is assessing and now have seen what you didn't show and then you go brush up on that stuff real quick go inflate your grade on a retake, you aren't showing MASTERY. You've only shown me you can fix errors, which anyone can do.

[Anonymous]

I hope my surgeon didn't grow up accustomed to retakes. There are plenty of similar jobs where you only get one shot so did it right the first time. I am a teacher and we get 2 observations per year. No retakes. One of my colleagues asked for a redo last year and it was not a possibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"There are no retakes in real life"

Bogus. Everything I do in life has retakes! The proposal my husband worked on all weekend was submitted to his boss a dozen times for review/rewrites. The design the contractor submitted for our kitchen took 3 attempts before we were happy. The software I designed last year was shown to the client on 100s of occasions before sign off. Life is a series of do overs.

Then your life is unlike the life of anyone else I know.

"Everything" you do in life has retakes? Really? "Life is a series of do overs"? No, sweetie, it is not. You've named a few examples of very specific, superficial examples in which a "do over" was possible. Most of life is not like that. Surely you can see this?

You struggle with writing clearly. It is unfortunate that your English teacher allowed retakes. Were you allowed to redraft until you wore her down and she simply gave you the grade you wanted? It shows.

[Anonymous]

The retakes are if you miss a school day. I never took a retest myself. My DD was allowed few retest in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"There are no retakes in real life"

Bogus. Everything I do in life has retakes! The proposal my husband worked on all weekend was submitted to his boss a dozen times for review/rewrites. The design the contractor submitted for our kitchen took 3 attempts before we were happy. The software I designed last year was shown to the client on 100s of occasions before sign off. Life is a series of do overs.

Then your life is unlike the life of anyone else I know.

"Everything" you do in life has retakes? Really? "Life is a series of do overs"? No, sweetie, it is not. You've named a few examples of very specific, superficial examples in which a "do over" was possible. Most of life is not like that. Surely you can see this?

You struggle with writing clearly. It is unfortunate that your English teacher allowed retakes. Were you allowed to redraft until you wore her down and she simply gave you the grade you wanted? It shows.

DP. This is both a jerk comment and untrue. Do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"There are no retakes in real life"

Bogus. Everything I do in life has retakes! The proposal my husband worked on all weekend was submitted to his boss a dozen times for review/rewrites. The design the contractor submitted for our kitchen took 3 attempts before we were happy. The software I designed last year was shown to the client on 100s of occasions before sign off. Life is a series of do overs.

Then your life is unlike the life of anyone else I know.

"Everything" you do in life has retakes? Really? "Life is a series of do overs"? No, sweetie, it is not. You've named a few examples of very specific, superficial examples in which a "do over" was possible. Most of life is not like that. Surely you can see this?

You struggle with writing clearly. It is unfortunate that your English teacher allowed retakes. Were you allowed to redraft until you wore her down and she simply gave you the grade you wanted? It shows.

I think you two are talking about different things. Making sweeping general statements, like there are no do overs in life, can't be used for every situation, as you two point out clearly. Can you go and do over a car crash that almost killed you? No, clearly there is no do over there. Can you do over a marriage? No, you can try to fix it if it goes wrong, and call a second marriage a "do over," but it is not, it is just another try to do something else in life. Can I edit and re edit and triple edit, and then edit again my academic paper after peer reviews are done? Yes. So, work and life can be two very different things. If you are a police officer, can you really do over shooting a guy at a wrong house, or even shooting anyone? Definitely not. You two are comparing apples and oranges.

[Anonymous]

My son had a teacher who gave re-takes on a particular weekly test if he didn't meet a certain mastery-- but here's the kicker. It wasn't the same test. It was a completely different test with the chapter material....and she didn't tell him what he missed the first time.
A re-take was a huge pain for him because he had to start over. There was a lot of incentive to achieve a good score the first time. It was tons more work.