Welcome to the All Star Planning podcast. My name is Kelsey, and this is the place where I talk all things teacher lesson plans. Today, I am talking about something that I think most people will actually disagree with me on. But I’m hoping to change your mind. Because this has been a complete game changer for me, and that was actually my retake policy.
I let kids take tests as many times as they want or need.
Test Retakes in Real Life
You’re disagreeing with me and that’s okay. Because when I first heard this, I completely disagreed with it as well. So, this was actually, um, brought to my attention that,you can retake your SAT as many times as you like. You can retake your road test for your driver’s license as many times as you like. You can probably retake your teacher certification test as many times as you like.
Gotcha!
The idea of the kids. Can’t retake a test at this point? Mind boggling. I, now that I’m on board with this retake policy, I can’t go back. There’s no way that I could go back. I 100% believe, and I hope that you agree with me on this, that learning is far more important than the grades. I show that by telling my kids that they can retake the test as many times as they need to within a quarter. Because I can’t go back and change grades after. I mean, I could, but I don’t after the fact.
Why I Need a Retake Policy
So really what this means is that let’s say I teach a unit for two weeks. I have 75% of the kids understand it, the first time it’s taught, they’re fine. All as well. I have 25% of kids that don’t get it right away. They’re not understanding; they need some additional help. They need more time to digest the, the thoughts. Maybe they need a tutor and they just haven’t gotten around to getting a tutor or going to after school tutoring sessions with me or with other students.
Perhaps, um, things are just going wrong in their life. And your class is not their primary focus. Which, unfortunately is the case for too many kids in terms of babysitting or work or family issues or whatever it is. Um, your class is not always the most important thing. Education is not always the most important thing. Health, family then education.
Um, I also believe that education should come before athletics and before the arts and all the extra stuff. But there are some times where life just takes over and kids aren’t able to put in the amount of effort that you wish that they could; that they wished that they could. So, when those things happen, I don’t want to punish the kids saying, “well, you had two weeks to learn it. Why didn’t you learn it then?”
My idea is: if it’s the first two weeks of September and you don’t figure it out until Thanksgiving I’m okay with that. Because you still learned it. And I, I know that standards based grading more or less works on this model, but I don’t work in a standard based grading school right now. I don’t think that I need that model in order to allow my students to learn when they learn.
But What about the Kids Who Learned it Right Away?
So tests are like a huge portion of my course, it’s my department, my school, I don’t know who made the call. But tests are a big part of the grade. So for me, I want the kids to be able to show me that they learned whenever they learn. I don’t really care if it happens “late.”
And I know that there are some people out there who were going to say, but what about the kids who learned it the first time around? What about them? Lucky them that they learned at the first time around that all of the pieces lined up so that they were able to learn it the first time. I don’t think that we should be penalizing kids because they learn a little bit slower or a little bit later than other kids. That just doesn’t make sense to me.
So, this is something that I think has really upgraded my climate of self assessment and my climate of honesty in my classroom. It’s just the fact that I have kids who aren’t learning at the pace of the course, but they’re still learning. In me offering a retake policy. It also just helps to reiterate the fact that I think that learning is more important than grades and I don’t care when kids learn. I just care that they are learning.
My Retakes
Now logistically I understand why people don’t want to or feel that they can’t offer retakes. I personally offer unlimited retakes. A kid can take a test 14 times for all I care. Every single time, it’s a different version. I have a big software test bank that I can very easily pull from. So this is not really a huge issue for me.
There could very easily be some type of protocol that you set up to allow kids, just one retake, which I think will still deliver the same message. It also just forces the kids to be intentional about retaking tests. I have had kids who weren’t prepared at all, fell asleep on the test and just said, “I’m going to retake it in two weeks.” That kid usually doesn’t come for a retake and my experience. But they do have the option to which I’m open to. Once you tell the kids that it’s up to them. They can take as many retakes as they like, whatever it is. That puts the ball in their court and it puts responsibility on the kid rather than on you.
Which I’m all here for. I think that we should be pushing as much responsibility on the kids as possible. But if you feel like you can’t offer unlimited retakes and you just want to be able to offer one, that’s fine. I think you should set up some type of protocol where the kid has to go to tutoring hours or lunch tutoring. Or has to complete a test reflection sheet about what they understand, what they don’t understand. Maybe you don’t even want to do unlimited retakes retakes at all. You would rather just have the kid do test corrections and get some points back. Or maybe they can nix the test altogether and you offer them a complete alternative assignment that would demonstrate that they learned the same information. But they’re showing you in a different way. I think that’s also a great possibility.
Test Reflection Sheets
I have a reflection sheet that I use. It’s not technically mine, so I can’t really share it with you. I, I just modified what I had received from another teacher. But I can tell you what’s on it. I have a list of maybe 15 things that a kid could have done to study and they need to check off everything that they did. They went on Google classroom. They ask questions on Remind, they did their homework, they took proper notes and you are asking them to hold themselves accountable. “What did you do to prepare?” And then in addition to that, there was also an element of, what was the hardest on the test? What was the easiest on the test?
And then I had them rate their general understanding as a three to one, like I talked about in my self assessment, climate of self assessment episode. Um, I spoke about one I’m a lost puppy. Two I’m okay. I’m just a little confused. And then three I’m an expert. I have them rate their understanding of the unit. Overall, what type of question was the hardest for them?
Holding Students Accountable and Giving Grades Truly Based on Learning
Um, I think that a reflection sheet would be a great way to, for you to get your students to feel like they’re accountable for their own scores. And maybe that’s a requirement before you’re able to make an appointment for a retake. I think it’s a good option. It’s just the, the message that the retake policy will give is that you care about learning and that grades are less important to you than the actual learning.
In addition to that, I think that when kids are given the option, there are a lot of kids who will work really hard to get a better grade. And there are a lot of kids would just will take whatever grade they have and then that’s it. So when it comes time at the end of the marking period and the kid isn’t doing so hot and they’re not really proud of their grade, You have the ability and the opportunity to say that that is on them because they didn’t utilize the retake window. Maybe, your window’s only two weeks. Maybe it’s the whole quarter. It’s things to think about. But you have the opportunity to say to a kid that they were the ones who forfeited this chance. They forfeited the opportunity. They didn’t take advantage of it.
And then more or less, you are in the clear for giving a kid a grade that they actually deserve. You can’t rely on, well, I had the flu or, you know, all of those excuses go out the window as soon as you start offering a retake, under whatever circumstances.
Kids Going from Good to Great
In addition to that, the kids who are looking to do well, will have an opportunity to do better, which I love. I love when a kid can take a B minus to an A plus just because they had an extra week or two weeks to really understand and learn the information. And maybe they use the first test as a practice test. I don’t… Why is that wrong?
Why, why could that possibly be wrong? I took a practice driving test. I would drive around in the car with my dad. We would, you know, he would have me parallel park, I went to driver’s Ed. I got to practice with my SAT – I got to practice. I got to take the test a few times before I decided this is the score that I am proud to send off to colleges. Why can’t they do that with your content? I just think that it’s it’s part of life is retakes and redos and not, not every aspect of life, it gets a redo, but when we can offer a redo, I think it’s important that we do.
A Retake Policy Gets Your Students Motivated
Also, I like the idea of the retake policy because it kind of forces kids to learn the first time around. You hear me out. When I tell the kids that I have this retake policy in the beginning of the school year, I make sure to let them know that it doesn’t mean that they should do nothing while we’re learning and rely on the retake in two months. Because if they don’t know it now, they’re probably not going to know it in two months. And during that two months of time, we are going to be accumulating more and more content that they need to know and understand. So that also kind of scares them into learning it the first time around, because they don’t want to have to rely on the retake.
So that’s what I have for you in terms of retakes and my unlimited retake policy. I know that that’s a big step. But I think just a little step of offering retake or test corrections may be helpful for you and for your students.
All Star Planning
I have a free masterclass called the All Star Planning Introductory Masterclass, where I teach you my five steps to curriculum writing that will help get your life organized. And it’s just 45 minutes. I think it’s super helpful. It is how I turned my life from constantly planning and being obsessed with school, to doing a podcast in my free time. So I think it’s worthwhile for everybody to go listen to. Again, you can find that at plan.kelseyreavy.com or there’s links to it all over my website, kelseyreavy.com. And subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of my awesome tips. At least I think they’re awesome.
I’ll see in the next one. Bye.
