Mr. Godkin PRO RETAKES

Imagine you need a new hot water heater at your house, so a plumber is called in to install it. Unfortunately, they are having a bad day. Maybe they feel a little under the weather or maybe they needed to rush out of the house without eating breakfast. Who knows? The point is, they are off their game and they make a mistake in hooking up your hot water heater. Consequently, you go to shower that night and…ugh, no hot water! Do you just shrug and say, “Oh well, I guess that plumber didn’t really know what they were doing” and live with cold showers for the foreseeable future? Of course not, you call the plumber and have them come back out and do the job correctly! The plumber is expected to do the job to the best of their ability, so why wouldn’t we expect the same of our students?

Offering the chance to retake a similar but different version of the test benefits both the student and the teacher in a variety of ways. For one, students feel a sense of autonomy and empowerment around their education. If they have an off day like the plumber, they are given the power to fix their mistakes. Additionally, students are more likely to consider and act upon teacher feedback. I’m sure every student out there has put a graded paper right in the recycle bin after only looking at the grade. If they are given the chance to improve their grade, though, they are far more likely to read the teacher’s comments or analyze their performance to look for opportunities to improve. Another reason I like to use retakes in my classroom is it helps students feel less anxiety about tests and grades. I’ve heard plenty of students say something like “Well, at least there are retakes” after finishing one of my exams. I know that this is usually a flippant comment meant to get a laugh, but there’s definitely some truth in there, too. They know that if they bomb a test, their grade isn’t destroyed. They have the chance to go back and do what needs to be done to learn the material well enough to get the grade they hope for. Many teachers claim that this just allows students to game the system to get more time to study for the test or that the best students will spend time trying to improve on a perfectly acceptable score. To which I say, so what? They are demonstrating their current and best level of learning. If adherence to the teacher’s calendarbased timeline isn’t a learning objective for that particular unit of study, it shouldn’t be a factor in that achievement grade. These behaviors can, and should, be assessed in the effort grade. Teachers benefit from offering retakes as well because they can more easily accommodate students who learn at different paces. The majority of students may be ready for a test in accordance with your carefully laid plans, but some might not. By offering retakes, students are able to put in the extra time they may need to master the material without preventing the class from moving on. This becomes especially important if concepts in the class build sequentially. If my AP Chemistry students don’t understand chemical equilibrium from Unit Seven, they will struggle immensely to apply this knowledge to acids and bases in Unit Eight. This illustrates the single most important reason to offer students the chance to retake a test-- they have the opportunity to demonstrate improved understanding and progress towards mastery of the course content, which I think we would all agree is the primary goal of our time together in the classroom, is it not?

Don’t just take my word for it, here are some sources that discuss the idea of Mastery Learning, which is a concept that has been around since the late 1960s and typically incorporates test retakes:

Guskey, T. R. (2007). Closing achievement gaps: revisiting Benjamin S. Bloom’s “Learning for Mastery”. Journal of advanced academics, 19(1), 8-31.

Kulik, C. L. C., Kulik, J. A., & Bangert-Drowns, R. L. (1990). Effectiveness of mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis. Review of educational research, 60(2), 265-299.

Winget, M., & Persky, A. M. (2022). A practical review of mastery learning. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 86(10).