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My school allows it, but does not require it. I do not allow it because I feel that students will never take exams seriously as they can "just retake it".
I would only allow a retake if the entire class did poorly (which means I did something wrong).
I'm not a teacher, but perhaps a consideration is just how big an impact does that test grade have? I think everyone of us has had more than one instance where, for whatever reason, we just simply dorked up a test. So does it really make sense to drop someone a letter grade or more because of one test, when all the rest of their work is good? A single test is just that -- one single data point. Take two tests and you have an "average" which means absolutely nothing. No where near enough data to show a statistically valid trend in a student's performance. Which is why I'm against high stakes testing. A combination of three or more tests, homework, classwork, and projects, etc is a much more realistic picture of performance.
My school allows it, but does not require it. I do not allow it because I feel that students will never take exams seriously as they can "just retake it".
I would only allow a retake if the entire class did poorly (which means I did something wrong).
What are your thoughts on this?
The practice is STRONGLY encouraged at my school with the preference that students only have to retake what they missed the first time. I expect we will make the move over to standards based grading with unlimited retakes within 5 years.
I agree with you. In theory, it shouldn't matter when a student demonstrates having learned the material but in practice I find that two things happen. 1) B students go back and retake the few problems they missed to get "their" A. C and below students procrastinate worse than ever resulting in more failures than ever. HOWEVER, retakes have stopped parent complaints. They don't blame me when Johnny fails or fails to get the desired A. They don't blame Johnny either but they have stopped blaming me. Now they just think the subject is too hard for their child and get him a tutor who does his work for him.
I'm not a teacher, but perhaps a consideration is just how big an impact does that test grade have? I think everyone of us has had more than one instance where, for whatever reason, we just simply dorked up a test. So does it really make sense to drop someone a letter grade or more because of one test, when all the rest of their work is good? A single test is just that -- one single data point. Take two tests and you have an "average" which means absolutely nothing. No where near enough data to show a statistically valid trend in a student's performance. Which is why I'm against high stakes testing. A combination of three or more tests, homework, classwork, and projects, etc is a much more realistic picture of performance.
jim
Personally, I think the student's performance on the final exam is more of an indicator of what they learned than anything else. Test them AFTER everything has been taught/learned.
In our math classes where students only have to retake the missed portions of the exam, we find that the final looks more like the first take than the retake which means they are not actually learning the material but rather learning it for the test. In chemistry where I still make them take the entire test, I find that the final looks more like an average of the two so I'd say retakes are effective. Having to retake the entire test (and accept the second grade even if it is lower) seems to be enough incentive that they take the first take seriously.
In our math classes where students only have to retake the missed portions of the exam, we find that the final looks more like the first take than the retake which means they are not actually learning the material but rather learning it for the test. In chemistry where I still make them take the entire test, I find that the final looks more like an average of the two so I'd say retakes are effective. Having to retake the entire test (and accept the second grade even if it is lower) seems to be enough incentive that they take the first take seriously.
This is another reason I don't allow it. Students will only worry about the test and not about the actual material.
I used to allow students with grades below C- to correct their tests. This started to take more and more time as they had to come after class or before class and I often had to nag them to do it.
I do not teach a core class, so I feel that if a student is not enjoying my class or has a D or F, they need to find an elective they will enjoy or be successful in. I might feel differently about retakes if I taught core level classes since they are required for graduation.
This is another reason I don't allow it. Students will only worry about the test and not about the actual material.
I used to allow students with grades below C- to correct their tests. This started to take more and more time as they had to come after class or before class and I often had to nag them to do it.
I do not teach a core class, so I feel that if a student is not enjoying my class or has a D or F, they need to find an elective they will enjoy or be successful in. I might feel differently about retakes if I taught core level classes since they are required for graduation.
All of the classes I teach are required for graduation. Retakes are one way the administration pushes students through the system only I think it's backfiring. My perception is that while we're giving more A's than ever, making many parents and their children very happy, we're also failing more students than ever. THAT will not help our graduation rate and that is one of the factors we are judged by.
I fear that retakes are here to stay and they will get even easier because the parents who want their kids to get A's scream the loudest.
IMO, if we're going to allow retakes and retakes actually result in higher levels of learning then students should be performing better on the final exam so the final exam should be the means of assigning the grade. Instead of retakes I think we need one common exit exam that students must pass to pass the class. Period. Rank them on this the way you rank students on the ACT. Here's your score. Retake if you think you just had a bad day on the next scheduled date. We are playing too many games with grades.
Instead of retakes I think we need one common exit exam that students must pass to pass the class. Period. Rank them on this the way you rank students on the ACT.
This is a serious question for educators. As a professional test engineer for over 30 years, I would never rely on a single data point to evaluate a system. It's not statistically valid. Yet we seem to advocate just that for students, depending on a midterm & final, or even a single high stakes exam, to evaluate student performance. Why would we do that when we know it's not a valid measure. Even for the ACT example, we know that student performance generally improves over multiple retakes before settling out.
This is a serious question for educators. As a professional test engineer for over 30 years, I would never rely on a single data point to evaluate a system. It's not statistically valid. Yet we seem to advocate just that for students, depending on a midterm & final, or even a single high stakes exam, to evaluate student performance. Why would we do that when we know it's not a valid measure. Even for the ACT example, we know that student performance generally improves over multiple retakes before settling out.
jim
It is if that data point comes AFTER much education on the subject. It answers the question of whether or not the student has actually learned what they were supposed to have learned. We're talking about an exit exam after all teaching is done. After students have had the opportunity to practice the material and learn it. I would allow retakes on this the same way retakes are allowed on tests like the ACT because you can just have a bad day but I think an after the fact test is the only way to assess whether or not students have learned what they should have. Of course said test would have to be well written and employ different assessment tools. With computers it would not be difficult to design tests that have performance tasks to see what students are truly capable of.
FTR, I was a test engineer for the last 10 years I worked in engineering. I've been a teacher for the past 7 years. I see exit exams as the only really fair way to assess both students and schools. These would have to be common exams given by all schools. And retakes would be allowed like they are for the ACT but students would have to demonstrate proficiency to move on. Such tests wouldn't have to be given all at once if that's too distasteful. Right now the tests are written by a teacher who decides what to teach and no one verifies that the teacher is teaching enough. Case in point: My dd took HONORS chemistry at her high school and learned less than I teach in consumer chemistry (our watered down chemistry for students who can't pass regular chemistry) in the school I teach in. Her sister had me for chemistry, got a C- because she just didn't do the work and managed to test out of the first semester of chemistry in college two years later. There is a HUGE difference in what I teach and what they teach in chemistry in the local high school. Exit exams address this problem too.
The content that needs to be taught should not be decided by the teacher. Like engineering tests it should be decided by the standard. The test would test the standards. The standards would be the benchmark. Test results would show how well schools were meeting the benchmarks. You can have multiple tests if you want but we really need test standards for school just like we need test standards in test engineering. You have to know what the goal is and you have to test that the goal has been achieved. The tests needs to be rigorous enough to insure that we're getting a good picture of what the student can/cannot do.
My school allows it, but does not require it. I do not allow it because I feel that students will never take exams seriously as they can "just retake it".
I would only allow a retake if the entire class did poorly (which means I did something wrong).
What are your thoughts on this?
It is board policy that there are no retakes without principal permission. I had a brittle diabetic student actually have several episodes during exams, we got special permission for her to take retakes at my discretion as she was having a very hard time, and even with testing before the exam sometimes her blood sugar would skyrocket during it.
That being said I have a standing policy that anybody can have a one time deferment, so if they couldn't study or whatever, once during the semester they can decide BEFORE they are given the test to take it the next day. I have only had a handful of kids ever use it.
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