One practice I've recently called into question is the age-old tradition of giving students a summative cess over the cloth and making that cess a significant portion of their grade. At showtime glance, this kind of testing makes sense. It'due south a punctuation mark at the terminate of a unit, a way to check that students have mastered the textile. But what about those who haven't, the ones whose examination scores don't show mastery? Admittedly, in the past, I oftentimes only recorded their grades, shook my head in frustration, and moved on. Simply maybe there's a amend way. Should I allow my students to retake tests?

Turns out, letting kids with unsatisfactory scores retake their tests is a better way to ensure learning. Hither's why.

1. It respects students with test-taking issues.

One of the major causes of test anxiety is a fear of failure. Eliminating the do-or-die nature of testing tin can help alleviate this fear and improve students' scores. Allowing students to retake tests also reduces stress for kids who have multiple tests on the same solar day, a tardily-dark ball game, a late shift at work, responsibilities at home, or any number of things that can make studying difficult.

ii. Allowing kids to retake tests reduces cheating.

Kids crook for a number of reasons—because they are unprepared or lazy or because cheating is like shooting fish in a barrel and ordinarily accepted amidst their peers. In that location'due south no style to eliminate all the factors that lead to adulterous. But some kids cheat because they feel pressured to practise well. It'southward my hope that being allowed to retake tests will keep them honest, non only because the pressure level is off, but also because they run across that I respect their learning process and admit issues that might contribute to a bad test grade. In plow, I hope this will requite them a deeper respect for me and my grade.

three. Assuasive students to retake tests reflects the real world.

Without question, kids need to learn to buckle down and properly prepare for a test because life doesn't always requite you unlimited chances to encounter a goal. All the same, in "real life" kids volition be allowed to retake driver's tests, ACTs and SATs, or whatsoever number of licensing exams they might meet as adults. So, teaching them that all testing is a one-shot deal is neither necessary nor helpful.

iv. Ultimately, it makes them ameliorate studiers and exam-takers.

Sometimes I make re-taking an exam optional. Sometimes, I require anybody who scored below a certain class (say, 75%) to retake the test. Either way, when students know that repeating a test is a possibility, they volition often work harder the outset time effectually because they don't want to face a retake—mandatory or optional.

5. Assuasive students to retake tests makes them responsible for their ain grade.

When students are given the option of re-taking tests, and so they conduct much of the responsibility for their last grade. This not only teaches them that reaching a goal (an A instead of a B) sometimes requires sacrifice and perseverance, but it also eliminates a lot of lament come up written report card time.

6. It helps students evaluate their own learning.

In the by, when I would hand dorsum exams, most students would take a quick look to see their grade then toss their test in the trash. Fifty-fifty if we went over the answers in class, many of them were just hoping to find a grading error rather than evaluating their own mistakes. Only now that they know they can retake the exam to improve their grade, my kids are much more eager to meet exactly what they missed and why. More chiefly, they want to go dorsum and acquire the material they oasis't mastered. They are motivated to consider their learning, not merely their grade.

vii. Assuasive students to retake tests gives me a more than accurate picture of where I need to improve my instruction.

I admit information technology, like the kids, I tin be tempted to focus on the final score. But knowing that my students will be re-taking an test motivates me to figure out what I can practice to better help them. Which questions are a lot of kids missing? Is there a particular concept the bulk of students are struggling with? Is there something I demand to reteach or approach differently? After all, it won't do them whatsoever good to retake a test over textile they still haven't learned.

8. It ensures mastery.

Of course, the principal reason I allow my students to retake tests is and then that they really learn what I am teaching. Later on an exam, I desire them to know what concepts they didn't get and then go back (with my help if necessary) and acquire them. After all, if a educatee gets a passing grade, a C or a D, on one of my exams, that only ways he has learned 60-lxx percent of the fabric. I desire my kids to know they can do meliorate, and I want them to desire to do better!

Realistically, in that location have to be some limitations to this organisation. I can't requite my students an space number of retakes. Otherwise, some of them would never buckle down and study, and others would never be satisfied with less than 100 percent. Still, giving them more than i opportunity to master the material and practice well on the exam has helped ensure real and lasting learning.

I Let My Students Re-take Tests - And You Should Too!