"What am I doing wrong?"

I've been teaching middle school for 18 years. For 12 of those years, I had the same strict policy against students retaking quizzes or tests. I stood firmly by that rule for so many years because I believed that students would work harder if they knew there was no second chance to get an A. I was under the impression that they may have to suffer a few low scores in order to learn their lesson and would work harder as the year progressed in order to try and recover their grade. However, I recently changed jobs and now find myself in a school that freely allows students to retake tests and quizzes. Since I'm the new guy, I decided that I would change my opinion. When you're the new guy, you have to decide whether or not you want to take certain stances that might make you immediately unpopular with both students and parents. I chose the path of least resistance and I am very glad that I did. Let me explain why.

As I write this, it is 3:40 pm on a Friday. We had a special schedule where students spent half of their day in a STEM class of their choosing--everything from making homemade books to coding and programming robots. It's been a "long week," as they say, which in middle school translates to it's been a typical week. I include this to set the stage, because even though everyone should be well on their way home and beginning their weekends, I have a student in my classroom hunched over a quiz, putting in more effort and care than he did the first time because he knows this is his last chance to raise the grade.

I started this school day the same way--three seventh-grade boys met me at my door at 7:30 am, right on time for our scheduled appointments. As I handed out the quiz to each of them, one boy asked me sincerely, "What am I doing wrong? I tried so hard last time to get a good grade on this quiz so I wouldn't have to retake it, but I still got a 70." I asked him a few key questions and he came to the conclusion that he rushed through it the first time, didn't double-check his work, misread a few questions, and therefore didn't earn the score he deserved. Impressed by his self analysis, I raised an eyebrow, handed him the answer sheet, and said, "Let's not repeat those mistakes this time, OK?" Twenty minutes later, he popped out of his seat and blurted, "I'm finished!" "Are you suuuuure?" I prodded. He glanced back at the paper in his hand, thought it over, sat back down, and said, "Maybe not."

And the young man who stayed after school with me on this beautiful fall Friday? As he handed me his retake, I asked him what he thought he could do better next time. He gave me a few pat answers about studying harder, reviewing the material earlier, etc., but that wasn't what I was getting at. I smiled and said, "Is there anything you can do in class to make sure you are completely understanding the material the first time?" He answered immediately: "Are you saying I should not sit next to my best friend and stop getting so distracted?" I laughed out loud, because that was exactly what I was hinting at. He's a smart kid.

Not only have I received such great introspection from students as they take these quizzes again, but I am seeing a lot more maturity and responsibility beginning to develop. I leave the scheduling of these retakes entirely up to them. I use a site called YouCanBook.me that links with my Google calendar and allows them to choose a time when I am free that fits their schedules. Students meet with me before school, after school, during recess, or study hall. I get an alert saying someone has "booked me" and an event is added to my calendar automatically. Not only do they use this site to schedule a retake, but several times students have used it to meet with me in advance so they can ask those clarification questions or to debrief a dismal performance. It is one of my new favorite teacher tools!

My point for telling these stories is that I never got this level of commitment in the years before when I didn't allow retakes. I certainly got a lot of requests, but my answer was that they could retake it for educational purposes only--to make sure they learned the material, but not for a new grade. You can imagine how rarely I ever got a student to latch on to that suggestion.

Now, I do have some conditions for my quiz retakes. Students may only retake a quiz if they earned less than an 85. This is to avoid the grade-grubbing mentality and to not feed the opinion that they must always achieve perfection. A grade in the mid- to upper B range is respectable and should not be a reason to go through all of the trouble of a retake. Same thing goes for any grade in the 90s. Believe it or not, I have seen kids cry because they got a 97 on a test instead of a 100, but I digress. I also tell them that I will average their 2 quiz scores together for their new score. They do the math before they come and see me. They know that if they earned a 70 the first time and a 100 the second, they end up with an 85. They know that it is impossible to get anything above a 92, but they still come to me with hope that their new grade will be better than their original. That leads me to my final rule: If they get a lower grade the second time around (and yes, that has happened a few times already), I do NOT average the 2 scores together, thus lowering their already less than acceptable score. That would only discourage them to the point that they will no longer take the risk in the future. In those cases, we sit down together, look it over, debrief what the heck happened, and end by saying "Better luck next time." Most commonly, I actually end by saying some form of "You need to pay better attention in class and improve your study skills."

I am finding quiz retakes to be one of the most effective formative assessments methods I have ever used. I've tried all of the classics: exit tickets, practice quizzes, surveys, games... none of them seem to give me the exact picture of how hard the student has been working, how much they care about their performance, and (most importantly) what they have learned. The kids who have scheduled retakes with me show up with sweat on their brow. They have worked twice as hard as their classmates (in some cases) to get this thing right. They do not want to mess it up again.

Finally, let's not forget to mention the fact that these are just kids, after all. Sure, they're bigger than they were last year. I know some of them are bigger than me already and will probably look and sound like full grown men in a manner of months. Yes, yes, we have to prepare them for high school and college and the big, scary world out there. But shouldn't we do so with just a little bit of hand-holding? They won't want to take risks if they think there is no chance of being rescued. Would you? My quizzes are not nearly as scary as what they'll face in the future, but perhaps they are just what they need to remind them that some life lessons don't offer a retake. For those future assessments, they better be fully prepared. For now, they're just kids in need of a little guidance and a gentle reminder to stop chatting with their BFF while we're trying to take notes.

I guarantee that all of my students who have taken a quiz the second time didn't do so without going back to the study guide, reading the chapter, reviewing with a friend, or asking mom and dad for help. Maybe next time they'll do that first so they won't have to bother with the retake? If that does happen, then my work here is done.