Allowing students to retake assessments can spark strong emotions among teachers and administrators. However, allowing retakes and redos is a practice rooted in the belief that everyone is capable of growth. At The Comprehensible Classroom, we stand behind the idea that offering multiple opportunities to succeed empowers students and fosters learning.
Rick Wormeli, an expert in assessment practices, makes a compelling case for retakes as a tool that helps students meet learning standards. If you are on the fence about allowing retakes, reading his insights is a great place to start. Read more here »
We believe in retakes and redos. But what does that look like in practice?
Retakes and Redos: Supporting Student Growth with Compassion and Practicality
by Elicia Cárdenas
Retakes, especially for summative assessments, can feel overwhelming at first. Let’s be real- when grades are due and piles of paper are already teetering on your desk, the idea of adding more to the pile is not very appealing.
Key considerations for managing retakes
Here are some common challenges and practical solutions to make them work for you. Remember, you are the expert in your classroom, and you will need to review these suggestions critically to determine whether or not they will work in your context.
Set a hard deadline
The first simple strategy to make retakes work is to set a Hard Deadline for retakes, which is something I learned from Rick Wormeli. Here’s what that looks like:
- Choose a deadline a few days (or a week) before grades are due.
- Communicate this deadline everywhere—your syllabus, online platforms, and in class. Have students write it in their planners so there is no doubt that everyone knows that the deadline exists and when it falls!
- Allow students to retake any test or redo any assignment up to this date, and do not allow retakes or redos after this date.
This approach ensures you have time to grade without last-minute stress, while still giving students opportunities to recover from a bad day or missed work. I did not accept any late work or requests to re-do tests after the hard deadline, unless there was an extraordinary situation.
Set aside class time for retakes
Not all students can come early or stay late. Instead, consider setting aside class time for retakes. Many students have very little control of their own schedule, so expecting them to come in early or stay late didn’t feel like an equitable solution for me. Neither was it a great solution to have kids come during recess or lunch. I needed that time for myself, and students need that time to run around, play with friends, eat, and just be kids not students! In fact, the ones who need that the most were often also the ones needing to retake tests.
An easy solution is to set aside class time for redos and retakes. I first implemented this practice after reading about it from Latin teacher and Department Chair Keith Toda. Here is how to implement this strategy:
- Designate a set amount of class time every month (or every two weeks) for retakes--even 20 minutes at periodic intervals may do the trick!
- Students who don’t need retakes can use the time for Free Choice Reading, games in the target language, or Garbanzo activities.
Building retake time into your marking period schedule ensures all students have access to retakes without burdening their personal schedules—or yours.
Developing alternate assessments
If you teach with Acquisition Driven Instruction, alternate assessments can be simple to prepare.
Productive assessments
For productive assessments (writing, speaking, signing), all you need is to get a writing, speaking, or signing sample! The goal is to see what students can produce using all the language they have acquired to date. It does not have to be topic or task specific. An easy solution is to have students do a free write or sign! You have nothing to prepare, and you can use one of our forms with embedded rubrics to make grading a breeze. You could also show students the image of a scene and have them describe in speech, writing, or sign as much as they can about the picture.
Interpretive assessments
Reading and listening retakes are often easy for teachers using The Somos Curriculum. Many of the interpretive assessments in Somos come with alternative versions. If you also have Somos Flex, you can use the assessments from those versions as retakes, too. Finally, our amazing collaborative drive has many assessment options that have been created and shared by other teachers.
If none of these options are available to you, Leverage tools like AI (e.g., ChatGPT) to help! Paste in the original assessment text and have AI generate similar texts and questions. Alternatively, collaborate with colleagues to share the workload of creating alternative assessments.
Allowing time for students to improve performance
There are many reasons that students may not perform well on a given assessment. While it may be that the assessment is an accurate representation of the student’s proficiency at that moment in time, a poor performance could also be attributed to anxiety, poor nutrition, exhaustion, distraction, or a variety of other factors. Sometimes, students don’t actually need to improve their proficiency in order to perform better on the assessment--they just need another chance. Other times, students do need to make progress toward proficiency in order to meet the performance targets laid out by the assessment.
Building proficiency requires one thing: comprehensible input. In order to grow their proficiency and improve performance on performance based assessments, students need to spend time engaged with communicatively-embedded comprehensible input. They need to read, view, and listen to the target language, and they need to understand what they are reading, hearing, or viewing!
If your scheduled class retake time is at least a few days or a week following an assessment, students who attend class may get enough input in class to improve their performance without any special remediation. Proficiency takes time, and every student is different. A few extra days processing language that they are reading, listening to, or viewing may be just what your students need!
Because there are so many factors at play, the best practice is simply to allow the retake.
Note: Since we train teachers to use proficiency-based assessment, students are never evaluated on discrete points such as grammar or vocabulary use or recognition. This is in line with all national and international assessments, such as the AP Language exam and the STAMP assessment. Students do not need direct instruction to build proficiency. They only need to engage with comprehensible input, embedded in communication! Studying grammar or practicing drills is not an effective way to improve performance on a retake.
Handling missed deadlines
It’s inevitable: as clearly and regularly as you communicate the hard deadline for retakes, you will have students who really need to redo an assessment but miss the hard deadline.
Rick Wormeli might say that your job is to find that kid and figure out if they meet the standard, and you need to do whatever it takes to get that evidence. That may look like using a different piece of student work as evidence of their learning, and changing what was a formative/classwork grade to a summative assessment grade.
Here are some ways that I have approached this situation:
- Mark the assignment as incomplete and communicate with caregivers and administrators about next steps. When the student actually does the retake, submit a grade change form. In most districts, the process for changing a grade is straightforward and takes little time.
- Use evidence from the most recent assessment in that skill (reading, writing, speaking, signing, viewing, listening) or mode (interpretive, productive, interpersonal). Duplicate the more recent grade as the grade for the previous assessment! If your assessments are cumulative--measuring holistic performance--this is an appropriate and easy solution.
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no end to the questions we could discuss related to retakes and redos! Here are some of the top FAQs that I haven’t already addressed:
Should I let anyone retake an assessment?
Yes, with teacher discretion. Use your judgment and compassion to decide what’s best for each student. Especially, consider your biases as you evaluate whether or not it is appropriate for a given student to take an assessment. We are emotional creatures, and it can be easy to feel inclined to refuse a retake as a punishment for bad behavior! Don’t be afraid to discuss your decision with a trusted colleague or administrator.
Should only students with low grades retake assessments?
We want students to take ownership of their learning. Whether a student earned a very low grade or an average grade, every student should have the opportunity to demonstrate growth and improve their grades. Grades have impact beyond the walls of the school, and many students are critically aware of the minimum level of performance they must maintain in order to meet their future goals.
Do retakes get full credit?
Yes, absolutely! Giving full credit ensures grades reflect learning, not timing. Granting partial credit punishes students for not learning fast enough, whereas granting full credit celebrates what students can do.
Should I accept other late work?
Treat this a very personal decision. It turns out that missing deadlines is something that happens to all of us. Their prefrontal cortex doesn’t even finish developing until they are around 25 years old! While I do want them to develop strong work habits, including meeting deadlines and turning in work, I have also come to remember that we are teaching humans who are still just developing. I try to give students as much grace as I can. Whatever you decide, be sure to apply your policies consistently to all your students and to communicate what you’re doing with students and caregivers.
Final Thoughts
Retakes and redos are about meeting students where they are and helping them grow. By implementing a few practical strategies, you can support student success without overwhelming yourself.
Interested in learning more about Standards Based Assessment in World Language Courses? Register for one of our upcoming online courses, or request information about bringing a trainer to your district.
