Skip to main content

Policy on quiz re-takes

My policy on quiz re-takes:
Because my moodle quizzes select from a random pool of questions, and shuffle those questions, and shuffle the possible answers, every student’s quiz is slightly different.   Typically half the questions are new -- i.e. taken from the NewQuestions pool.  Therefore, the assessment is more likely to demonstrate students’ actual knowledge of the topic rather than their ability to memorize prior sequences or even rote answers.
The structured nature of a test, along with its numeric reward system,  motivates students to prepare (study) in the first place, and then the focus required to answer the questions helps to cement those answers in memory.   Thus, repeated test sessions can actually encourage learning, as opposed to simply serving as a measurement tool -- if that were the case, we should administer a single test just prior to the reportcard.
Currently for every quiz, I offer a second re-take, with the average result transmitting to Renweb as a single value.  Fortunately, Moodle automatically calculates the average, and Renweb automatically uploads any updated result.  In order to encourage the second try, I give students the option to delete their second attempt if they write to me “immediately.”  Further, for special cases, particularly those with failing grades, I offer to delete the second attempt if they will try a third time.   
Over time, this re-take has become a standard feature of class session, taking instructional time and thus providing an obvious reward to students who had performed well -- I schedule the re-take during time otherwise allocated to independent work:  students may choose to re-take the quiz or work on other class assignments just set.   
I worry about the appropriateness of scheduling the re-take during class time, as it clearly intrudes on instructional time and hampers any group activity.   However, it also offers the low-performing student a better chance to succeed, and clearly indicates that we want students to succeed -- correspondingly, those students who perform poorly are often the same students who forget to study and who neglect asking for help.
To serve the students who missed one of the previous two quiz sessions or who failed the previous two quiz sessions,
I schedule a subsequent quizzing period during AdvisoryPeriod or after school, on a day in between the last re-take and the next quiz.   This has much lower attendance rate, because it requires more initiative and intention on the students’ part.   I usually send a renweb-email to students/parents of failing students inviting them to take the quiz again.

Time Limitation:  Re-takes cannot overlap with another quiz, because I must update the “New Questions” pool before each new quiz.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World

Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World by James Carroll My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fascinating comprehensive worldview, with Jesuitical logic in a broad sweep that links religion in a circular way to violence and the solution to violence. The author shows a great command of history and religion, with extensive endnotes to support or expand upon most of his claims; however, some sweeping indictments will certainly be resisted by the more fundamentalist People Of The Book (that is, the Abrahamic religions). A core symbolic thread is Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac on Mt.Moriah, the supposed site later called Jerusalem -- the author deftly cites that scene throughout the many centuries since the original event, demonstrating the human tendency to misinterpret that near-sacrifice in order to rationalize our own tendency to violence and scapegoating. I started the book in audio form, but found it unlistenable -- the author's c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kite Runner is with us again

 Six or so years ago, I taught The Kite Runner to three successive sets of tenth-graders, and marveled at the effect the novel had on me and on these adolescents.  That age is a marvelous time for a humanities teacher, as we see callous children grow out of their self-centered cocoons and flex their world-empathic feelers.  They grow into the world outside them and realize they truly have agency -- or will have agency and responsibility for human actions.  Amir, the main protagonist of Kite Runner is so identifiable with those adolescents learning to take responsibility for their callous actions.   And of course we think of Kite Runner now that Afghanistan once again plunges into Taliban rule -- we particularly worry about the fate of the Hazara (news stories already cite random executions of Hazara men).   We can only wring hands and pray that the Taliban will have to adapt and tolerate more than they did before -- but I am not optimistic. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Related Reviews: This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race then Attack Surface

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth My rating: 5 of 5 stars And the hits just keep on coming! This excellent book details an unrelenting onslaught of cyberattacks, and outlines the author's own gradual realization of the dangers of internet warfare. It is a lengthy but worthwhile read -- actually, I lost the book for a while because I did not want to read it at bedtime, for fear of nightmares or disrupted sleep! Indeed the book is changing my stance toward online security -- multi-factor authentication, definitely! As with most of us, the author first downplayed the fear tactics promoted by sellers of security packages; but after years of research she has come to wonder that more disaster has not happened yet. She briefly but baldly calls out the recent presidentical administration for wreaking havoc on US defense, by eliminating a cybersecurity department, incensing the Iranian and Chinese gover...
Post a Comment
Read more