Quiz Re-Test Form

Over the years I've gone back and forth over whether or not to offer re-tests for students who do poorly. Is my goal to make sure the students learn the material within a time frame, or that they learn it at all? Since I realize I cannot go as slowly or in depth within our class time that some students may need, I've decided to make some accommodations to allow these learners the opportunity to show what they know.

At times, I've offered make-up sections for the whole class if there was something as a whole they did not seem to understand. Sometimes I have them do quiz corrections to earn back some points. This year, however, I've started offering quiz re-takes.

The first step is for students to fill out a form to request a re-take (check out my TpT store for a free copy!). This form...
- covers basic info about the quiz (when it was, the topic, student original score, etc)
- asks students to explain why they did not do well the first time
- holds them accountable for doing more work to improve their understanding of the material and document what they did (study using quizlet, complete missing assignments, meet with teacher or tutor, etc.)
- asks students to specify a time when they plan on making it up.
- gets students to sign the bottom to acknowledge and verify the information on the form.
(I sometimes add a parents signature spot for repeat offenders or for particularly low scoring exams.)

At the beginning of the school year, I made it clear that quiz re-takes were an option, but I generally had few students taking me up on the offer. Now for my 7th and 8th graders, I fill out the top part of the form for them, attach it to their quiz, and make it more of an opt out situation instead of making them pursue it - they have the form with them, so it's more on their mind. I've had more students come in since making this switch.

When they do their re-take, it isn't the exact same quiz they took before. It is a secondary version that I write afterward, once I've seen the problem areas the class has had. It covers the same material but generally in a more simplified form. It helps me better pinpoint the specific areas that the student might be struggling in. For example, if the original quiz had a section for defining vocab, the make-up quiz would have the same vocab but as a matching section. This way I can see if they at least have that recognition level for the vocabulary, if it's spelling issues, or if they don't have it at all.

If students scored less than 70% on the quiz, they can try a make-up quiz. I don't let them necessarily make up the whole quiz - just the sections they did poorly on. I will award points back to them (no more than half of what they lost, and they can't earn higher than a 70% since this opportunity isn't offered to students who scored that high originally) if they can show they have at least some basic understanding of the material or have improved their knowledge base.

When students come in for their re-test, I give them the make-up quiz as well as their original quiz. They're able to see their mistakes and hopefully not repeat them as they do their second attempt.

Overall I think it's a good process for me - students get to show their understanding but it isn't an easy, automatic process. There's work on their part involved, it's not a guaranteed improvement, so it shows them that they should put the effort in first time around.

What are your thoughts? Do you offer make-up quizzes for your kiddos? How often and how do you do it?

- Frau Leonard

Word Order Bookmarks

As a lot of ideas start, I saw something on Pinterest. The original idea related to Long Division, but the idea of using bookmarks to help students keep track of steps seemed applicable to more than just math equations. Since my students have been struggling with word order lately, I saw a great application for it with my eighth graders.

I created these bookmarks to help students keep track of a basic German sentence and to help break down what "miscellaneous" sentence elements are (something that's come up more and more as we start talking about time expressions, direct objects, adjectives, and inverted word order).

I made these bookmarks using card stock, pipe cleaners, and beads. All in all it probably cost $15 for all the supplies, but I could easily make hundreds more than the class set I made and gave out. As students write their sentence, they slide the bead down the pipe cleaner to keep track of where they are in the sentence. The bead will show them what they need to add next, whether it’s a subject, direct object, specific verb type, etc. and eliminate the question of "Where does this go? What comes next?"

Although I made a class set and gave them out, I think in the future I would create perhaps 10-15 for a class and only hand them out for in class usage. This way students have it as a reference but I don't have to keep re-making them. I also plan on color coding them so that each type of word order (basic sentence vs question vs inverted word order, etc) are on a different color card stock.

I created a bunch of bookmarks featuring different types of word order that I can pull out as we get to different topics. If you're interested, they're available on my TPT store!

I also would recommend students use the back of the bookmarks for other details. For my students doing the basic present tense, the back is a great spot for writing a verb conjugation chart. For students using the modal verbs bookmarks, writing a list of the modal verbs and perhaps conjugating those as well would be a good extra reference. Other ideas: listing the subordinating conjunctions and their meanings, giving examples of TMP elements, and giving examples of weak and strong verbs.

- Frau Leonard