I teach at a mastery grading school - students are expected to reach mastery (70%) or higher to get credit for a class and move on to the next level. Parents have to sign off if they want students to move on with a grade 60-69%. As part of the mastery system, we are expected to allow retakes or remediation of some kind for performance/summative assignments that are below mastery. Since our gradebook is set up 90% performance + 10% practice (formative), students need to hit mastery on the performance to pass the class. Unfortunately, many decide that since the practice is only worth 10%, they will not do it, roll the dice on the performance, and then count on a retake. This is problematic for many reasons, but especially in the language classroom, where if students do not engage with the input or output practice they will not be able to perform on assessments. It simply won't work. The flip side of this is that if students do the practice/engage with the input, they are almost guaranteed to be successful on the performance assessments (especially with the EPI method I am using which is super effective for all learners).
Initially, I would create a list of must-do practice assignments to be completed or redone for students who had failed their assessments, they would have to do those, have me check it, then schedule a time for a retake. This was not a good use of anyone's time, and would also mean students were working a lesson or two behind all the time trying to reach mastery. And then there was the question of whether or not to rewrite the assessment for students taking it a second time, since some students viewed as a game of "I won't study or do the practice but will try the test to see what it looks like, then get a retake." And yes, students actually articulated that, because kids are smart and if they can figure out a way to streamline their experience, they will! Strategic they are.
Not to be outstrategeried (maybe you have to be of a certain age in the US to remember who used STRATEGERY...), I pulled out an old trick I learned from working at The Ohio State University Individualized Instruction Center in the 1990s. Students had to work through a certain checklist of practice activities to a mastery level to take the relevant assessment. And they had to schedule appointments to take their assessments, as well as other time limits involved. It really helped students manage their time and stay on track with their learning. So I took the notion of prerequisites plus the gaming idea of "unlocking" the next level (Duolingo does this!) and came up with the following policy.
- Lesson/unit is preplanned out for however many weeks it will take
- List of practice activities is compiled
- When lesson/unit starts, students are told when the performance assessment will be, and that they will need to complete ___%/# of practice assignments in order to take the performance assessment on time. Generally I fixed it at around 75% of the assignments. I explained to the kids that it was like attending (sport) practice so they had the skills to play in the game. No practice, no play.
- I contacted parents/guardians generally to let them know the expectations, then specifically if we got close to the assessment and their student was not on track. Parents were 100% supportive because the policy makes sense - why allow a student to take a test we know they cannot be successful on?
- Students who did not have their practice work done on assessment day had to spend the class working on their practice work. Because I was using Formative to deliver most of the assessments, it was easy to assign to individual students and exclude those who were not caught up. Obviously in a classroom, simply do not hand out the test to those who are not prepared.
- I did put zeros in for missing performance grades that were missing because they were not unlocked. I understand all the equity concerns about that, but my students were not motivated by a Missing mark, and guardians could not see what the negative impact would be of those missing assessments if I did not put in the zero.
- Students then had to schedule a time to make up the assessments. This was fairly easy last year because we had asynchronous Wednesdays with office hours. This year I will have to make other arrangements. Students may have to stay after school (we have buses available). or we have an exploratory period when students could come do makeups.
- I had to set a deadline at the end of the grading period for work. Yes, I did have a few students who pushed this to the edge last year and were consistently behind, but on the whole, this policy kept more kids on track, and parents seemed to find it reasonable and understood that it was truly about making sure the students LEARNED French instead of just gaming the assessments. My principal was supportive as well.
I hope that was helpful! I'm happy to discuss via email, contact form here, or on Twitter @madamednmichael!