Highlighting Mistakes on Tests.

I've decided to try something new this semester based on a cool idea I stumbled across on Twitter.  One reason, I wanted to try it is simply that my students do not like finding where they made errors,  This method, works on helping students find errors and making corrections without the teacher doing the work.

This idea comes from Leah Alcala on the Teaching Channel. She noted that if she graded tests, put the scores on the top and then returned them to students, most students looked at the score and put it away rather than checking for errors.

In response she started using a very different grading methodology.  Once all the tests are turned in, she sits down to grade tests but instead of grading them, she highlights the exact place the student made a mistake but nothing more. 

Some of these mistakes are what she calls flow through mistakes where the mistake was made but the overall process was totally correct but that small error caused the answer to be wrong.  An example might be instead of 3 x 2 = 6, they say 3 x 2 = 5 and they use the 5 rather than the 6 making the final answer incorrect.  In other words, the problem was correct up to that point.

She also marks things like students dropping negative signs, multiply instead of doing exponents properly, etc.   This is all on the first go through.  On the second time through, she goes back and looks for patterns in the mistakes to see if the student makes the same type of mistakes or the mistakes are all over the map. Assign points based on the type of mistakes made such as if the student makes the same type of mistake over and over, they should get more points than the one who makes a bunch of different types of mistakes.

Write the grade in the grade book but not on their papers so when the papers are returned, they have to look at the highlighted areas rather than the grade.  They can check Power School for their grades the next day. She has students look over their papers to determine if they understand the mistake they made.  Students are allowed to retake the test as many times as they need.  In addition,  she uses the information from the second time through the test to find things to talk about in class and to use to create mathematical discussion. 

One variation, I plan to use is to have students make corrections on a separate piece of paper based on the highlighted spot.  If they can figure out their mistake and correct it without my help, they can learn the material better.  I want to give them that chance before I post scored in Power School, otherwise I love what she does.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.