Effective feedback: Relearn and retest

What's the idea? Relearn and retest is a type of active feedback that involves asking students to return to a previous piece of learning to ensure they have achieved full understanding or mastery. What does it mean? Relearn and retest is the fourth in a series of five ‘actions’ that students can take after receiving their work back. It is a simple technique where students return to previous learning to check they fully understand it. This addresses any gaps in knowledge that has already been taught and gets students into the routine of retrieval practice. It is a simple but specific form of feedback that says, ‘You don’t know this yet. Go back and relearn it.’ What are the implications for teachers? In some cases, students may need to revisit previous learning and you may have to reteach particular ideas or knowledge that they haven’t yet grasped. More often than not, however, this technique is most effective for cementing existing knowledge. It involves the stude