Give It Another Go: Mastery Teaching and Second-Chance Grading

Most students focus only on achieving grades, not on durable learning. Traditional assessment methods resulting in a summative grade that affects their course grade can thus create testing anxiety, dampened motivation following a poor score, and lack of attention to post-assessment feedback. In contrast, mastery teaching and a simplified application known as second-chance grading emphasize formative feedback followed by additional opportunities to demonstrate topic mastery. This assessment approach produces significantly enhanced learning, motivation, and retention. In this roundtable session, we aim to bring attention to this effective teaching and assessment approach and generate ideas for its practical application.