What do you typically do after administering a test or a midterm to help students make necessary corrections and, thereby, reinforce the concepts that were not understood?
– J., New York

Tests and exams, which are assessments of learning, should also be a basis for learning. When I returned a test, the corrections automatically became an assignment. When I gave students points on their tests for their corrections, I sensed that they didn’t put as much effort into preparing for tests. To offset that tendency, I gave assignments the same weight, regardless of how many [or few] corrections were needed. To prevent the students from copying from others, they had to refer directly to their notes or textbook and write a little citation. They could append a photograph of their notes to their test. This technique also ensures that students will have complete notes to study from on midterms or final exams.

In my experience, people tend to repeat the same mistake on multiple choice questions if they take it again. Attempt to circumvent this by having students write out the question and the correct answer in full. You may need to give students more than one attempt at essay, long answer or conjectural questions for them to arrive at the correct answers.

I usually kept corrected tests on file until exam review, primarily so students didn’t lose them!
Hope this helps!

Photo Credit: Alison Wood (Own Work)