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a ready-to-run workshopReteaching Effectively
Instructional Strategies · Workshop

Reteaching Effectively (Workshop)

Everything you need to lead this with your staff or PLC: a minute-by-minute run-of-show, what to say, what to hand out, and how to make it stick. Pick the length that fits your slot.

Key takeaway

When students do not learn something, the instinct is to reteach it the same way, just louder, slower, or again, which tends to fail for the same reasons it failed the first time, so effective reteaching diagnoses why they did not get it and comes at it differently, with a new approach, representation, or entry point, rather than repeating what already did not work.

Format
PLC / team meeting
Length
45 minutes
Group size
Any (works 4-40)
Who can run it
Any teacher-leader
You will need
Slides (5)Printed handoutSomething students did not learnA timer
Aligned to
Learning Forward: Rigorous ContentInTASC 8: Instructional StrategiesResearch on reteaching, diagnosis, and multiple representations
Share / assign

Why it works

Reteaching, teaching again something students did not learn the first time, is a constant part of real teaching, and how it is done largely determines whether it works. The common instinct, under time pressure and frustration, is to reteach the same way: present the same explanation again, perhaps louder, slower, or with more emphasis, and hope it lands this time. This usually fails, and for a simple reason, if the original teaching did not work for these students, repeating it is likely to fail for the same reasons, since nothing about the approach that did not reach them has changed. Louder and slower is still the same explanation, the same representation, the same entry point that already did not connect. Effective reteaching rests on a different logic: first understand why students did not learn it, then come at it in a genuinely different way that addresses that reason, rather than repeating the failed approach. Several principles make reteaching work. Diagnose first: before reteaching, find out why students did not get it, a missing prerequisite, a misconception, an explanation that was too abstract, a representation that did not connect, pacing that was too fast, which turns reteaching from a blind repeat into a targeted response. Come at it differently: the heart of effective reteaching is a genuinely different approach, a new explanation, a different representation or model, a concrete example where the first was abstract, a different entry point, a hands-on version, a peer explanation, so that students who did not connect with the first path have a new one. Address the actual cause: if the problem was a missing prerequisite, teach that; if a misconception, confront it directly; if too abstract, make it concrete, the reteaching targets the diagnosed reason rather than being generic. Do not just repeat louder and slower: name this common failure explicitly, since the instinct is strong and the approach is nearly useless, more volume and less speed do not fix an approach that did not connect. Check that it worked: reteaching needs its own check for understanding, since a second failed attempt calls for yet another approach, not a third repeat. And use the resources: reteaching can draw on peers (a classmate's explanation sometimes connects where the teacher's did not), different materials, small-group targeting, and the full range of representations. A few practical points: reteaching is often best done in small groups targeted to the students who need it, using formative data to know who and what; it connects closely to multiple representations, checking for understanding, and addressing misconceptions; and the goal is efficiency as much as effectiveness, a well-diagnosed, differently-approached reteach reaches students faster than repeated failed repeats. A caution: reteaching differently is not endless novelty for its own sake; it is a deliberate, diagnosed, different approach aimed at the specific reason the learning did not happen. The workshop helps teachers reteach effectively by diagnosing why students did not learn and coming at it in a genuinely different way, rather than repeating the failed approach louder and slower.

The research: Research on reteaching, diagnosis, multiple representations, and formative response.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

    The core activity: diagnose, then reteach differently

    The heart of the session is diagnosing why students did not learn something and coming at it in a genuinely different way, rather than repeating the failed approach.

    Reteach differently, not louder and slowerIf the first teaching did not reach these students, repeating it, just louder or slower, fails for the same reasons. Diagnosing why they did not get it and coming at it with a genuinely different approach is what makes reteaching work.

    Facilitator notes

    A different approach, not endless noveltyReteaching differently means a deliberate, diagnosed approach aimed at the specific reason learning did not happen, not novelty for its own sake. The new representation or entry point is chosen to address what went wrong, not just to be different.

    Adapt it

    Participant handout

    One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

    K12 Academics · Professional Learning

    Reteaching Effectively: diagnose, differ, check

    Make the second attempt work: diagnose why students did not learn it, come at it in a genuinely different way that addresses the cause, and check the reteach landed, rather than repeating louder and slower.

    1. Something students did not learn the first time:
    2. Why they did not get it (the diagnosis):
    3. A genuinely different approach that addresses that reason:
    4. How I target it (small group, formative data, peers):
    5. How I check the reteach actually worked:

    Make it stick

    Diagnosed, different reteaching reaches students the repeat would not. Close by setting the follow-up:

    Common questions

    Isn't reteaching just going over it again until they get it?
    Going over it again is exactly the ineffective default this skill is meant to replace, because repeating the same teaching, even patiently and multiple times, tends to fail for the same reasons it failed the first time. The intuition behind going over it again is that more exposure will eventually make it stick, but if the original approach did not reach these students, repeating that same approach, the same explanation, representation, and entry point, leaves unchanged the very thing that did not work, so more of it is unlikely to succeed, and louder or slower does not change the approach, only its volume and pace. Effective reteaching is different in kind, not just in repetition: you first diagnose why the students did not learn it, a missing prerequisite, a misconception, an explanation too abstract, a representation that did not connect, and then you come at it in a genuinely different way that addresses that reason, a new representation, a concrete example, a different entry point, a peer explanation. So reteaching well is not doing the same thing again until it works through sheer repetition; it is understanding what went wrong and changing the approach to fix it. The repeated going-over wastes time (often more than a well-designed reteach) and frustrates everyone, while a diagnosed, differently-approached reteach reaches students more reliably and often faster. The shift from again to differently, grounded in diagnosis, is the whole point.
    How do I find time to reteach when I'm already behind on the curriculum?
    You find it partly by reteaching more efficiently, since a diagnosed, differently-approached reteach reaches students faster than repeated failed repeats, and partly by targeting reteaching to who and what actually needs it rather than reteaching everything to everyone. The time worry is real, but consider that ineffective reteaching, going over the same thing again and again as students still do not get it, is itself a large time sink that the curriculum pressure makes worse, so the first gain is effectiveness: a reteach that works the first time because it is diagnosed and comes at the content differently costs less total time than multiple failed repeats. The second gain is targeting: you do not need to reteach everything to the whole class, so you use formative data to identify exactly who did not learn what, and reteach in small groups to those students while others move on or extend, which concentrates the reteaching time where it is needed rather than spending whole-class time on content most students already have. The third is that reteaching, done well, prevents the far larger time cost of building later content on foundations students never secured, which forces even more reteaching down the line; investing in reaching students the first reteach is cheaper than compounding gaps. And some reteaching can happen in efficient formats, a different quick explanation, a peer who explains it, a targeted task, rather than always a full re-lesson. So the honest answer is that reteaching is not simply extra time added to a packed curriculum; it is time that pays off when done efficiently and targeted, and that prevents the larger time losses of failed repeats and unaddressed gaps, which is why doing it well, diagnosed and different, matters precisely when you are pressed for time.
    What if I reteach it differently and students still don't get it?
    Then the new approach also missed, and the response is the same logic again: diagnose what is still going wrong and come at it with yet another approach, not a repeat of the second attempt, which is exactly why reteaching needs its own check for understanding. A reteach is not guaranteed to work just because it was different; the particular new approach you chose may not have addressed the real difficulty, or may have introduced its own obstacle, so you treat a failed reteach the way you treated the original failure, as information to diagnose rather than a reason to repeat. Check whether the reteach landed (reteaching without a check leaves you not knowing), and if it did not, ask again why, perhaps the diagnosis was wrong and the real cause is a missing prerequisite you had not spotted, perhaps the new representation also did not connect for these particular students, perhaps there is a deeper misconception, and design a further approach targeting what you now understand. This may mean trying a different representation again, going further back to a prerequisite, bringing in a peer explanation, working one-on-one, or using a more concrete or more fundamental entry point. The key is that you keep the diagnose-and-differ logic going rather than either repeating a failed approach or giving up, and you keep checking so you know where you stand. Occasionally persistent difficulty signals that a student needs more support than classroom reteaching can provide, which is worth recognizing and acting on. But the general stance is that a failed reteach is simply a prompt to diagnose more accurately and approach differently again, since the alternative, repeating what just failed, has already shown it does not work.

    Go deeper

    Build it into a bigger day

    Workshop
    Checking for Understanding
    Workshop
    Multiple Representations
    Workshop
    Planning for Misconceptions