Results....

Starting 4 years ago I divided my class time into 3 distinct parts.  There was skill time, concept time and project time.  Concepts and projects are the most important so we spend about 70-80% on those during the week.  The skills which is simply quiz time take about 20% of the time; it is just previous mastered material put into a quiz without clustering or grouping.  Sometimes a few problems that are the same type are together but usually it is just one maybe two.  It makes the students' sharp with their skills and keeps the topics current.  It is about  50-55% of a student's grade in my course in High School - assuring material is mastered and stays mastered.  If you want to see the quizzes, check out the google doc.

It is this graph shown in the blog that makes me feel like this works.  By committing that previous skills are important, and making students continually accountable in an assessment, they retain the skills and concepts better.  And by maintaining some level of practice my students are more ready for new material and at the end of high school for post-secondary math.  These quizzes are graded as right or wrong, no partial credit (passing is 70% and up).    The idea is simply that what you use you do not lose....