You go to visit a specialist, Dr. Cuchil, for the first time. As soon as she walks in the room, she says “Surgery.” You go to another specialist, Dr. Tened. He asks you some questions, has some X-rays taken, and moves your hand in various positions. He then suggests a treatment. Dr. Tened has vast knowledge about your condition but bases his comments directly on your condition as he has diagnosed it. One teaches without any knowledge about you. The other one re-teaches based on your information.
I think that reteaching is the key to student learning, not teaching. Reteaching implies that the teachers have made an assessment of student’s learning needs and these educators have come up with a different strategy or strategies to help those learners be successful. In a classroom the teachers pretest the students either in paper or, hopefully, electronic means; they analyze the results or look at the electronic results. They become aware of the academic strengthens and weaknesses of their students; they know where learning problems are. Then the teachers use their word processor to modify/change the unit to better help the students; the teachers reteach what the students do not know or cannot do yet. They do not teach what the students already know. They regularly check the students’ progress.
Do you teach or reteach? How do you use technology to help you reteach?
© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007
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Education with Technology Harry G. Tuttle 
Excelllent! Thank you for your article. It really helped me gain a better understanding of what my district is asking for from me. I think Mastery learning is key to student success, and reteaching is a huge part of this.