Pre-assessments Part 1.

I've always noticed that most textbooks have a pretest to be given at the beginning of every chapter and I know it's important but its something I've never taken much time to do since the administration has always wanted the classes to move through the material. Since COVID happened, pretests and pre-assessments have become so much more important due to the amount of reduced instructional time students have experienced. 

There are some good reasons to consider instituting pre-assessment in the classroom, even if you do not feel as if you have the time.  I never did since I felt like I needed to get through the material, even the basic material while trying to do it at a pace that guaranteed my students would learn.  

Pre-assessment is a way of obtaining information about what a student knows or doesn't know about topics and concepts. In other words, a pre-assessment is a way for students to show what they know and does not need to be used to provide a grade thus making it less stressful.  Although it is often said one should administer a pretest before going into the unit, I've seen recommendations that one should wait till the second or third day to actually give it to give time for their pre knowledge to be activated.  The reason for doing it this way, is simply to give the teacher a more accurate result.

The results from the pre-assessment can be used to help differentiate instruction, tell you if you can skip most of the instruction on a topic or go into more in-depth instruction so you meet the needs of your students.  In addition, it helps students develop a growth mindset because it helps them see what they already know and they see their own growth.

Furthermore, the pre-assessment gives them something to reflect on as they develop understanding for problems they couldn't do on it.  One can use some of the problems from the pre-assessment as warm-ups so they can see the problems they didn't understand how to do, they can now.  In addition, ask students to explain how they solved the problem or how do they know the answer is correct to help them develop critical thinking skills.

When you combine the results of a pretest with the results of post tests, you are able to show that your students are making growth and actually mastering the material. The same data can provide evidence that your students, especially those with IEP's are meeting their learning goals.  Furthermore, if the pretests and post tests are kept, they can be shared with parents during parent teacher conferences to let them see that they are making growth and their needs are being met.

The data from pre-assessments can be used to help differentiate instruction so those who need to can move onto more complex material while those who need extra remediation and time to master the concepts have it.  In addition, this same data can help you develop the proper pacing for all the lessons and units. This way, you don't waste time on concepts your students have already mastered or you can take them a step further and you can spend more time on the areas, they need it. 

Finally, pre-assessments provide information on student misconceptions.  This material comes from student explanations of how to solve certain problems. In fact, you can design lessons around their misconceptions so as to help them get rid of the misconceptions and learn the material properly. In the next blog, I'll talk about the types of pre-assessment and how to make digital ones.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.