Pre-Assessments

Assessments come in many different forms and types and are given for a variety of different reasons. When creating and giving an assessment in the classroom, the teacher must first decide the purpose it will serve. As we learned in unit 1, assessments can be for learning or of learning. Assessments of learning measure how well students have achieved a certain objective. Assessments for learning allow teachers to adjust their teaching strategies to better suite the needs of the students in their classroom. A pre-assessment is given before the start of a unit to gauge student’s prior knowledge of certain subject. Because classrooms are filled with diverse learners, it’s important for teachers to understand how much their students know so they can differentiate content going forward. Student readiness has major implications in differentiation and can allow all students to be successful in the classroom and on summative assessments at the end of the unit. This flow chart shows 3 different strategies for differentiation after a pre-assessment. You can start by making a standard lesson for the 12 students who scored in the normal range and then differentiate from there. The 5 high-level students can be given leadership roles and opportunities to work independently and collaboratively with low-level students as a mentor. The 5 low-level students should be given scaffolding and graphic organizers to help them catch up with simple vocabulary and concept with teacher guidance. 

There are numerous ways teachers can implement pre-assessments, such as anticipation journals (students write about expectations and prior knowledge), group games and activities (students share prior knowledge to the group, carousel brainstorms (students collect a database of prior knowledge), and many more. However, just like summative assessments, pre-assessments must be differentiated to allow all students to share their prior knowledge on a certain topic. I created an interactive online quiz that students can take at home or in the library. This is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom and doesn’t take up much class time.

As you can see, pre-assessments can be just as important to the learning process as post-assessments. They allow teachers to measure prior knowledge and differentiate accordingly by creating engaging lessons for all types of specific learners.

Resources

Assessing Prior Knowledge (2015). Retrieved from https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/teach/priorknowledge.html June 09 2016

 

Pendergrass, E. (2013). Differentiation: It starts with Pre-Assessment. Retrieved from www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec13/vol71/num04/Differentiation@_It_Starts_with_Pre-Assessment.aspx 09 June 2016

Pre-assessment Ideas (2016). Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/lrtsas/differentiation/5-preassessment-ideas 09 June 2016