Pre-Assessment for a Purpose
Pre-assessment is like assembling the ingredients before you begin baking to make sure you have the right types of leavening and flour. Sometimes, after mixing the ingredients, pouring it in the pan, and popping it in the oven you discover that it is way overcooked when you take it out. Whoops! Forgot to calibrate the oven temperature.
In the classroom, a pre-assessment is generally given at the start of a lesson. Teachers use them, like a thermostat, to check the current status and consider adjustments to the dial. After a KWL, they may back-track to previous content in order to fill in any lingering gaps. In response to a Plickers pretest, students may be regrouped.
Pre-assessment should stretch beyond recall of prior learning. It can be used to pique student’s curiosity and uncover 21st century skills such as collaboration and critical thinking. Students with well-developed problem solving skills may easily jump into inquiry learning or case studies, while others in the group immediately assert their own answers and solutions. When students are pre-assessed on their ability to sequence the problem solving process, the knowledge and skills they display then informs teaching and learning.
Higher level thinking involves making connections to and building on prior learning. But how does a teacher know their student’s abilities before starting a lesson? Using graphic organizers such as bubbl.us or coggle.it to display incoming thinking can be reciprocally used to assess learning outcomes after instruction. A specific-to-general chart checks for understanding of the meaning of an event or theory.
The key idea to keep in mind is that there is no one pre-assessment that serves all purposes. When selecting a method consider how you will use it:
**Support standards and learning targets: Check for proficiencies, prior experiences, and dispositions
**Align with the taxonomy: Ask students how is this related, how does it compare, what do you predict?
**Guide instructional strategies: Plan for direct instruction, inquiry, reciprocal teaching, or producing
**Inform interventions, content, chunking, pacing, and resources
Purposeful and targeted pre-assessment is an engaging, fun, and illuminating way to support all learners.
