pretesting should be implemented properly.
Pretesting should be used among career college students. The information from pretesting would help instructor to develope a better instructional materials accordin to the need of students. Instructors should take role in pretseting.
Hi Steven,
The cPAT is used in admissions as a minimum for entry into school. It could be used as a general survey of student competencies. I have found it is of limited use (except when I see someone score very high). But it is a form of pretesting and any information we can gather beforehand about a students abilities is a good thing. Overall, we want to be able to teach our students and have them learn.
Barry Westling
Ok. Thanks for that info. I think I am going to start to implement pre-testing in each module. Campus wide, we are starting the C.Pat to pre-test all students in their general competencies. I look forward to seeing how this will help us to help our students.
Hi Steven,
First, there isn't any prefered method that works for everyone, everytime. Pretesting simply allows a glimpse into what students know at a given point in time. Some teachers will pretest at the beginning of a course, then use the same test at the conclusion of a course to both measure progress, and to show students what they've learned. Some will make just a short (10 questions) pretest, while others will prepare a more comprehensive (50-100) pretest. The more more comprehensive method usually is folled by systematically covering couse content from the pretest in segments. For instance, week one is focused on question 1-5; week 2 is focused questions 6-10, and so forth. But there are a lot of variations. One of the main purposes of a pretest is to determine where emaphasis is (or is not) needed, so that time can be used where the most need is. So each teacher has to decide what works best for them.
Barry Westling
What pre-testing formats do you find work best for you?
Hi Anthony:
I could't agree more. One thing that proper pretesting allows us instructors to see is how a student learns. Depending on how you structure the pretesting questions, you can gauge what instructional style will be optimal for each student.
Regards, Barry
Hi Stephen:
Perfect! I think you've touched on one of the main reasons a teacher may want to consider pretesting - to see at what point of knowledge the class is performing at to begin with.
Regards, Barry
While I agree with this point I believe that in our school it will not help as intended. I teach at a culinary school and we have a program that teaches in rotations with each new rotation designed to build on the last. We start with the basics and continue to develop skills on a daily basis.The students need to get into the kitchen/classroom to see what it is really like and if it is really what they want to do. TV has glamorized the culinary industry and too many students enter the college with a false sense of reality because of this. By pretesting we can present situations to them to see how prepared and interested they are. But as I tell my students, I can tell you all day long but until you actually do it I'm really doing nothing more then talking.
