A pretest will let you know where your students are in the content. It also helps you as an instructor know what your students strong points are and where you need to focus.
In my field, absolutely not. There is no way that I can pretest my students in medical coding. There may be only one or two students in the class who actually knows anything about coding. The easiest way to intimidate a student to not coming back to class would be to pretest them in coding knowledge and rules. I remember how I felt as a college student when I was pretested in the subject.
Paula,
One possible thing to consider is pretesting does not have to be written. So in your clinic setting, you could ask your students some prepared "before questions", then go about your task of assisting their practical learning, somewhat tailored to match which areas the students need the most help with.
Barry Westling
Pretests in our program is used after lecture. It helps the students' stay focussed and pay attention because they know a pretest will be given out. This also serves as a studying tool for their final exams
This is agood idea but as a part time teacher in clinic setting it is difficult to asecces the students up front. I am still triing to figure out the best way
David,
Sure, many instructors do use pretesting as a motivator in the way and for the reason you describe. Some think pretests have to be comprehensive, long, and all inclusive. Not necessarily the case. I have done pretesting by selecting a couple of key course objectives and then came up with 10 questions for students to answer. And I don't grade pretests, which I think allows the student more opportunity to try to answer questions correctly.
Barry Westling
A pretest could be given to the students at the begining of a class saved then re given at the end to let the students see how far they progressed.
Kathy,
You know, in medicine, having a baseline when the patient was healthy, and then being able to refer to it later on is wonderful information. I think the same principle applies with pretesting.
Barry Westling
It can give you an idea of what the class already knows and what they don't know or are not as knowledgable about. When you know where your class' baseline is, then you can know where your starting point should be so that they can understand the new material from that point forward.
LaToya,
This is a good technique (I have used before with great success). Usually, students are amazed at how much they have actually learned and improved. The main thing with pretesting is the help it gives to instructors in planning their courses.
Barry Westling
Using pretest is a good way to measure you student learning abilities. I teach math and i like to give my student a math drill on various different problems. Some student may not do well while others feel they could have done better. As i teach the course I then give the same drill at the end of the module so that not only i can see the improvement of the students, but the students can also see how much they have learned.
Jaime,
I think the good thing about the way I do pretesting is the students are not graded, and knowing that beforehand makes for much less anxiety. The main benefit is learning where the class as a whole is performing so that I can make adjustments in where I want my emphasis to be.
Barry Westling
It helps to see where the students may be at when they walk into your classroom. You can tell if 1 student may need some extra help. However, not everyone take a test. Some people freeze up and just forget everything they learned before that test. It has its good points and its bad.
Andrea,
Really, all pretests are a type of review. It may the preview type, or the post type, but in all cases we are presenting information that must be mastered one way or another.
Barry Westling
It can be used to introduce or review information that needs to be covered that might not currently be in the lecture.
Marco,
I like pretests to learn where I can put my most important emphasis, and perhaps find where less emphasis may be needed.
Barry Westling
Using pretests allows not only the instructor to have a better understanding of where student's knowledge is, but it also gives the students a good foundation of their strengths and weaknesses as related to the given topic.
Dennis,
To many instructors, the simple act of conveying a simple idea in written form using correct grammar would seem to an assumed ability for college or professional trade school students. My guess would that that is more often not the case than is the case. In a writing class, you have the perfect nsetting for "pretesting", or perhaps preassessment. Whatever we call it, determining which students need more help early on provides the best opportunity for the instructor to work with these students to help assure they meet the minimal competencies in the course.
Barry Westling
As I writing teacher, I always have student write the first day of class to get a sense of their writing abilities. Sometimes I find that students are having extreme difficulties with the English language, usually because of their ESL status. The knowledge I gain from these sample pieces of writing are invaluable in determining future class activities. I can determine which aspects of the writing process to focus on, whether to teach more about punctuation, and what sort of writing to emphasize to get students involved in the writing process. It would be inconceivable not to get a sample of writing, a sense of where students are as communicators.
Roberto,
Its true, the more we know about our students, the better able we are to reach each one based on their learning styles and abilities.
Barry Westling
