Get Your Students Hired
All career colleges should have a pretest in placed before students are enrolled in each perspective programs.
Stephen Dable,
Great idea. Some timid students might feel a little restrained, but if I sensed that, I would work with these students to come out of their shell (comfort zone). It's amazing the kind of transformation that can occur in some students when they are just slightly nudged along by a caring instructor.
Barry Westling
I use a pretest for my first assignment. I call it an Oral Resume'. Attached below.
It gives me an opporunity to listen to their individual speaking skills and provides me with plenty of conversation starters(before and after class, in the library or hallway) and class connectors so I can personalize material.
It also begins the discussion of organizing and developing ideas for writing and speaking.
Name:
My Program is:
City that I currently live near?
High School I attended?
Honors/Awards? (school, work, club, community)
The best class (K-16) I ever attended? explain why
The worst class (K-16) I ever attended? explain why
One of my interests or hobbies is?
The last book I read? (not a class assigned book):
Magazine/newspaper I get at home?
The best job I ever had? explain why
The worst job I ever had? explain why
My favorite meal would be?
My favorite dessert?
Computer Skills: Mark those you can do.
â–¡ PowerPoint â–¡ Excel â–¡ Photoshop/Illustrator â–¡ Movie Maker
Sheneka,
I think pretesting to gather any kind of information is more helpful than not having it. I can modify some parts of my lesson (may need more or less of some topics) based on what I learn. And for me, the more specific I can be to the class, I think the more effective the learning outcomes will be.
Barry Westling
This is a great tool to use in my class because I teach a computer and resume course and the students come in at different levels. I think it also gives them a sense of accomplishment to see where they started and offering a post test gauges where they ended in the course. This type of format is set up for me in my "lab" work but I have not thought of doing it for the "book/lecture" material until now. Great tip!
Herman (Lonnie),
Great. There are many ways to perform pretesting, some very simple and not extremely elaborate. But all yield valuable information helpful to ultimately benefiting the learning needs of our students.
Barry Westling
Michael,
Pretesting for enrollment is an important part of selecting students. Once students are enrolled, pretesting in a class can give the instructor information about their students prior knowledge in preparation for reaching out to determine the best way to accomondate their individual learning needs.
Barry Westling
A pretest in my opinion has value, I always would like to know what my students are bringing knowledge wise into my class. This will act as a base to continue building on, treating it as a prerequisite.