Pre-test
I like to give the students a pretest to see what thay have retain from the prior class.It helps me to help them to teach the next step from where they are.
Clive,
Yes, some students might benefit from looking ahead. Of course, we really want to be able to plan our classes according to the student audience, and that information and subsequent planning is the root of pretesting, in my opinion.
Barry Westling
Pretesting can give some insight into what may be coming soon or later in the course, some students might even decide to begin to look ahead to prepare themselves.
Leslie,
Sounds like a good plan. Knowing something about a students prior knowledge can usually be very helpful, especially with time management, choosing the order of learning segments, and instructional time by the instructor.
Barry Westling
We, as a program, have started using this tool to test how much the students know from their assigned reading and where to lead the discussions.
Owena,
Yeah, for some, prior "test anxiety" lingers from past academic events in school or elsewhere, and some may get freaked out just by hearing that word. Sometimes I use "learning assessment" as it conjures up a less judgemental tone. Another method is to give frequest assessments that are relatively easy so students get accustomed to the process.
Barry Westling
Sometimes just the word test causes students to become anxious. In the past I have used questionnaire.
Gabriel,
Great technique. Perhaps they "should" know certain material, but the question when planning a class is "do they have sufficient knowledge" in order to continue on. I would suppose that if not, a review or spending time with key areas might be appropriate.
Barry Westling
