David,
Sometimes I think of planning for student learning like packing for a trip. I have to consider many possibilities, and potentially leaving one vital part out could be disastrous for the trip. So it is with pretesting. By knowing my student needs, I can better plan for my adventure with them.
Barry Westling
Lito,
Right! This is a great example of the power of the pretesting activity. Just as students have breakthroughs in their learning, we can have better understanding of our students through the pretesting process.
Barry Westling
A pretest in combination with a post test provides me with the facts about what my students have learned and/or retained from a lesson or course. I can take that feedback and modify my current method of teaching or course curriculum to hopefully have better results each time.
pretesting helps you to be better prepared by knowing where your students are, and where you need to start with your class. I don't like to leave anybody behind.
Pretesting can be such a valuable tool to a teacher. Knowing your audience is so important to an educator in planning their course of action. If you know the percentage breakdown of your classroom population in terms of level of comprehension and commitment, it may be a little easier to develop an effective lesson plan with the different groups of people you are responsible to train or teach.
Charles,
Yes, if we want to take students froim where they arfe to somewhere we want them to be in their learning, pretesting is a great way to determoine what prior learning students come to class with. From there, planning can occur that helps meet the student needs.
Barry Westling
Larry,
Great. This is eactly what pretesting is designed to do.
Barry Westling
A good pretest can identify strengths and weaknesses of the class and allow the instructor to structure the class accordingly.
I like to use pretests to focus on what information my students may be lacking up to that point. I like that they give me an overall feel for the class. They help me to plan my lessons and the also let me know which students may be struggling or which students may not have been motivated in previous classes. This information allows me to effectively plan and also lets me identify students that may need to be reached out too. Either because they are struggling and need more attention or becauzse they have lost their motivation for the classroom environment.
Cynthia,
Right. Planning curriculum based on students prior knowledge is what pretesting is all about.
Barry Westling
it lets me know what the students know and where they are in their individual learning process.
Edwin,
Right on target. We've got to meet the students where there at, then take them to a higher level. So knowing where they're at via pretesting can be an integral step.
Barry Westling
The proper pretest can pinpoint areas of weekness in the students backgroung and/or their learning dissabilities. This enables the teacher to asses quickly if changes are needed in presentation, visual, and if possible hands-on learning assignments that may better convey the learning objectives of the course. It may also enable the teacher to change up their deliver to bettter reach the student on a more familiar level or communicative manner.
Cassandra,
Good point. Time is so valuable, we really can't afford to waste time. Therefore, planning to focus on material the students need to learn first makes a lot of sense, and pretesting is one way to assist achieving that goal.
Barry Westling
Pretesting helps us as instructors to properly plan course objectives for the week. It keeps the students from becoming bored with material that they have already mastered and the instructor from wasting time.
Cassandra
James,
Right! And helping students learn from the point of their prior learning is greatly assisted with pretesting activities.
Barry Westling
As an accounting teacher, I use pretests to determine where my students are starting and any remedial material or skills I need to cover again. Sometimes it's amazing what students didn't learn the first time!
Lydia,
Great! Pretesting can also be conducted throughout the term, even throughout the daily lesson. It can be a continuous work in progress, so to speak. Instructors who do pretesting usually find it quite beneficial.
Barry Westling
Using pretest as planning tools has been great for our program. The students love the option to let them go over the things that may have been forgotten. Some of our surgical classes can be enterrupted with a five or ten week gen ed class so pretesting helps to get us all on track.
Lydia,
Great. Assessing prior knowledge would define the purpose of pretesting just about perfectly!
Barry Westling
