Every student has a different preparation so it gives you a platform to how to teach the class in a way that targets every student regardless of their background and also helps you aid them in their weaknesses.
Claire,
Sounds like you've got this down. Good job!
Barry Westling
1.Pretests allow teachers to see if what is being covered in the lesson or unit is already mastered. For example, if you are teaching 9th grade geography, you might give a pretest to see how well students understand latitude and longitude. If they all know how to use these then the teacher can skip that lesson. If only a couple of students have a problem, then they can individualize their instruction to bring them up to speed. If the majority of students are struggling with the information then they can continue with the lesson.
2.Pretests help measure true learning. By comparing pre and posttests, teachers can see what students actually learned from the lessons that were developed.
3.Pretests can give students a preview of what will be expected of them. This helps students begin to focus on the key topics that will be covered.
4.Pretests can help generate ideas for future lesson. Depending on the way the pretests are created, teachers might find knowledge gaps that they did not expect. Armed with this knowledge they can make changes to lessons to include further instruction and review.
Katherine,
It's true there are often students who are less than fully prepared who end up in a class. We may not have too much control over who is in our classes, but we surely can assess their prior knowledge in order to better plan how to "confront our challenges" realistically.
Barry Westling
Even though students are tested before admission, their score is a cumulative one. This means they can do poorly in one section, wonderful in another, and their total score is good enough to get in. This poses a problem with math and science classes. If one is teaching a college math course, and you get a student who can't do simple division, it is our responsibility to pretest so we can get that student signed up for early tutoring in order to maximize the chances of success in the class and general retention. I will be doing pretests in both my math and science classes next term!
