Pre-Assessment and Differentiation

Is the Class Ready for what comes next?

Pre-assessment for High School Geometry

 

What is Pre-assessment? Basically a pre-assessment test or quiz is for grouping or placement of a student based on data or results.  Pre-assessment provides important information to both the teacher and the student.  The teacher can group students based on prior knowledge and data from the pre-assessment to meet the student’s instructional needs.  The data allows the teacher to differentiate instruction and assessment for all students in the class.  The student is made aware of what knowledge is needed to be successful and allows the student to self-assess and be responsible for their learning.

“If teachers want to create flexible groups that address students' needs, they need to pre-assess.” (Pendergrass, 2014)

The following link is a pre-assessment quiz for a high school geometry class to determine readiness for Right Triangles and Trigonometry:

 

 Kahoot quiz for preassessment

CCSS.Math.Content.HSG.SRT.C.8 Use trigonometric ratios and the Pythagorean Theorem to solve right triangles in applied problems.

Bloom’s Taxonomy guided the design of the pre-assessment to develop a higher order of thinking.  I wanted the pre-assessment to start with basic algebra skills needed in the unit and graduated to medium and one applied problem – ten total to keep the assessment fun and at a low level of anxiety.  Pre-assessments are not for a grade in my class!  Given three different student groupings:

• the 5 students who answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly
• the 12 students who have some knowledge about the topic as shown in their score, but need to develop higher order thinking skills
• the 5 students who appear to have limited knowledge about the topic

The following is a flowchart (coogle) of differentiation strategies and assessments to address the needs of all the students.  Bloom’s taxonomy identifies specific levels and knowledge to help students evolve in learning.  Advanced students will need to be challenged to promote “creating and evaluating” skills, mid-level students require problems that promote “applying, analyzing and evaluating”, and lower level students will need to review basic skills and new concepts by “remembering and understanding”.

 Coogle mindmap

Continued assessments are needed to monitor students’ progress and tweak my teaching along the way so I am reaching each student at each level.   Modifying problems and material to maintain a high level of academic expectation is the goal of pre-assessment and differentiation strategies.   The end goal is to have each student engaged, learning and enjoying the class! 

 

 

Reference:

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. (2015) Retrieved http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

Pendergrass, E. (2014). Differentiation: It Starts with Pre-assessment.  Retrieved http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec13/vol71/num04/Differentiation@_It_Starts_with_Pre-Assessment.aspx

Kahoot. (n.d.) Retrieved https://kahoot.com/

 

 Kahoot quiz