maletta_journal1

Michelle Maletta EDC 452 Assessment Journal 1 Context and Structure: In my first couple weeks back this semester the type of assessment I observed that stood out the most to me was a pre-assessment administered at the beginning of a new unit. As it is required by the principal of my school, at the beginning of each new unit being taught, each teacher must test the students on their prior knowledge. For this particular observation the students in my class were beginning a new math unit, thus they took a math pre-assessment test. Each of the twenty-four students in my class were handed a four page twenty multiple choice/short answer question exam. They had fifteen minutes to complete it. The only instruction my teacher gave was that they should try their best to at least attempt each of the questions, and that this would not be graded. Implementation and Results: At the conclusion of the time limit the students were given, my cooperating teacher collected the paper exams and that was the last the students saw of it. Later during my observation I sat down with my teacher to review the pre-tests. Although we did not grade them we looked at the results very closely. We looked at which problems tended to cause the most trouble for the students and conversely which ones they seemed to have prior knowledge about. My teacher told me that she would use this information to judge what parts of the unit she would need to focus and spend more time on. The results of this pre-assessment were also given to the school’s principle. I was told that he uses the results as a comparison for the results of the post-test, which the students take at the conclusion of each unit as well. Reflection: Looking back at the implementation of this type of assessment, I am not totally sure as to how I feel about it. On the positive side, I think that doing a pre and post test allows the teacher to see quite clearly the improvement of the student’s work, before instruction verses after. Also, I think a pre-assessment gives the teacher a good starting point in terms of what aspects of a unit need to have the most attention put on them. At the same time, I think that it is of the utmost importance that this type of assessment only be used minimally. Using this type of assessment should not be a teacher’s only way of preparing to teach her students a new unit. He/she must also factor in what they know about the children’s style of learning in prior units and in the classroom in general. All in all, I feel that pre-assessment tests such as this one can be helpful but the results must be analyzed and used extremely carefully.