Every single student I will have in my classroom will be a unique individual. They will have their own strengths and weaknesses, reach for different goals and priorities, and learn in their own way. Each student will also bring their own prior knowledge to the classroom that will affect how well they are able to grasp the concepts they need to learn. We can find out what our students know about a topic before we cover it by assessing them prior to the target lesson or unit. This is called preassessment, and it gives us a picture of what students already know, what misconceptions they may hold, and what they are interested in learning about.
Prior to this class, the word “preassessment” brought to mind week after week of dull spelling “pre-tests” in middle school. While I hated them at the time, they were a great way for my teacher to know who needed to learn the words, what errors they were making, and who had already mastered them. This is how preassessment helps us individualized instruction: we can’t give our students the specific help they need unless we know what skills they lack, and we will lose student engagement if we are constantly repeating things they have already mastered. If we don’t know where students are when we begin teaching, it is likely that we will not use the most effective instructional strategies (Shermis and DiVesta, 2011).
I have been trying to incorporate informal preassessments more often in my current job at an after-school program. For example, before we started our week on France, I asked my kids what they already knew about France and what they wanted to know. This gave me valuable information about their unfamiliarity with the topic, but also told me that one student’s ancestors were from France—helpful information for involving that student in the curriculum! However, I failed to adequately preassess before reading the kids a book about the Iron Curtain while studying Eastern Europe (Peter Sis’ The Wall). I realized while reading that most students had no knowledge about communism, dictators, or even where the countries mentioned in the book were. Had I prepared by preassessing them, I would have known that they lacked this information and could have taught it prior to reading the book. They would have gained far more understanding of the story had they been given that background knowledge.
By utilizing preassessments in my classroom, I can teach lessons that address specific needs of every student. Preassessments show me which students are lacking specific knowledge or skills as well as which students have already mastered them. I can give extra help to students who need it, including pre-teaching vital background knowledge, and have other students act as tutors or explore the topic more in-depth. Knowing what my students need and don’t need enables me to provide individualized, effective instruction for all students.
Read my previous post on adapting assessment, itself a sort of preassessment, here.
Reference:
Shermis, M. D. & DiVesta, F. J. (2011). Classroom assessment in action. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.
Caitlin's bPortfolio 
Thanks Caitlin,
I appreciated hearing about how you used preassessment in your work with the after-school program. I have often wondered if just by asking students what they know about a topic that this makes them more receptive, or perhaps open, to learning. I found it hard to account for every individual difference that students brought into the classroom, but by being aware of the preassessment process I was able to get a good idea about students’ general prior knowledge on a topic.
Dr. Denton