Have you ever pretested your students to help you assess where they stand on the understanding of the topics you’ll be teaching? It’s a good classroom management technique that can certainly help you in planning so you don’t waste time on topics and skills that students have already mastered.
Today on TeachHUB.com, we take a look at pretesting as a classroom management method and its importance. Janelle Cox, who is a seasoned elementary school educator based in Upstate New York, outlines several reasons why pretesting is so important, including:
- Pretests Give Students a Preview of What is Expected
- Pretests Help to Plan Future Lessons
- And More!
Janelle sums up her article like this: “In today’s classrooms, you can easily pre-assess a student by giving him an entry ticket versus a full pretest. These are just a few quick questions (one to three) on the topic they will be learning to see how much they can recall about the topic, or if they even have any knowledge about the topic. Then you can easily go over the questions as a class and modify your lesson on the fly.
“Pretests are a valuable tool for teachers. The information that you gain from them can not only help you figure out what students already know (so you don’t have to reteach it), but also it can help you provide students with a more individualized approach to learning.”
Do you use pretests as classroom management to assess your students? Why do you think they are an essential tool for teachers and students? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below, we would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.
