Introduction
It is important for both the teacher and the student to do a pre-assessment before a new content area is covered. Pre-assessments have shown to produce a positive impact by providing critical information to assist the teacher in instructional designing. In Physical Education, pre-assessments can take many different forms. These assessments are used as a baseline to assess levels of fitness, skill ability of exercises, and general content knowledge of their health.
Formative Assessment
The Pre-assessment activity that I will use for this assignment will be covering our nutrition content. Some students may have a great deal of knowledge about the new content area, some students have some general knowledge about the content area and there are also those students who know nothing at all about the content area. In order to meet the needs of every student, we must look for ways to use differentiation instruction to meet the needs of every student. Initially, the students will take the assessment before we begin covering the unit. After everyone has taken the assessment, students will be placed into three groups; top performing students, mid-range students, low performing students.
Advanced Students (Top Performers)
The pre-assessment for this activity identified five students who were very knowledgeable about the content area and answered most of the questions right. Students in this group understood what carbs, fats, and proteins were, the difference between simple and complex carbs and the caloric count of the three macro-nutrients. It would be beneficial for these students to work on activities through indirect teaching strategies such as divergent learning, student choice exercises, and guided discovery. They could also benefit from working in mixed ability groups with lower level students so peer teaching can occur, and they can take on the role of teacher.
Mid-Range Students (Average Performers)
The pre-assessment for this activity identified 12 students who were somewhat knowledgeable of the content area but needed to develop higher order thinking skills. Students in this group understood parts of the main topics of carbs, fats, and proteins were, the difference between simple and complex carbs and the caloric count of the three macro-nutrients but were limited on their understanding of most of it. This group of students could benefit from small work groups of mixed abilities so they can partake with students of a higher level and gain assistance and insight from them. This group would have more guided instruction from the teacher and would need to review the main components of nutrition before advancing into more in-depth practices. Assessment strategies for this group would include teacher observation to make sure content is covered and understood. We would also have discussions at the end of class to check for understanding. Peer reviews and a quiz would be used as well.
Low-Performing students
The pre-assessment for this activity identified five students who were limited in their knowledge or did not have any knowledge at all in the content area. For these students, it is important to use as many resources as possible and devote as much time as possible to direct instruction to make sure that they are progressing but also at a pace that is comfortable for them to excel. Each content area would need to be covered thoroughly before they move forward. The teacher would provide more visual cues to walk them through the content and a lot of time would be dedicated to the understanding of it. Assessment for this group would include 1 on 1 tutoring to aid in progress, teacher observation for engagement and discussion at the end of class with a question and answer session to review content retention and understanding.