This pre-assessment example is for my Chinese K3 grade students. The lesson will cover prepositions of place. I plan to give a pre-assessment on the first day to determine my students’ knowledge of the subject area. In order to quickly distribute, collect, and grade the data, I will use Kahoot. Using technology will also integrate a 21st century skill. I’ll ask students to input the number code into their iPads and then the “game” will begin. The pre-assessment will ask students to choose the right preposition of place for the picture. Here is the pre-assessment.
This will check for comprehension, and allow me to determine which students have experience with this unit, and which students are starting from square one. Their answers will determine which groups I will put them in for skill-based or disability-based differentiated instruction.
Group 1 (High-Scoring): 5 students who answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly.
Group 2 (Mid-Scoring): 12 students who have some knowledge about the topic as shown in their score, but need to develop higher order thinking skills.
Group 3 (Low-Scoring): 5 students who appear to have limited knowledge about the topic, of which 3 are struggling with language and are at different reading levels and 2 students who have little to no comprehension of the the topic and need to be tested further for special needs.
Group 1 (High-Scoring): These students will be given a worksheet with pictures of various objects in various places and a wordbank. Working independently, they need to use prepositions of place to create full sentences by themselves to describe the picture. Once finished, they will be corrected for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. This is a good opportunity to practice and assess their writing skills.
Group 2 (Mid-Scoring): These students will be given a version of the high-scoring students’ worksheet but they will be filling in the blanks instead of writing full sentences. Once finished, they will be corrected for understanding, grammar and spelling. This is a good opportunity to develop their writing skills.
Group 3 (Low-Scoring): These students will be working directly with the teacher. We will learn from flashcard instruction and games. We will focus on sight-word recognition, vocabulary understanding, and speaking in full sentences. I will use this time to investigate if there are other factors that contributed to their low scores in the pre-assessment. For example, do they have trouble with reading? Using technology? Paying attention? Do they get stressed by timed assessments?
At the end of the class, students will participate in a listening quiz in heterogeneous groups (a mix of high, mid and low scoring students). I will read a sentence and students will work together in groups of 3 or 4 to write the correct sentence.
Jenn Leah Ko 