Scaffolding
Scaffolding involves building upon a students prior knowledge. One way to determine students prior knowledge is to conduct a pretest or prerequisites assessment. Would you agree?
Esther,
Yes, I always do some type of diagnostice assessment the first week fo class to help establish a base of where students are coming from. When you know what they already understand, you can provide appropriate content more effectively. Thanks!
I agree. It is also important to consider not only their knowledge, but their experiences. Students in an online community especially come to the course from diverse backgrounds and with varied life experiences. This diversity can provide an incredible opportunity for learning within the group and can help to build student knowledge in a dynamic and intimate way. In addition to a pretest, I require an intial discussion board where students introduce themselves to the community and outline their motivations and purpose within the course and beyond it. I also encourage students to use personal experience to support their observations and opinions in future discussion boards along with knowledge gained within the course itself. It's crucial to acknowledge that our responsibility as instructors is to provide the map and the tools; our students will build upon these connections and create meaning specific to their goals and the goals and purpose of their learning community.
Kristin,
Yes, their experience is important as well. Students come to us with work and life experiences and this can add to the course content. I also like having students introduce themselves. Have you used Wordle? I have students key a paragraph or two about themselves and then put it in Wordle and it's like a word graphic that describes them.
Yes, this is a common practice of mine epsecially with the calculation's based courses. It's always good to know where the weaknesses are and then take time for remediation in those spots before moving on in the course.
Shannon,
Excellent. You are right to get to know your students to help them achieve the learning outcomes. Thanks.
Assessment tools are very important to determine the knowledge base of a student. However, I do not believe that assessments should solely be a written test. What other assessment tools have people found to be effective?
Cynthia,
You are right. I teach using project-based learning quite a bit. I also incorporate self-assessment, peer assessment, reflection journals, service-learning, e-portfolios, etc. Variety is good as long as the students understand the learning outcomes and how to achieve them. Thanks for you input.
Yes, I agree that you want to know what the student does know . I also have had students that really don't know what they think they know. They have learned info. wrong from peers that had it wrong also. When testing it is helps you know what are their weak areas.
Richard,
Doing some type of diagnostic assessment to understand where the students are coming from is essential. Again, the better you understand them, the better you can communicate with them and help them be successful in your class. Thank you for your input.
Definite YES! I believe it gives a student confidence in what they know and an understanding of what they have yet to learn. The instructor now has a better idea of the students strengths and weak areas to deal with.
I would agree that getting an idea where the students are at could be done by pretesting or having a prerequisite assessment. In the online classes I have taught initially they did not embrace scaffolding much. As the syllabi developed more scaffolding was incorporated. Now we have all inclusive projects built from previous scenarios. I believe the other gain from this it is more real world learning experience.
Edward,
I really like to know what the students know and what they bring to the course. We learn so much from each other that students need to know the course is a community of learners learning from each other. Thanks for your input.
Our ability to use pretests is somewhat dependent on employers expectations. Only with a few have I been able to us pretesting. Some employers focus a lot on cookie-cutter education more to keep accreditors happy. While I can understand the requirement to treat everyone the same, the flexibility to deal with students more individually is certainly desirable.
Written tests are common because they are easier than other techniques and more universal. Evaluations based on other techniques are often more difficult to set up.
When the student "sees" they are lacking in some knowledge area this can actually be a motivator for them to study harder or with more focus.
Dennis,
Using a pre-test, however, can be used to assess what the students already know and build upon that knowledge. Many times you can go more quickly through the content and expand on certain content more so that they leave the course with a higher knowledge. Thanks!
Dennis,
However, just because they are more difficult to set up, it doesn't mean is shouldn't be done. The key is to make sure you are assessing the learning outcomes and providing various assessments for a variety of learners. Using rubrics helps make the grading more consistent, complete and timely. Thank you.
Dennis,
Yes, as long as what they "see" is tied to the learning outcomes and they understand they need to improve upon their weakness to achieve those outcomes. Nice job.
That's very true. But there is something to be said for being discerning with student's time. The ease and efficiency of an exam can give a great deal of information quickly so that we can assess how far back we need to cover in the subject matter.
From my perspective both quality and time efficiency should hold weight.
