Assessing students in a pre-requisite course
Regarding a course that is a pre-requisite - I think that it's so important to have a well thought assessment structure to know if a student is truly proficient in a topic in order to proceed.
Jim,
For some courses this is necessary. you want to make sure you link content from one course to another if that is necessary. You hope students get it.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I agree. I am currently working with a small team to develop a new LMS for one of my schools. We are creating an assessment process that will help determine if the students are coming into the class prepared with the proper pre-requisite knowledge. If they need some additional study materials, we are going to have an automated system that will refer them to content information on the areas they are lacking in.
Matthew,
You are doing an important service for your students. Students need to be able to realistically identify their weaknesses and work to improve them with the resources you can provide them.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I think it is a huge challenge to properly assess students and determine whether or not they are ready to take a particular course. Therefore, it is a fantastic idea to refer them to the content info they are lacking in. Any student who wants to learn will truly appreciate it.
Agnes,
I agree with you. For the first time, many of us are looking at the prereqs of courses to know what students should not when they come to us in the next course. This has been quite helpful determining where and how we provide resources both in f2f and online.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Your posting intrigued me. We no longer are allowed to test students to determine if the students should take pre-reqs. We can suggest to the student that taking a pre-req might be in one's best interest, but it is the student's decision. Since this was the first semester having eliminated the test, I am curious as to what our assessments determine.
