Designing A Pre-Test and Post-Test

          Before we began teaching our lesson to our class of  5th graders, my group was responsible for creating a pre-test to asses our students prior knowledge on our topic. Before we could start brainstorming questions, we each had to take some time to familiarize ourselves with our topic. We were responsible for teaching about the original 13 colonies. Coming up with questions was more difficult than I expected it to be. We had to make sure our questions were clear in what they were asking. This proved to be harder than expected because in our heads we knew what we were asking and the response we were aiming for, but sometimes that didn't always translate in the way we were asking our questions. We made sure that if a random person were to read our question, they would be absolutely positive about the type of answer we were looking for. We also wanted to make sure that students had the opportunity to try different types of questions such as, multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and short answer.

          Designing the post-test was equally as hard with the same challenges in choosing questions. However, now, there was almost more pressure because we had taught our lesson. If students still couldn't answer our questions correctly, it was because we were not clear in something we taught. This post test became more of a reflection of our teaching, so we were even more careful as we designed our questions.

          I felt that my group did a good job of equally contributing question ideas. We worked well together to come up with clear questions that would do a good job of testing our students understanding and prior knowledge. Overall, I enjoyed the opportunity of creating pre and post-tests. I learned useful skills that I will most definitely put to use in my future career!