Database of Formative Assessments

A type of assessment that is given to the students prior to delivering any lessons over that content.  A way for the teacher to identify what prior learning has occurred with that topic, and what some common misunderstandings may be.

Before starting a unit the teacher administers a pretest.  The results from that pretest are not kept for a grade, but will inform the teacher what the students already know about the topics, and what they might not understand yet.

Teachers might collect the pretests to give individual feedback on them after they can grade the tests.

students might be asked to grade their own pretest or trade it with a partner to grade.  Since the pretest won't count as a score there is no reason for students to "cheat" on the pretest.

This type of activity is generally used to let the teacher know if there are any topics that might need more time explaining than others.  The teacher could also have the students review their pretest as a form of study guide prior to the summative test for the unit.

This is a form of self-assessment since the teacher is really asking "what do you already know" about a specific topic.  The students can then think about the content they weren't sure of, and watch out for it when it is delivered in a lesson down the road.

Traditional pre-tests are done with pencil/paper, but the teacher may want to design a test in Moodle so that the questions are automatically graded and the results are shown immediately to the student.