First Colonial High School Content Meeting February 6, 2012

 Define the term “preassessment.”  Ascertain best practices for administering preassessments.  Identify ways of using student results from preassessment to inform instruction.

The participants will understand that:  Preassessment is an important component of a balanced assessment system.  Well-constructed preassessments provide results to assist teachers in making instructional decisions.

 How does preassessment fit within a balanced assessment system?  How is preassessment used by teachers to inform instruction?

 Review the continuum activity sheet used to preassess your comfort level in the use of preassessments to guide instruction.  Share where you placed yourself on the continuum and discuss your responses with a neighbor. 5

 Time for a focused conversation concerning preassessments.  As you brainstorm about the purposes of preassessment and come up with examples, write your ideas in the columns provided. 6

 To increase the likelihood of student success by matching the student’s instructional needs with instructional strategies.  Effective preassessments help build a road map from a student’s current level of achievement to the content and skills needed to meet a specific standard. 7

Definition Purposes  Compare your brainstorm ideas with the support materials.  Did you come up with anything that was not included in Handout A? 8

Think-Pair-Share Describe a method you have used in class that has produced some of these instructional benefits What benefits would you like to see more of in your classroom? 9

 Start small  Make a plan for using your preassessment results  Incorporate all types of instructional strategies  Utilize your Collaborative Learning Teams 10

◦ Continuum Activities ◦ KWL Chart ◦ Frayer Model ◦ Fist to Five 11

◦ Small Group Work ◦ Share possible strategies based on assessment data 12

 Earlier you were asked to use a continuum to preassess your comfort level in the use of preassessments to guide instruction.  Think about where you would now place yourself on the continuum.  We will use the Fist to Five as a postassessment. 13

 For our next content meeting: 1) Create a preassessment to use with your classes 2) Collect the data and be prepared to share back with your content group as to how the results helped to shape your instructional scope and sequence