Pre-assessment is a valuable tool in supporting differentiated instruction in my Economics class. In this post, I will demonstrate how this type of assessment can be used in creating differentiated tasks which support the needs of the students at different levels of readiness.
Let's take a look at the unit Government intervention in microeconomy in A2 Economics curriculum. A2 level extends the knowledge about the microeconomic intervention mastered at AS level, so before the students start applying what was learned before and combine it with the new skills, we need to check where each of them stands in terms of basic and higher-level thinking skills. one of the ways to quickly check their readiness is to use Quizlet which allows you to create flashcards and create interesting games and different types of questions. This is a great way for a quick check of the knowledge of your students, and instant feedback makes it easy to choose the right groupings based on their performance.
It's important to diversify the questions in terms of their complexity. The questions I created include some very simple definitions of the key concepts, more complex matching causes of market failure with appropriate policies, and the most challenging interpretation from the graphs that analyze the way policies fix the problems. Here are some sample questions from the Quizlet set for AS microeconomic intervention recap:
Examples of the pre-assessment questions. Full Quizlet set available at:
Once the students complete the quick test and the results are shown, they are redirected to three different stations for their further tasks. Three groups of students could be identified:
Group 1 - 5 students who answered most, including the most difficult questions correctly
Group 2 - 12 students who have some knowledge about the topic, but need to develop higher order thinking skills
Group 3 - 5 students who have limited knowledge about the topic
So, how can we assist their needs based on the pre-assessment results?
Group 1 goes to the Positive Externalities Station and works on an extension project of researching a case of positive externality in China or abroad. They will create their own case study with the relevant questions targeting application, analysis, and evaluation.
Group 2 goes to the Economic Reports Station and gets divided into four groups of three students. Each group will be given a case study on market failure in a particular market of China. Their task is to find all the possible government solutions to the problem, compare the alternatives, evaluate them and rank them in terms of their effectiveness. Their report should be presented in the form of PowerPoint/Emaze/Prezi presentation.
Group 3 goes to the Gaming Station and has the teacher's support in clarifying the concepts and their connections. After the oral revision, the students are making YES-NO flashcards based on the incorrect answers to the pre-assessment questions. They are playing with these cards on pairs/groups of three until they master the content. Once they're ready, they retake the quiz which should demonstrate a significant improvement.
Differentiation based on pre-assessment
Formative assessments used throughout this unit will vary depending on their purpose and the level of thinking skills specific groups need to develop. The following illustration shows some sample activities used to enforce learning of different groups previously identified.
Formative assessments used throughout the unit Government Intervention in Microeconomy
While blue assessments are targeting lower level thinking skills, and their main objective is to help students understand and remember basic theory necessary for the further application, the green ones are enforcing higher order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation and creating. The orange assignments are extended for the learners who already reached the most complex learning objectives, and these tend to focus on creating new products and complex analysis and evaluation.
How do you use pre-assessment for differentiation purposes?
How do you use pre-assessment for differentiation purposes?
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