PRE-ASSESSMENT
Pre-assessment is done at the beginning of learning something new. The purpose of a pre-assessment is to collect information about what students already know and can do and any gaps or misconceptions that must be addressed.
It can take a variety of forms, including a conversation aimed at making connections to previous knowledge from school, family and/or community, creating a concept map, multiple choice questions, writing to a prompt, or performing a skill.Pre-assessment becomes formative when the results are used to guide decisions about instruction and learning. It is especially powerful when the assessment, in whatever form, explicitly targets common misconceptions, perhaps by drawing on learning progressions, thereby enabling the teacher to plan to address them directly, as needed. The results of pre-assessment approaches can also be useful to students, who can use them to set goals for their learning.
Formative Overview
National Council on Measurement in Education