Coming into a unit on the United States, it is easy to assume the students have a solid base knowledge. They study the United States in 5th grade and 8th grade as many students reminded me. However, the best way to gage each class’s knowledge is through a pretest and posttest. The pretest shows what the students understood coming into the class. Then, after the unit, the posttest shows how the students’ mastery of the content. Did they progress and learn, or does the teacher need to reteach. This pretest and posttest at my high school placement served an additional purpose. It was the first unit taught the high school, and it showed me the comprehension level and learning styles of my students. Using these results, I can further tailor my lessons and help my students learn the content to the best of their …show more content…
The pretest and posttest asked my students to label a blank map of the United States with the name of each state. This task reviewed their learning from 8th grade, and showed me where they had holes in their knowledge. I was disappointed with the pretest results. Many students had little to no recollection of the states. Many could only label Indiana, Texas, Florida, and California. However, there were some students who surprised me. In each class there was at least one student who could label all the states. This showed me there was a large range of learning styles and ability levels in my classes. I aimed for the middle in my instruction and hoped I could scaffold the lower level students and challenge the high level