I don't spend the entire semester lecturing to my freshman composition students about all of the writing techniques they will need to write a perfect academic essay and then give them one final assignment to show me how they have mastered those skills. I assign essays from the beginning of the semester, even though some of what they need to write great academic essays won't be covered for another 4 or 8 or 12 weeks. Asking students to make predictions before learning new material just represents another version of this common teaching approach.
