Assessment Results
An Accurate Picture
The result of using TEAM's Assessment Models is a more accurate picture of student learning. This should relate to the theatre's mission, its underlying goals, the standards around which the education has been organized and the specific objectives of each course or curriculum unit or residency. Performance assessment results tell you what students know and can do. You should be able to tell other theatre professionals that your education course helps students achieve a set of standards. You should be able to tell others that a certain percentage of your students can meet or exceed a certain type of standard. And you should be able to convey the effectiveness of your program to outside funding sources. Performance assessment should also be able to suggest areas or ways in which you can improve your programming. In short, the results should give you a more accurate picture of the effectiveness of your educational programming.
Understanding
Students or audience members should be able to explain something they have seen. Students or audience members should be able to interpret, or apply, or take a perspective, in order to empathize with a character or to speak more knowingly about the knowledge they have gained as a result of a good assessment.The successful attainment of understanding might lead the theatre education staff to re-visit their programming, rethink their curriculum, probe further on surveys, develop new protocols for observing, design performance assessments, or re-design the use of portfolios of student work so that assessing becomes more a process of good teaching and learning, and less a snapshot of temporary work.
Assessment Models
Now that the results are coming in, analysis is very important. Find yourself a good assessment person who can help you interpret your results. Some of the results, mentioned above are things that are easier to see. Some of the results, such as the indication that a new model should be made, or that an older model could be adapted, or that the results you collected need refinement and a new assessment process is needed to follow up on intriguing avenues of understanding, will need an assessment expert's review. Have no fear, you are now a part of a national learning community around theatre assessment, so call one of us, and we will try to help!