Campus Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes

What are the student learning outcomes in your unit?

Performing Arts identifies three distinct areas of learning: classroom study, lab experience, and production praxis.  These areas support five department specific student learning outcomes for theatre majors: 

• Students develop general knowledge of the standards, vocabulary, and skills required for theatre production and management as well as familiarity with the literary foundations and historical conventions of western and contemporary theatre.
• Students develop a personal voice and individual expression in the performing arts.
• Students are prepared to define their place as theatre artists and makers in the larger community.

Theatre majors are prepared for entry level positions in the performance professions and in competitive MFA and MA theatre programs

Which outcome did you assess this academic year?

Evaluation of Theoretical Concepts and Analytical adaptations of material.

How did you assess their skills before, during and / or at the end of the semester / academic year?

Due to a loss in venue and teaching support areas, we adapted curriculum to some degree in response to our changing environment. As in the past, in the area of classroom study we use oral/written tests, project evaluations, and reflective and analytic writing to evaluate student outcomes. In the lab experience student outcomes are measured by oral/written tests, project evaluation, and by the student’s ability to bring knowledge and skills into praxis on the stage in a variety of venues. Production work done for “Theatre Northwest”, which has been a rotating performance space this past academic year, is evaluated on an individual and group (collaborative) basis, and by student peer review.

Please summarize the data you have collected this semester / academic year.

Examinations, analytical and response papers, journals
Responses to changing venues, that required special adaptations to space and audience response.

Please describe any programmatic changes you have made or are planning to make based on the data you have collected.

Our programmatic changes include changes in course offerings and greater flexibility in course applied processes. These changes are in part response to the frequent changes our producing and performing in “found spaces,” but also due to the changing program interests and needs of our students.