Theatre Education and Applied Theatre Emphasis

Program Overview

2017 Theatre Education Assessment

The Theatre Education program prepares students to pursue a wide range of careers in theatre pedagogy, including teaching positions in public and private schools at the primary and secondary levels and with other organizations including the education and community engagement departments of professional theatres or other cultural organizations, such as museums.

Graduates qualify to receive a Professional Educator License from the State of Utah in the Concentration Area of Secondary Education (grades 6-12) with an additional endorsement in Theatre (grades K-12).

This is an undergraduate program in which students earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts. There is no graduate program in this area at this time.

It is important to note that students in the teacher certification program take significant coursework and are assessed numerous times through the Secondary Teacher Education Program (STEP) program. This program, in conjunction with theatre courses, addresses ten competencies all secondary education majors must be proficient in. To reduce redundancy, these are not included here, but can be found on the TEAL Secondary Education webpage.

USU Theatre Graduate Student Code

Learning Objectives

Prior to graduating from the program, students must demonstrate competency in five distinct areas directly related to successful professional practice in the field.

Competency I: Pedagogy (K-12 Teacher Certification Students) & Community Engagement (Applied Theatre Students)

Students must be able to:

  • Consistently design effective theatre / drama session designs that include clear, relevant learning objectives; appropriate, effective assessment methods; and comprehensive, engaging learning plans and/or consistently design strong applied theatre sessions.
  • Skillfully facilitate sessions with K-12 students and/or community members in both classroom / laboratory settings and in the field.
  • Demonstrate strong commitment to reflective praxis leading to continuous improvement.

Competency II: Artistry

Students must be able to:

  • Regularly envision, create, or significantly contribute to the creation of high-quality artistic projects (as assessed by university faculty, professional community partners, and peers).

Competency III: Academics/Scholarship

Students must be able to:

  • Meets or exceed departmental academic requirements.
  • Make meaningful contributions to high-quality research / scholarly projects.

Competency IV: Leadership/Service

Students must be able to:

  • Assume and fulfill the duties of formal leadership roles such as elected offices with student, community, or regional/national organizations; successfully serving as USU Teaching or Research Fellows; directing productions; leading applied theatre and/or arts education projects in the university or community; and/or successfully devising and leading ArtsBridge, URCO, or similar projects.
  • Frequently lead in informal settings, such as by organizing theatre education student activities, projects, or trips; coordinating communication among students; and/or modeling leadership in classroom & laboratory situations.
  • Regularly engage in service to the program, university, community, and/or field.

Competency V: Professionalism

Students must be able to:

  • Consistently exhibit respect for others as well as context-appropriate attitudes, enthusiasm, and engagement.
  • Frequently offer helpful / competent feedback & receive criticism with grace.
  • Consistently arrive on time, fully prepared, and dressed appropriately for courses, meetings, rehearsals, and other events.

NOTE: The outcomes for this program have been developed to align with the guidelines from the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST), as well as with the mandates for teacher-preparation programs in theatre arts education set forth by the Utah State Office of Education (USOE).

Assessment Plan

Student progress on the competencies above is assessed formatively through ongoing mentoring, advising, and feedback throughout the year from faculty in the Department of Theatre Arts and the School of Teacher Education & Leadership, as well as through feedback from guest artists and educators.

Formal, summative assessment takes place regularly through two independent means:

  1. Completion of courses related directly to the competencies with minimum grades of B in all theatre education related courses and B- in other theatre courses.
  2. Compilation of extensive portfolios documenting students' achievement in each of the five competencies, which are reviewed by a minimum of three individuals, at least two of whom are theatre education experts external to the university.

Assessment Part I: Course Completion with Satisfactory Grades

Students complete a comprehensive training program that includes a core of 32.5 credits of theatre core courses designed to ensure a rigorous background in acting, technical theatre, directing, stage management, and theatre history and literature. Students must pass all of these courses with a minimum grade of B-.

Students take an additional 34 credits of coursework directly related to the teaching of theatre, including 9 credits of teaching methods courses, 12 credits of field experience, and 13 credits of seminars and supplemental courses directly related to the intersection of theatre and young people. They must earn a minimum grade of B in each of these courses.

Students furthermore take 14 credits of pedagogically-based courses offered by USU's college of Education, and must earn a minimum grade of B in each of these courses.

Assessment Part II: Annual Portfolio Review

At least once each year, students prepare portfolios comprised of artifacts that demonstrate their evolving skills in each competency area, compose letters of self-assessment. Students' portfolios are reviewed by both USU faculty and at least two theatre education experts external to USU to assess students' progress.

Portfolios are comprised of the following documents, in this order:

  1. Reflective self-assessment letter.
  2. Annual review letters from all previous years.
  3. Current professional resume or curriculum vitae.
  4. Supporting documentation, divided into the sections Examples of artifacts that might be included are provided for each area. Students should include a wide variety of artifacts throughout the portfolio, and should be especially careful not to rely exclusively on peer assessment. As appropriate, students are welcome to include additional documentation not listed.
    1. Pedagogy
      1. Evaluations of these can range from formal documents such as the Clinical Experience Cooperating Teacher Evaluation or Student Evaluations of Teaching to letters from supervisors that comment on teaching quality or written feedback on in-class demo session facilitation.
      2. Complete session designs which demonstrate the ability to articulate clear, relevant learning objectives; appropriate, effective assessment methods; and comprehensive, engaging learning Session designs with faculty feedback are particularly appropriate.
      3. Video, photo, or other multimedia documentation that clearly demonstrates the quality of session facilitation and other teaching activities.
      4. Letters of support from students taught, parents of students, and/or peers as appropriate.
    2. Artistry
      1. Reviews of productions or other artistic projects by faculty, media and/or peer, as appropriate.
      2. Video, photo, or other multimedia documentation that clearly demonstrates the quality of a particular aspect of a creative project.
      3. Other documentation appropriate to the specific artist performed (e.g. a prompt book for stage managers, program notes for a dramaturge, script analysis for actors/directors).
    3. Academics / Scholarship
      1. A current academic transcript (required; unofficial transcripts are acceptable).
        • Documentation of extenuating circumstances that may have resulted in poor performance in a particular course, if applicable.
      2. Research products including journal articles, conferences paper / poster sessions, and public talks.
      3. Evidence of research-in-process, including project proposals, letters of approval from USU's IRB and/or external stakeholders, samples of data collected and analysis in process.
      4. Scholarly writing samples or academic coursework.
      5. Other written or multimedia documentation of research activity.
    4. Leadership & Service
      1. While documentation of leadership and service may be included in the preceding sections, students may opt to include an additional section to document accomplishments not addressed elsewhere.
    5. Professionalism
      1. Because professionalism is expected in all contexts, it should be documented in each of the previous areas, as opposed to a separate section.

Portfolios are then assessed by USU faculty and external reviewers using the rubrics on the following pages.

Rubric for B.F.A. Theatre Education (K-12 Certification) Program - Certification Only

Rubric for B.F.A. Theatre Education (K-12 Certification) Program - Applied Theatre Majors Only

Based on their assessment of each students' portfolio using the rubric above, students' progress toward meeting each competency is assessed holistically and rated as exemplary, strong, acceptable, marginal, or poor. Students are required to meet the following benchmarks each year:

  • First Year Review: Acceptable or above in each of the 5 areas.
  • Second Year Review: Acceptable or above in all areas; Strong or above in at least 3 areas.
  • Third Year Review (and beyond): Strong or above in all areas; Exemplary in at least 1 area.

Based on this portfolio review, the faculty will then determine if students should:

  • Continue in the program. To continue, students must have met the appropriate benchmarks described below, and must not be on academic, departmental, or any other form of probation.
  • Be placed on programmatic probation. If a student fails to meet all benchmarks, but in the opinion of the faculty has the potential to recover and meet the benchmarks within one semester’s time, the student may be placed on programmatic probation.
  • Be discontinued from the program. If a student currently on probation fails to meet benchmarks within the time specified when s/he was placed on probation, or if his or her conduct is such that the faculty do not have confidence that s/he will be able to meet the benchmarks even during a probationary period, the student may be discontinued from the program. Students discontinued from the program may apply for re-admission only with permission of the faculty after demonstrating significant improvement from the time of their dismissal.

Outcomes Data

Two types of outcomes data are included herein: students' overall annual ratings based on internal and external reviews of their portfolios as well as employment data for graduates.

Employment

Nearly 100% of graduates from the program are employed directly in the field or enrolled in graduate school within a year of graduation. Students work as teachers at the elementary and secondary levels and also work for cultural institutions such as museums and theatre as well as government agencies.

Annual Review System

The review system currently in place was significantly revised last year (AY 2013-14); as such longitudinal data related to student achievement is not yet available. The charts represent the percentage of students receiving each rating in each area for AY 2013-14. Data from AY 2014-15 will be reported by the end of the current academic year.

As indicated in the charts above, student performance in each of the competency areas is largely on-target. While many students were ranked in the "acceptable" (as opposed to "strong" or "exemplary") in some competencies, this is not problematic given the high number of students who were in their first and second years of the program and not yet expected to advance past the "acceptable" benchmark.

To ensure individual student confidentiality, further data based on individual students' progress toward the particular benchmarks they ought to achieve is not provided, as the relatively small number of students in each academic year of the program could render individual students identifiable. However, in nearly all cases students met the appropriate benchmarks.

In additional to receiving holistic, summative evaluations in each category, all students also received substantive written comments from both faculty and external reviewers for each competency assessed indicating their strengths and specific opportunities to improve.

Data-Based Decisions

Based on the data presently available, the theatre education faculty believe that student progress in the program meets or exceeds expectations, and that the best course of action at present is to continue with current practices and methods of evaluations. In future years, data will be re-assessed to determine if there are particular areas that warrant further investigation or possible programmatic changes.

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