Heather's Response-6

I distinctly remember studying for a theatre history test my senior year of high school with my friends. For theatre history my theatre teacher tended to lecture for most of a class period giving us a sheet of notes on what she would cover. This was so different from out normal activity based class time that we all became distracted, whispering to our neighbor and passing notes back and forth with our friends, much to my teachers chagrin. As the test on this material approached, we realized we knew nothing about the topic and frantically went over our sheet of notes that Mrs. Self had given us trying to make up acronyms to help us remember long enough to take the test. I can’t remember now one thing about that test or that unit on theatre history, so to me, that assessment failed. I remember us feeling so stressed and freaked out studying for that test because usually in our theatre class we were prepared fully for our tests, and the assessments always made sense and came naturally at the end of a unit of study. I never want my students to feel afraid of an assessment, but to always feel prepared and ready, and to always understand why the assessment is there and how it makes sense.
I’ve realized that effective assessments come when students are prepared. The lessons I teach as a theatre teacher should be incorporating varying levels of assessment throughout each lesson and each unit. It’s okay to give a written test, but the students should feel prepared and should understand and have been taught and had experiences with the material before the test. Sometimes in a theatre classroom assessment can come in the form of an activity, or a performance, or a project.
Thank goodness in a theatre classroom assessment doesn’t mean some scary test!