Stages of Learning believes that collaborative assessment and evaluation practices that provide evidence of learning can improve teaching practice, help to clarify expectations, and encourage dialogue and reflection that nurture learning communities. Between 2001 and 2004, Stages of Learning used a Collaborative Action Research and Assessment (CARA) approach during the four–year study at PS145, Brooklyn. Facilitated by nationally known researcher, Jane Remer, the CARA process uses a mixed methods approach to the collection, analysis, synthesis and interpretation of data. The study found:

• Students improved work habits, habits of mind, and skills and performance experience that demonstrate their understanding of the literature (Shakespeare).
• Students developed no less than a mastery of Sixteen Century English of the scenes upon which they worked.
• Student transliterated tales and themes of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet into stories that make sense in their own lives and shared these understandings with their peers and parents.
• Students learned and then improved their performance skills, such as staccato and legato movement; making small contracting shapes, big expanding shapes, and smooth transitions between movements; and demonstration of beginning, middle and end to their stage movements.
• Students learned to make theatrical choices for creating their choral characters as they learned to stand, walk, and speak like their character (archetype); moved in space with a clear sense of direction, and confidence; expressed meaning and intention when saying their character’s lines; and radiated energy as they focused their character’s thoughts and feelings.
• Students demonstrated, wrote, and talked about the play; they were able to relate the story of the play, the characters they played, and the play’s meaning to them in their young American lives. They made connections by analogy and comparison, and found echoes of the story in their home and school situations.

Following the study, Jane Remer continued to play a leadership role in assessment as chair of the Assessment Steering Committee from 2004-2007, which continued to examine ways in which the above information could inform Stages of Learning practices. The above findings resulted in the establishment of an embedded assessment process that:

1. Assesses classrooms of students and teaching artist performance on twenty criteria as indicated in the Stages of Learning Lesson Observation Rubric. A senior or master teaching artist in a mentoring role observes each classroom using the Rubric as a framework. Stages of Learning provides extensive professional development on the use of the Rubric.
2. Following each observation, the mentor meets with the lead teaching artist to share feedback.
3. The mentor continues to make from one visit to three additional visits for each classroom depending on the level of support required by the lead teaching artist.
4. The mentor serves on a review panel that examines performance based on an analysis of multiple observations over time. The performance standard is (3) “good.”

Classroom observation data often serve as the basis for professional development of teaching staff. Teaching artists, classroom teachers, school administrators and Stages of Learning administrators attend regular planning and reflection meetings throughout the year. Program modifications and additional professional development needs arise from the discussions at these meetings. These issues are addressed either immediately when necessary, or become the focus of future workshops.

Floyd Rumohr, founder, continues to play a leadership role today in monitoring quality instruction and often uses the Lesson Observation Rubric to make site visits himself.

Based on collected data, instructional quality is consistently “good,” sometimes “great,” and never “poor” – a remarkable achievement given the challenges of working in real-world, inner city schools. Ongoing assessment is considered essential to ensuring program quality and has been permanently embedded into the organization’s practices.

In addition to assessment criteria, organizational performance from 2008 – 2010 will be measured against the benchmarks described in Goals 2010: FY08-FY10 Organizational Benchmarks, a document that describes systemic benchmarks to ensure quality instruction for 4,800 students across 40 projects at approximately 36 schools by June 30, 2010.

For more information, download the full study.