8
THE CHRONICLE
•
The primary functions of assessment are to
educate students and, together with them,
make decisions about the future course of
their education as rabbis.
•
Assessment can provide the foundation for
a unified core curriculum without impos-
ing uniformity on campuses or students.
•
An assessment tool for the integrative cur-
riculum should supplement, not supplant,
other modes already in use.
•
The integrative assessment should be
designed to draw a limited number of new
responses and to utilize ones already pro-
duced. The goal is to achieve 360-degree
feedback on our students in all areas.
•
Assessment ought to be rigorous yet respectful.
The Task Force suggested that portfolios
be submitted to selected faculty members
for review after years one and two. At the
end of year three, a standing committee
on each campus would review students’
portfolios, making recommendations to
the faculty, which would vote on students’
continuance to ordination or graduation
with the M.A. only.
In an effort to promote the development of
new approaches to educative assessment with-
in the Core Curriculum, the most recent
faculty retreat, held in June 2002, and involv-
ing 80 faculty and administrators, focused
on this topic. Dr. Everett Kline, educational
consultant with Understanding by Design,
was the keynote speaker and discussed alter-
native modes of assessment with the faculty.
Grants from both the Henry Luce Foundation
and the Wabash Center for Teaching and
Learning in Theology and Religion have
made the extensive assessment planning and
the necessary teacher training possible.
C. The Essence of the Core Curriculum:
Learner-centered Education
Throughout its deliberations, faculty on our
Core Curriculum Committee and Assessment
Task Force examined assumptions about the
way our students learn and ways of assessing
what we care about, as well as how HUC-
JIR’s culture must continue to change in
order for us to institutionalize a learner-cen-
tered approach to education.
They found that, in some
remarkable ways, this
approach closely resembles
traditional Jewish models of
education in which students
are asked to make sense of
what they are learning, read
and discourse in pairs, reflect
on the application of text to
everyday life, and internalize the lessons so
they become part of one’s daily living.
Faculty members are key participants in this
College-wide initiative. Adopting the learner-
centered approach to assessment and the use
of portfolios will demand that faculty give
feedback that helps students improve not
only what they have learned, but
how
.
Faculty must develop new activities to deepen
students’ involvement in their work and new
questions to guide student discussion and
analysis – activities that enable faculty to gain
a broader and more holistic view of students’
academic, professional and spiritual growth.
Developing assessment protocols that focus
on the integrative elements of the new cur-
riculum will also require and result in a
higher level of interdepartmental and cross-
campus collaboration than currently exists.
Conversations about assessment and learner-
centered education will need to become
more regular components of faculty meet-
ings and informal discussion.
In addition, student reflections about their
learning and subsequent discussions with
faculty will provide opportunities for profes-
sional and personal growth for all
participants. For self-reflection to be an inte-
gral part of academic work, an atmosphere
of trust and confidence must be consciously
maintained. While HUC-JIR already strives
to create and maintain this environment, the
adoption of learner-centered assessment
approaches will require an even greater com-
mitment to this goal.
This kind of educative assessment has the
potential to aid the faculty in decisions
about ordination and the students’ prepara-
tion for the rabbinate. In demonstrating
what students have absorbed and integrated
into their understanding of Jewish life,
assessment will help students become more
aware of their strengths, weaknesses, and
areas for further growth. These issues, which
form the basis for faculty-student dialogue,
are critically important in determining
whether a student proceeds to ordination.
The College-Institute’s adoption of a learner-
centered approach to assessment and use of
portfolios will eventually strengthen the rab-
binate. The skills of self-reflection required by
this approach will assist students throughout
their careers of service and in pursuing life-
long study, so necessary for rabbinical
growth. The open discourse with faculty will
provide them with models for mentoring as
they themselves are called upon to help nur-
ture a new generation of committed Jews.
Ultimately, HUC-JIR’s shift to learner-cen-
tered assessment will assist our students in
truly knowing what they value, which is
essential to their effectiveness in helping oth-
ers to create communities of meaning.
The new Core Rabbinic Curriculum embod-
ies both our progress and what the College-
Institute needs to be in three essential ways:
a) A community of learners within a learn-
ing-centered environment, which will enable
our students to shape a vibrant vision for
Jewish life. Therefore, our challenge is not so
much what we teach, but rather what our
students learn and how they put it together
and apply it.
b) We are engaged in a change of culture in
the College-Institute. The Core Curriculum
New
Rabbinical Core
Curriculum
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continued from page 7)
Dr. Richard Saranson and students, HUC-JIR/Cincinnati.