Typically, educators frame the purpose of assessment as a way to gather relevant information about students' performance or their learning process. I suggest that Jewish studies teachers could use assessment for a different purpose. Imagine if assessment could also be a way to develop students’ intrinsic motivation by making assessments more learner-centered. We could redefine assessment as a tool for students to harness instead of a way to evaluate what they demonstrate.
Assessments as evaluation tools for students' materials often become an extrinsic motivator, as a reward or punishment, especially when students are compared relative to others. These types of assessments send a message of judgement that can focus on deficits. This explains why students’ efforts often shift in order to receive the external reward that will satisfy them. The research demonstrates that external reward reduces the development of intrinsic motivation. Further, reward acts inconsistently when it comes to convincing students to comply. When it comes to simple tasks for the context, this method works well. When it comes to creativity or deep thought, this method of reward and punishment does not work well. Jewish studies deserves a methodology that will surface its assets and create a sustainable Judaism. That means that assessments in Jewish studies should activate deep thought and intrinsic motivation.
In order for assessments to activate deep thought and inculcate intrinsic motivation, a teacher can transform assessments to become a tool of instruction. Here are the simple steps:
Create student-centered assessments. These assessments involve the active engagement of students partnering, with the teacher as a guide, in setting goals for their learning and growth, monitoring their own progress toward those goals, and determining how to address any gaps. The teacher holds the student accountable, but instead of the teacher being a taskmaster, the student learns to achieve challenging goals autonomously.
Encourage students to publicly share their demonstrations of mastery. This could be done through oral report, chabura (round table discussion), research paper, or art work. This allows for peer accountability and support, touching on the intrinsic motivator of relatedness.
Take for example a Talmud class, where this method can work especially well. Instead of trying to go at the slowest pace or the quickest pace in comparison with peers, each student goes at that student’s own pace. The teacher meets with the student to make a road map for this unit of study. The map includes milestones to reach with the teacher, methodology (self study or chavrutah learning), goal orientation (what demonstrations of mastery), and personal reflection. It ends in a coordinated effort with all of the students celebrating their growth and accomplishments in an “achievement fair.”
In this model, some students may struggle with their executive functioning skills, especially self-regulation and time management. This should be coached as well. With consistent support, this student-centered method will tap into a student’s creativity, desire for autonomy, and intrinsic rewards for success. This allows for the development of intrinsic motivation by dynamic engagement, a form of demonstrating thought process. This better demonstrates mastery than exposition of material like answering reading comprehension questions. The icing on the educational cake is the induction of self-correction and evaluation of self. These two mental tools reinforce the intrinsic motivation of both mastery and autonomy.
By making assessments a tool of instruction, the teacher and student benefit. The teacher gets to work with the student to remove internal barriers, encourage positive self-talk, sharpen the student’s self-editing, and inculcate a love of learning. The student loses all of the negativity of scrying eyes and “gotcha” quizzes and gains a life-long skill of conquering difficult, multi-step processes. It beats cramming for a Gemara test any day, and more importantly, sets the table for a life-long love of learning.