Alternative Assessments
According to the principles of Understanding by Design laid out by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, we assess for three major outcomes in our students: their acquisition of content knowledge, development of skills and ability to transfer them, and whether they’ve made meaning of what they’ve learned. There are an endless number of ways to even define that latter outcome, so teachers should think about what meaning making goals they have for each unit and also be open to students’ discovering meaning for themselves in their learning. On this page, we only scratch the surface of the many creative and high-quality ways we can assess students formally and informally.
Tests, quizzes, and essays are the most common forms of assessments that teachers use, but they don’t always measure whether a student has met all learning goals in a unit.
When we work with teachers, one of the first things we do is help them make explicit all of the learning goals they have in each of their curricular units and for the school year. Then we help them choose appropriate instructional activities and assessments that will measure whether their students have met those goals.
Each class and discipline has different learning goals, and learning goals may differ for each school. So first decide what your class goals are, and then you can make informed choices about the assessments you want to use. And remember: not all of them have to be formal; not all of them have to be graded. Maybe take turns grading a row or a group of students’ work.
Here’s a small sample of alternative assessments that match up to different learning goals in a classroom.
Alternative Assessments in JS and GS
Hear Tavi and Tikvah discuss Alternative Assessments in Judaic Studies in our educational webseries, Between Two Bulletin Boards! Here are the alternative assessments we discuss in the video, which include Do Nows, One Pagers, and Digital Portfolios. Some classes are focused heavily on test prep, for Regents or AP’s, for example. Here are ways you can adapt alternative assessments in order to help students improve their scores on standardized exams.
Assessment in JS with Art
Art is a deep and meaningful way to assess students—it can reflect students’ sophisticated and insightful grappling with course material. It’s also a great way for students to show that their learning has been personally impactful.
Take a look at this student’s collection of illustrations of Megillat Ruth, the Book of Ruth, which are accompanied by artist statements, explanations of the drawings. Artist statements are great ways for students to explain their artistic choices and how those relate to course content.
Pro-tip: We recommend collaborating with an art teacher to develop a project, so both the content and art are of high quality.
This artwork shows a student’s interpretation of the Adam and Chava/Eve story in Bereishit/Genesis, and the QR code links to a student-written, composed, and recorded song representing three students’ haunting and beautiful musical conception of the creation of Adam, based on text and midrash, commentary.
These 8th graders at Yavneh Academy in Paramus, NJ, look at a fellow student’s artwork comparing different family relationships in Sefer Bereishit, the Book of Genesis.
Learning Activities and Assessments in the Tanakh Classroom
The most common goals Tanakh teachers have in their classrooms fall into three categories: content acquisition, skills development, and meaning making. That is, Tanakh teachers want students to grow in content knowledge—of text and commentaries; develop their textual reading skills; and make meaning of what they’ve learned—apply text to their lives and the world. We help Tanakh departments and teachers decide on which goals they want to focus on and when and how to do so. That way, teachers can create instructional activities and assessments that appropriately match their learning goals.
Choose from this table of learning activities and assessments for the Tanakh classroom, and be in touch with any questions or to let us know how an activity or assessment went!
