All-Campuses Rabbinical Rating Form

1. Identifying Information

Click one dot for each dimension that most resembles the performance in the student project.

The description for each level of each dimension were the most general from the detailed abstracts based on 49 interviews (all dimensions were mentioned in more than half the interviews but no dimension was mentioned by everyone). Together the rating form depicts a rich, collective theory of the development of Reform Rabbinical expertise. The descriptions should not be treated as positivistic or legal definitions.

Interpret each dimension broadly (e.g., projects with class presentation or sermons involve teaching). Other descriptions for each level of each dimension are included in the 100-word abstracts. If these would help to clarify the developmental levels in a dimension, the full abstracts can be obtained copying and pasting the link below into your browser::
http://huc.edu/ckimages/files/Wiki/AllCampusesRubrics2011FA.pdf
The abstracts were based on 269 dimensions from 49 interviews. Forty seven additional dimensions came from the Cohen Committee’s Rabbinical 2008 development matrix. Find these by copying and pasting the link below into your browser:
http://www.huc.edu/ckimages/files/Wiki/Rabbinical_Matrix.pdf

The All-Campuses Dimensions are
(1) Interpret Texts,
(2) Understand Contexts,
(3) Use Hebrew Language,
(4) Apply a Personal Theology,
(5) Discourse,
(6) Writing,
(7) Critique,
(8) Use Sources,
(9) Organize,
(10) Cultivate Jewish Identities,
(11) Serve Reform Judaism & Klal Yisrael, and
(12) Teach and Counsel.

The levels are
Beginning: showed commitment requiring a few minutes to try the dimension,
Easy: showed commitment requiring a few months to learn about the dimension,
Practical: showed commitment requiring a few years to earn a living using the dimension,
Inspiring: showed commitment requiring many years to contribute to knowledge using he dimension.

Three paragraph items are available at the end of the form for you to describe key aspects of the student’s performance that are missing from the 12 dimensions. Raters need to consider both the level that best describes the current performance and the level just above it that the student might think about for the next assignment. The check should be on the level of current performance.

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* Your Name

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* Student's Name

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* Student's Year

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* Term

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* Your Primary Campus

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* Course Number

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* Course Title

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* If you are the professor for the course, copy and paste the assignment here for the first student you rate in the course.

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* (1) Interpret Texts

Not applicable

Beginning - Read at face value.

Easy - Seek data fitting their preconceptions.

Practical - Read for inspiration and identify important ideas.

Inspiring - Combine lenses, connect texts, expand boundaries, reframe, and apply to new contexts.

Comments on Improving the "Interpret Texts" Dimension

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* (2) Understand Contexts

Not applicable

Beginning - Disconnected from knowledge of the past.

Easy - Read and describe influential surroundings in space and time, ± a few centuries.

Practical - Describe the writer's culture including time, place, community, ideology, economic situation, liturgy, and use of Jewish texts.

Inspiring - Connect multiple concepts through the ages simultaneously.

Comments on Improving the "Understand Contexts" Dimension

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* (3) Use Hebrew Language

Not applicable

Beginning - Know alphabet and try to sound out words.

Easy - Understand simple written and spoken texts relying on inter-language dictionaries, practical guides and translations.

Practical - Read, comprehend and translate simple unvocalized texts with limited use of lexical aids.

Inspiring - Sight read multiple forms of ancient and modern Hebrew without multilingual aids.

Comments on Improving the "Use Hebrew Language" Dimension

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* (4) Apply Theology

Not applicable

Beginning - Ask, “What does this text mean for my life?”

Easy - Use categories of Jewish belief to offer rationales beyond preferences.

Practical - Ask and respond to enduring theological questions.

Inspiring - Engage philosophy and theology to form coherent and evolving personal beliefs.

Comments on Improving the "Apply Theology" Dimension

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* (5) Discourse

Not applicable

Beginning - Impersonate someone without differentiating acting from preaching or communication from performance.

Easy - Talk in own words, fluently enough to not disrupt understanding.

Practical - Produce polished speaking appropriate to settings and audiences using method acting, breath management, tension release, body centering, and vocal diversity.

Inspiring - Authentically represent self to touch, connect to, and teach people.

Comments on Improving the "Discourse" Dimension

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* (6) Write

Not applicable

Beginning - Regurgitate facts and platitudes with grammar and spelling errors, disorganized construction, muddled arguments and lacking effective illustrations or emotional spurring.

Easy - Acknowledge contradictory sources and evidence and spur emotions, but write conventionally using chronologies, heuristics, topic sentences and undeveloped arguments.

Practical - Write concisely and coherently with multiple perspectives and themes, using research, logical development, and critical discussion.

Inspiring - Use interdisciplinary research, unstructured evidence and contrasting emotions to generate innovative, replicable, Jewish knowledge.

Comments on Improving the "Write" Dimension

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* (7) Critique

Not applicable

Beginning - Summarize text and identify questions it is trying to solve.

Easy - Answer who would be interested in a topic, what it teaches, and what habits might produce resistance to it..

Practical - Apply and describe the history of methodologies for comparing passages and resolving contradictions.

Inspiring - Adjust messages to audiences; consider Jewish identity concerns; and engage all developmental levels with an author.

Comments on Improving the "Critique" Dimension

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* (8) Use Sources

Not applicable

Beginning - Read only n translation. Overgeneralize or repeat details without seeing the differences.

Easy - Read with supporting translations, dictionaries, on-line databases.

Practical - Use multiple interdisciplinary sources found independently.

Inspiring - See a topic’s relevance, frame it, and find the requisite sources. Apply critical analysis, primary source comparison and multidisciplinary approaches.

Comments on Improving the "Use Sources" Dimension

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* (9) Organize

Not applicable

Beginning - Try to join a community.

Easy - Identify key concepts of institutional systems, processes, organizational behavior.

Practical - Effect change using leadership, vision and organizational best practices.

Inspiring - Gradually impart to congregations a vision of building community by drawing people into meaningful Jewish life.

Comments on Improving the "Organize" Dimension

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* (10) Cultivate Jewish Identity

Not applicable

Beginning - Accept those like them. Uncomfortable with people changing in ways that challenge themselves.

Easy - Recognize others’ humanity, but try to make them more like themselves.

Practical - Listen attentively to others’ spiritual, emotional and intellectual needs. Stitch together Jewish social relations.

Inspiring - Contribute to others’ transformations with empathy, authenticity and sensitivity to group and community dynamics.

Comments on Improving the "Cultivate Jewish Indentity" Dimension

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* (11) Serve Reform Judaism & Klal Yisrael

Not applicable

Beginning - Hesitate to act. Instead, hear lectures or explanations of sites and later discuss the experience with peers.

Easy - Demonstrate strong ties and personal identification with Reform Jewish life.

Practical - Articulate their personal relationship with Reform Judaism, its institutions and its Jewish imperatives of social responsibility.

Inspiring - Commit to Reform Judaism, its ideals, community, and family needs, aspirations and challenges, while personally connecting with klal Yisrael.

Comments on Improving the "Serve Reform Judaism & Klal Yisrael" Dimension

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* (12) Teach and Counsel

Not applicable

Beginning - Confuse anecdote teaching with text-based knowledge. Tie planning to a gimmick or exercise.

Easy - Distinguish self from other learners using educational and counseling concepts, like constructivism, Bloom’s taxonomy, differentiated instruction, loss and recovery, systems theory, and personality theory.

Practical - Plan lessons including: enduring understandings; appropriate experiences for ages, styles and contexts; and management of strategies.

Inspiring - Connect educational models and concepts to create rich learning environments and plan care while monitoring engagement, learning and transformation.

Comments on Improving the "Teach and Counsel" Dimension

Missing Dimension(s) or Comment(s)
If key dimension(s) of the assignment are not available above, identify each missing dimension below. Indicate the performance level shown by the student (beginning, easy, practical or inspiring), describe the performance, and describe the next more advanced commitment in this dimension that the student might consider.

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* Your Name

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* Student's Name

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* Student's Year

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* Term

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* Your Primary Campus

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* Course Number

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* Course Title

Question Title

* If you are the professor for the course, copy and paste the assignment here for the first student you rate in the course.

Question Title

* (1) Interpret Texts

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* (2) Understand Contexts

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* (3) Use Hebrew Language

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* (4) Apply Theology

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* (5) Discourse

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* (6) Write

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* (7) Critique

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* (8) Use Sources

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* (9) Organize

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* (10) Cultivate Jewish Identity

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* (11) Serve Reform Judaism & Klal Yisrael

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* (12) Teach and Counsel

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* Narrative for Comment or First Missing Dimension

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* Narrative for Second Comment or Missing Dimension

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* Narrative for Third Comment or Missing Dimension

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* Suggestions for Improving this Survey