Lagging or trailing indicators of success, such as the edTPA, requires demonstration of the appropriate level of knowledge and skills expected of a beginning teacher. As such, the ed TPA is intended to be a tool for demonstrating the appropriate level of knowledge and skills that are important for performing the responsibilities of a novice educator. Designed as a portfolio assessment, the edTPA’s rubrics align with the authentic teaching practice of the teacher candidate (SCALE, 2020).
Authentic assessments comprise
diverse assessment techniques. Typically,
the educational literature discusses three variations of authentic
assessment. These include dynamic
assessments (Newton, 2007), performance assessment (Meyer, 1992), and portfolio
assessment (Salvia & Ysseldyke, 2004).
The edTPA is a portfolio assessment intended to authentically assess the
following characteristics:
- Direct
measurement of skills related to long-term educational outcomes. For instance, success in the workplace;
- Tasks
requiring extensive engagement and complex performance; and
- Analysis
of the processes used to produce the response.
Accordingly, Stanford University faculty and staff at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) developed the edTPA. The development team received substantive advice and feedback from teachers and teacher educators. The team garnered extensive experience from over 25 years of developing performance-based assessments of teaching.
The edTPA Annotated Bibliography
(2015), developed by SCALE, with input from educators and researchers,
is freely available and identifies the foundational research literature that
informed the development of the edTPA.
The cited literature provides a research foundation for the role of
assessment in teacher education, for the common edTPA architecture, and for
each of the fifteen shared rubric constructs.
SCALE encourages educators, policy-makers, programs, and teacher
candidates to utilize the literature review to examine the underlying
constructs of edTPA as a measure of effective teaching.
The American Association of Colleges
for Teacher Education (AACTE) is a
national alliance of educator preparation programs dedicated to high-quality,
evidence-based preparation that assures teacher candidates are ready to teach
all learners at the beginning of their careers.
As a national edTPA implementation partner, the AACTE seeks to
strengthen an edTPA professional learning community by supporting
communications, implementation, professional development and resources to help
all programs graduate teachers who are ready to educate each and every
child. AACTE believes
that edTPA will help give the public and educators confidence that teacher
candidates are graduating ready to be effective teachers from their first day
in the classroom. In this pursuit, AACTE
facilitates the edTPA Resource Library.
Teacher
Candidates access the required edTPA handbooks, templates,
and resources, via their teacher preparation institution. They also can download these materials from
the portfolio system they use to build their portfolios. Registered faculty and teacher preparation institutions can access edTPA handbooks, templates,
and resources via the edTPA Resource Library
The
following edTPA process overview is provided as initial guidance for teacher
candidates. Teacher candidates will gain
access to the required
edTPA handbooks and templates from their teacher preparation institution. Candidates may also be able to download these
materials in the portfolio system. Completing
the Assessment requires careful adherence to completion of each edTPA
task. To optimize success, teacher
candidates must:
- Review
the submission
and reporting dates, which allows proactive planning for edTPA submission with
a required receipt of assessment results.
- Register for
the edTPA.
- Draft
and edit edTPA materials prior to attempting submission. The teacher candidate
must be online to upload and submit completed edTPA materials. However, the candidate may download templates
to his or her laptop or workstation for drafting and editing written materials
in advance of submission. Similarly, task 2 video clips should be viewed and
prepared locally before uploading.
- Build
the professional edTPA portfolio in the system used at your institution.
- Submit
your completed edTPA for scoring by following directions for submitting
the assessment. Then, rejoice over
your success!
To
cite:
Anderson,
C.J. (August 31, 2021) Revisiting the edTPA as
an assessment of authentic
educational practice of a teacher
candidate [Web log post] Retrieved from
