This morning I posted a statement by a group of professors at City University of New York in support of the edPTA, which assesses the performance of those who seek certification to enter teaching.
Let me make clear that I am not supporting or endorsing either side of this debate but am watching carefully, as I tend to be suspicious of all high-stakes testing.
Soon after the post appeared this morning, I received an email from a CUNY professor pointing out that the professors’ union–the Professional Staff Congress– at CUNY opposes edTPA and that those who signed the earlier statement are a minority of the faculty.
Due to the opposition of PSC, UUP (United University Professors of State University of New York), and NYSUT (the New York State Union of Teachers), implementation of edTPA has been delayed until June 2015.
PSC said this on its website:
The Teachers Performance Assessment (edTPA), is a high-stakes assessment for student teachers that includes filmed classroom observations. It has been opposed by PSC, UUP and NYSUT. (NYSUT edTPA resolution.) The State Education Department rushed to implement the controversial teacher certification exam, which was set to be a requirement for teacher certification after May 1, 2015. But education faculty, teachers and their unions pushed back and the implementation of the assessment has been pushed back until June 2015.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Again, AACTE endorsed the CAEP idea of introducing VAM into edTPA::
edTPA, CAEP, Common Core – all are aspects of Race to the Top designed to support privatization of public education.
Thanks for posting this, Diane.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The outline itself looks like a well-designed practicum that is open-ended enough to serve any teaching program for assessment purposes. But that it would be graded by some centralized bureau makes it useless. I can’t imagine why any state would buy into what looks like an effort to nationalize the certification process. Am I misunderstanding the way EdTPA works?
I remember when it was a point of pride (decades ago) that NYS & CA certifications were reciprocal. (At that time they were considered to have the highest bar). Like every other effort to nationalize standards, the ultimate effect is to dumb down to mediocre.
Obviously if this thing is also tied in to the test results [& even employment success] of future students of future test-takers, the whole idea is, well, excuse me while I laugh uproariously.
I can’t imagine why any state would buy into what looks like an effort to nationalize the certification process.
Enough said.
But Bob. . .National Boards. ? We started down this road already, didn’t we? We pay people who do National Boards more (I never was into it—I got the packet and decided I didn’t care if it was more pay, I’d rather get a Masters in my subject).
We have upheld many of the things we are now seeing as possible shadows taking over. That is to say, the accountability talk and the National Boards would naturally either fizzle out, or creep up to the next level, right?
I’m not surprised. I also know that NC is upheld as a beacon for having had so many National Board teachers, but considering we haven’t had raises in so long and the National Boards teachers get paid a good 10% more (I think), I am of the early opinion that it might have actually NOT been a good thing for our state.
Joanna – I am unclear on your comment about NC having the most NBCT teachers and NC teachers not having a pay raise – I am guessing you are connecting that the money given to NBCT could have gone to all teachers, but instead I think that it’s more of an issue with NC and their support of teachers as opposed to blaming it on the number of NBCT teachers.
John,
I know the thought will bring about a defensive reflex on the part of teachers who have National Boards. But it does make sense, now doesn’t it?
With five different PRAXIS series tests, I was able to get certified in California, North Carolina, Missouri, Kansas and Florida. So it looks like things are just being consolidated?
Spanish and French Freelancer…I am not sure what you mean by being graded by a “centralized bureau” – it is graded by current teachers, former teachers, IHE faculty that have experience in the content…in terms of “nationalizing the certification process” I would look at it more as professionalizing the profession – doctor’s take medical boards, lawyers take bar exams…there are common expectations in those professions. Yet with teachers it is all over the place in terms of state expectations….I look at it as trying to raise the bar again to the way things were in CA and NYS…
The EdTPA sounds like an evaluation that should come several years after someone has been teaching. When I was studying to become a teacher, I had a professor in college tell my class that it took 10 years to become an expert teacher. At the time I did not believe it. But after I had been teaching for 3, 5, 7, 9 years, I came to believe that there was a great deal of truth to the statement. Teaching has many components — not just “sage on a stage.” Any many of those components (such as classroom management) must become ingrained and performed without thought. That comes only with time, practice, and study.
Pamela – So, edTPA is based upon NBCT (which is for more experienced teachers). In fact you comment about teaching having so many components rings true both of edTPA and NBCT…Please know that on a scale of 1-5 for 15 rubrics the suggested passing score from a SCALE national scoring report is 42 – meaning that nationally there is acknowledgement that teachers will grow with experience.
Can someone enlighten me on how this EdTPA is different from:
1. The current Praxis tests required by most states
2. National Boards
thanks.
So, in terms of Praxis, most of the problems on those assessments are multiple choice (the Praxis II content and Praxis II pedagogy)…I am not as familiar with Praxis III, but I know that many states don’t use this assessment due to it’s cost. edTPA is modeled after NBCT, and the ideas behind edTPA are seen in NBCT…One could consider edTPA an NBCT-like exam for pre-service teachers (as opposed to NBCT being for veteran teachers)
Hello – I have posted numerous comments that are supposed to be “awaiting for moderator” Can you please explain?
thanks john seelke ________________________________
John, if your comment contains more than one URL, it is automatically placed in moderation. That’s a default setting on WordPress. The owner of the blog has to receive a notification and then go, at some point, to a dashboard and OK it.
Thanks Bob for the clarification…Joanna – supervisors are still used in training. The human element is not taken out…however, that human element can at times have biases (as a supervisor myself, with a candidate that was borderline my tendency was support them to pass – in some cases that was probably the wrong call)…
John, when you put great power in the hands of a central committee, operating at a distance, that committee, over time, becomes venal and corrupt and stupid. Within an echo chamber of its own creation, it starts believing that its ideas, and only its ideas, are acceptable. This is all well known. What prevents that from happening here, over time? I believe that it’s extremely important for teachers, generally, to have a great command of their subject matter. I think, for example, that a teacher of French ought to be able to hold a conversation with you, in French, about Moliere and Proust. But one of the most effective elementary school teachers I’ve ever known as no scholar, no intellectual, and wasn’t even terribly bright. But she was engaging and warm and the kids loved her and, by all the Gods that ever were, learned to read and write and add and subtract from her. Should that teacher have to pass my scholarship test? I would not so presume. There are many ways in which to be an effective teacher. But, back to my question. What prevents this centralization and regimentation of teacher certification from being abused over time? I often ask this same question about powers being invested in our central government. People do not recognize that a power conferred on that government becomes available to ANY FUTURE GOVERNMENT, no matter what shape it might take and under what circumstances. Should ANY future government that we might have, no matter how venal, how corrupt, be able to read your emails if it wishes to do so? This is a profound and important question.
Hi bob – I understand you concerns…you mentioned many teachers..your fifth grade teacher that lectured, this past teacher that wasn’t the brightest but had that connection with students…all of that is measured in edTPA – the rubrics include things like rapport with students, how well the teacher engages the students, etc.
Unfortunately in my mind, I think that most people view good teaching as having a rapport with students. I have known (and had) teachers that were able to connect great with their students, yet if you asked the students what they learned from their class in terms of knowledge of the material they couldn’t tell you a thing. There are the great teachers who constantly teach on the fly because they never plan. I think back to an example in my own life – I taught Pre-calculus. One of the Algebra II teachers was the senior class sponsor, another was very popular with students. Only thing is, those teachers never really taught any Algebra II…so they came to me behind in their math.
Think about the teachers from the movies…the well known ones, like Dead Poets Society, Stand and Deliver, etc…those teachers were inspirational but they also taught content..
In terms of the trust issue, one of the great things to me about edTPA is that it is truly by the profession – it was teacher educators and teachers that help create the assessment, that score the assessment and help shape the assessment
Thank you, John, for taking the time to address these matters. I think we would all want like to see the best possible teachers in classrooms. However, many of us have also grown quite skeptical about these “teachers helped create it” claims. We are told all the time about how teachers helped create the Common Core State Standards. But the specific ELA “standards” are hackneyed, unimaginative, often prescientific, full of ignorant, received notions and halftruths about the teaching of English. They look to me very much like what one would get if one asked members of a small-town Rotary club to make a list of “stuff to learn in English class.” The standards are often misconceived at their most fundamental level–at the level of their categorical conceptualization of what would constitute a measurable standard in a particular area. They almost completely ignore declarative knowledge, and they typically define what might otherwise be described as procedural knowledge so vaguely as not to provide the operationalization requisite to valid assessment. They COMMONLY confuse acquisition and learning in the most amateurish manner, suggesting that their authors knew little about matters like how children acquire the syntax or vocabulary of a language. And, of course, they constitute an egregious prior restraint on curricular and pedagogical innovation in ELA. They are accompanied by some superb general guidelines—some of the so-called “instructional shifts”–but the specific standards seem, to my eye, often indefensible. A small, self-appointed committee decided to confer on David Coleman the title of absolute monarch of instruction in the English language arts in the United States and to render entirely moot what every other scholar, researcher, and practitioner might think about learning progressions or desirable measurable outcomes in this subject. And they topped this obscene behavior off by claiming that teachers helped create, in a state-led program, these standards hacked together overnight, with no scholarly vetting, based on the lowest-common-denominator groupthink of the preceding state “standards. So, in the current circumstances, many are skeptical of these “teachers created it” claims. It seems to me somewhat shocking that we should be on the verge of putting in place a Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth—at any enormous distance from actual teachers in local communities—to decide who shall be able to teach what, how, when, and to whom. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
In general, ecologies are far healthier than are monocultures.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Thanks Joanna, your comments got me researching more. Since I have always taught privately (& only part-time for many yrs), I don’t know much about this, just interested in ed practices in general.
Sure looks like you have a good point re the National Boards, US ed has already been heading down this path. The Nat’l Boards appear to be claiming they can identify master teachers from among those w/3+ yrs’ experience based on student results (just not as literally pinned down as current high-stakes tests).
Praxis tests whether candidate knows the subject matter well enough to be teaching it. It seems different to me, at least as far as my field is concerned (Sp & Fr – WL); I can’t think of any real objection to a nationalized test on candidate’s knowledge of the language. It’s particularly useful because FL teachers are often hard to find– the state periodically needs to bend certification reqts to get them– so it’s an alternate way to double-check knowledge.
I would think the EdTPA is taking things too far down this path, by trying to insert a nationally-devised & scored assessment into the individual certification process of each state.
Thank you Spanish and French.
(I am still so intrigued with the line of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxs and I hear an airplane coming in for a landing when I begin reading your comments; it’s charming)—-except really I guess that would be a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, but I can’t help the soundtrack that accompanies my reading).
I don’t like National Boards. I think they got us started down this road. I do. Sorry. I know that’s not going to be a popular thing to say, but I watched it happen. I also don’t like State Lotteries. I think they helped get us where we are because leaders became conditioned to letting the lottery cover things that responsibility should cover.
I have watched NC change a great deal since we passed the State Lottery and since we grabbed onto National Boards. I connect dots there. But I won’t be popular in doing so because there is no evil bad guy to blame it on with greed. We did it. Trusted and elected leaders led us there.
I think where we are is half evil guys with greed and half “we did this.” Only when we account for what we have allowed to happen that might have hurt the whole, will we get anywhere. The “they are greedy and ruining everything” is true; but it’s not the only part of the picture. And furthermore, I do not see where that leads us. It certainly is not making a new wave of parents in NC say, “oh. . .we wouldn’t dare try the new charter up the street or apply for a voucher because evil rich greedy people are using this as a candy house so they can put us in the oven and eat us.” They are not holding back from trying out these new options. So even if pointing out the greed (which is helpful. . .I appreciate Mercedes’ work a great deal) is educating new folks daily, we can’t stop there. Something created the climate that enabled that greed and we all have to take responsibility for allowing it to happen. . .even if we just say, “darn I voted for the wrong person.” I know some of it was the election in 2000. But we can’t just keep looking back and blaming. We have to find strategies and accept any part we might have had in enabling the storm that we are now experiencing. That’s not Pollyanna. That’s a mama who wants good schools for her youngest child, same as she had and same has her older ones have had (for the most part).
That’s what I think, anyway. Every day I ask myself what I can do, even though I am not a billionaire in terms of dollars.
Case in point:
from Public Policy Research today— Proposals to increase teacher pay in the Governor’s, Senate’s, and House’s versions of the budgets have received considerable focus and debate. The House budget would appropriate $178 million to fund teacher pay increases of 5% on average; teachers at the top of the salary schedule who are not eligible for a pay raise would instead receive a bonus. House leaders explained that increasing the lottery revenue cap for advertising spending from 1% to 2% would generate an additional $106 million. Some Democratic members criticized this approach, saying reliance on lottery revenue is speculative. Rep. Nelson Dollar (R-Wake) explained that lottery officials told House budget writers the additional revenue would be available.
———–
And we wonder why we have a poverty problem. Want to pay teachers more? Don’t worry. We have gullible people who have so little hope in life of material gain through hard work, that they spend what they do have on lottery tickets. Therefore the state should host a lottery and it will take care of those pesty teachers. And if we want a raise for the teachers, we’ll just hope to sell more lottery tickets!!!
wrong wrong wrong
My grandfather, a Presbyerian minister from Louisiana who spent his career in NC is probably rolling over in his grave. We have gotten way off track. Way off track.
Rather than just pointing out the greed of voucher and charter folks, perhaps it would be more useful to reframe the discussion as a shift in the way we view the role of common good vs. individual wants. As far as I can tell, current reform thinking ignores common good and replaces it with “What’s in it for me?” There is a destruction of a sense of community and shared responsibility.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx heh heh didn’t know my ‘x”s were audible. Some glitch now requires that I ‘x out’ “enter your comment here” before I can type 😉
Totally agree: re: lottery funding. Banana republic method.
Don’t like Nat’l Bds– another discouragement to good mgrs/former teachers as school admin: WE’ll tell you who your ‘master teachers’ are! Same principle applies to EdTPA- sure, it’s a good model to recommend for inclusion in a college ed dept’s finals. If they want to use it, let them grade it. Maybe they’ll even improve it & share that w/others at the next ed profession symposium.
2old, I see it like this (and I like your point).
My generation grew up watching TV and living in blended families, largely. Now we can sit around and bitch and moan about who stole daddy from mama or who got the most money or who is living lavishly while we are on the food stamps, or we can make the best of what we have and try to have relationships with the very people who hurt us (even if it causes us confusion and pain), for the sake of our children knowing their grandparents, etc, or we can just be at war. I prefer salvaging what we can for the next generation.
I know I am too gentle and pensive for many of the outspoken, rabid folks on this blog. But I don’t care. I have confidence in who I am, who I know, the research I do myself, the committees I am on, the connections I am making and have in NC for the sake of public school. I don’t need the approval of people who live 1,000 miles away and who are so nervous about what to do with their current situations that all they can do is be ugly to people who are positive.
I will remain positive.
You are not too gentle. Just don’t be too naive, (like me).
Different from Praxis: the edTPA is performance based; candidates submit artifacts of their actual practice with students.
Different from National Board: NB represents demonstrating competence with respect to “accomplished teaching”; edTPA looks for characteristics of “effective beginning teaching,” emphasis on beginning.
I wish we would just publish the rubrics in the public domain and be done with the myths of deskilling or being reductionist. It simply is not true.
So not even the rubrics have been published?
Wow.
NC had its own teacher portfolio requirements in 1999 when I was lisenced and it was North Carolinians at OUR University teacher training programs who approved them. Too bad we outsourced that.
On any particular day in a class I am teaching, that class will look quite different from a class on another day. At this point in my life, I have an enormous repertoire of pedagogical approaches.
There are times when I lecture (heaven forbid–this is almost forbidden in our time, but those are often the lessons that students talk about for days and weeks afterward, for I am an experienced cultural song and dance man).
There are times when I hold discussions in various modes with various degrees of directiveness or open-endedness and at other times when students are tasked with conducting discussions themselves.
There are times when students are lecturing the class and I am observing.
There are times when students are running a Socratic seminar.
Sometimes there is a mock this or that going on (a trial, interviews, a quiz show, a debate, a panel discussion).
Sometimes we are doing reader’s theater.
At times students are busy making something (a large-display timeline, graphs or charts, a video or presentation).
At times, I do demonstrations.
Sometimes we are brainstorming as a whole group.
At other times, groups are working on projects, planning, crafting, or rehearsing, or presenting something.
On a given day, we might be acting or role playing.
Sometimes we do a gradual release lesson. Sometimes we do discovery learning, following an inductive process.
Sometimes we start with definitions and models and do something quite deductive.
Often there’s collaboration. Sometimes there is competition.
Sometimes the kids have a task to approach, onerously, via trial and error and then learn a heuristic that makes it easy.
Sometimes there is a staged event that appears to be a disruption of the lesson.
Sometimes I have all the answers.
Sometimes I have none.
Sometimes there is an artifact to examine with extraordinary attention to detail.
Sometimes there are stations for them to rotate to and various tasks to perform.
Sometimes there are stations for them to choose among to pursue what strikes their fancy.
Sometimes we are doing a reenactment.
Sometimes we are doing a kinesthetic exercise meant to develop a visceral, bodily analogue of some concept.
Sometimes kids are working independently, and I am milling around, assisting.
Sometimes I am doing tutorials while the rest of the class is otherwise engaged.
Sometimes we are arguing. Sometimes we are negotiating. Sometimes we are debriefing.
And so on. It all depends on who, what, where, when, and why.
Anyone who thought he or she knew my teaching based on three days’ observation would be sorely mistaken.
It would be utter hubris for someone to presume to evaluate what I do, overall, based on a pop-in or on a couple of recordings. That would be like judging what is in books in general based on some one book–Accounting for Dentistry Students, say, or The Secret–found on the subway.
And yet Bob, that is how teachers are evaluated on a regular basis – where principals pop in here and there and assess our candidates. The nice thing about edTPA is that you can do any or all of what you described and still score well with the rubrics on edTPA. The edTPA is mainly about getting the students to think…and the video is a snip-it of that (so maybe on a lesson you lecture and yet you chose to video the Socratic seminar)
John: here’s my question, for I am extremely leery of any centralized, nationalized plan, however well-intentioned. Where can one go to see examples of ALL THE MATERIALS (except the videos, of course) and ALL THE EVALUATIONS, both ones that were accepted and ones that were rejected, in order to appraise this process. “Trust us” doesn’t quite cut it.
Bob – are you a faculty member? You can get access to samples (including videos) as well as how they were scored….
Not currently, John, but I shall be again soon. However, it seems to me that a process like this should be entirely transparent TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE.
BTW, in fifth grade, I had a teacher named Mr. Schimezzi. He stood at the front of the class almost every day and LECTURED. TO FIFTH GRADERS! Needless to say, I would not recommend his teaching style as a general rule. LOL.
But he was one of the two or three best teachers I ever had. He was a great showman and storyteller. He took us to amazing places, every day. He was a cultural pied piper. We would and did follow him on astonishing journeys in art and music and history and literature. He made us all fall in love with learning. We all felt very grownup being in his class and being treated as he treated us. We wanted to be like him. We all wanted a piece of that–he had an astonishing passion he had for KNOWING. I hate to think what sort of score he would get on any teacher evaluation rubric, but I shall forever honor his memory.
In other words, he did one thing very, very well. He was a model to us all of what is was to be a learner–of what sweet fruits were in the garden, down those various paths, there for the plucking. He had an incredibly well-stocked mind–brimming, bountiful. He was a sort of wacky professor in a tie and jacket, hands covered in chalkdust, fire in his eyes as he talked about why there are meteors or how for hundreds of thousands of years, before there were televisions and books, people told stories around campfires at night under the stars.
And so we worked for him–we wrote and read–because we wanted to know the rest of the stories he so vividly told.
There are many ways to be a great teacher. Neither the Buddha nor Socrates would fare will on the Danielson rubric, as fine a document as that, admittedly, is.
cx: fare well, of course
By the way, CAEP, formerly NCATE, is also set to “accredit” TFA.
EdTPA is yet another test for pre-service students, scored through Pearson, that costs students $300. Universities now need to have “edTPA officers”, again an unfunded mandate.
EdPTA is a money-maker for Pearson.
I have examined the “evidence” offered in support of its use, giving special attention to the visual arts certification and overall scheme for EdPTA–linking scores on this “comprehensive” test for teachers to the scores of students whom they are hired to teach.
Claims of validity within the various teaching areas are not substantiated by any method that permits a secondary analysis of evidence supporting such claims. Indeed, as is common in much educational policy-making, the subjects that seem to matter the most are claims of reliability and validity associated with mathematics and ELA. The whole framework of EdPTA honors direct instruction while giving lip-service to “differentiated” instruction as if that takes care of attending to students as individuals.
The conceptual structure for EdPTA is a hodgepodge. For example, in some subjects, the application materials for EdPTA are divided into grade spans–elementary, middle school, high school. In other subjects, including the visual arts, one-size fits all– K-12. These unexplained differences in the architecture of the EdPTA bear on claims for its validity as well as the reported reliabilities in scoring. Some reliabilities are available only for K-12, others for middle school math, and so on. Validity claims are referenced to anonymous content experts, not named individuals who functioned as reviewers and endorcers for each subject and grade span.
Student teachers are required to produce and edit three to five video snippets of their teaching. These videos must show direct instruction–sage on the stage. This is an explicit requirement in the visual arts. Video-evidence that students are deeply engaged in a studio activity will be a liability. EdPTA is not designed to respect a young teacher who plans and produces a series of lessons around a broad theme inviting individual interpretations.
Presentations are scored on the teacher’s use of a specific “academic vocabulary.” This vocabulary receives a level of attention in the scoring protocol that is totally out of proportion to any educational necessity, especially for vivid and intelligible teaching. The preferred vocabulary is a garbled version of the Bloom taxonomies for behavioral objectives, mid-century last. The garbled version uses the term “genre” in a totally eccentric manner unrelated to commonplace uses of this term in the arts. Teachers earn points if they post EdPTA’s preferred “academic” vocabulary and feature it in their lessons, along with attention to the Common Core.
In the visual arts, the current EdPta requires that lessons conform to visual arts standards written in 1997. Any claims of validity and reliability are out-of-date on arrival. New standards in the arts are being published as I write this, and they are not likely to be fully integrated into teacher education or school programs for several years. In any case, the one exemplary lesson offered in the visual arts for grade 3 is a congested mess. The lesson is graded for coverage of five major concepts, all of these highly abstract. It requires students to give voice to an early 20th century construct of “elements and principles” of art as if this vocabulary hovers over the world of art as TRUTH. This “exemplary” EdPTA lesson, with a short studio project, has nothing to commend it–not scholarship nor pedagogical wisdom, not even kid appeal. It is designed to comport with a scorer’s checklist.
Finally, prospective teachers are likely to be judged by the level of cooperation they receive from the parents, and schools where they are teaching. The technical requirements for EdPTA include parental/guardian permission to make videos of children within intact classrooms. It is not surprising that supervising teachers, principals, and parents are not always eager to cooperate. Any prospective teacher with a high level of skill in making documentary films, videography, and AV editing has a clear advantage.
EdPTA is functioning as the major course of study for teacher education. Teaching-to-the-EdPTA test is becoming normalized. It requires that higher education faculty who prepare teachers drop any and all pretense to academic freedom and the possibility of educating teachers to be critical thinkers, innovators, challengers of the status quo.
Laura – you are incorrect on many fronts…First, students are supposed to submit one video, not three to five videos. In terms of the structure of subject areas, many of that is tied to certification in states – for example, visual arts in many states is a K-12 certification. If a teacher candidate is pursuing an art certification in a state, they could be in elementary, middle school or secondary…
I cannot speak to the claims about the visual art rubrics applying to concepts that are outdated, but I can say that the team from SCALE has constantly relied on IHE members and others to improve the rubrics and the handbooks. If you have concerns, instead of bashing the product, why not reach out to those at SCALE and send them your constructive concerns?
finally. candidates are not penalized if they have issues with parents not signing permission slips, etc. In terms of high levels of skills, etc. candidates are also not judged on the quality of their video….
I left several questions at the EdTPA website several months ago. My questions pertained to validity, and reliability. These have not been acknowledged or answered.
One video is submitted, but it is has to include snippets from several lessons that form a learning progression.
I welcome information on the specific visual arts faculty and institutions who have been engaged in the development of the visual arts component and who have lent their names to help establish the content and pedagogical validity.
I understand that certifications for grade spans can differ by state, but this is true for many subjects. In any case, EdPTA is not designed as a state- specific credential.
EdPTA offers no explanation for the structured grade spans for some and not others.
If the quality of the video does not meet a minimum threshold of clarity, intelligibility, and coherence it should not be judged at all. Especially in the visual and the performing art, the quality of the video will matter.
More generally, you seem to think EdPTA can be fixed with some tinkering here and there. I think that the whole project is a misguided effort.
Laura – I just looked at the visual arts edTPA handbook…with the video it states that candidates are to select “1-2 video clips, no more than 20 minutes in length” It does not have to include clips from every lesson, and in fact, is not supposed to be a “best of” hi-lights video but rather show certain aspects of their teaching.
In terms of reliability and validity – SCALE produced a national scoring report in November 2013…I believe that can be found through your normal search engines.
In terms of the quality of the video, yes, it could be possible that if the video is bad quality that it would not be scored…however, candidates are not penalized for having lesser video quality than others.
you bring up a good point about the visual arts video..
As for your last point, I would disagree with it being a misguided effort – personally I think it’s an effort to raise the stakes in terms of teaching…
So are National Boards. So are the ETS Praxis tests.
What’s new? This is the logical next step. I don’t like it, but I’m not surprised.
How about people who go observe teachers in training?
How about we model the need for the human element in teaching by starting to use it again in teacher training?
Why are we surprised at any of this?
The PSC-CUNY resolution that was passed against edTPA was voted on by a Delegate Assembly that, to my knowledge, had no voting members representing teacher education programs. Many CUNY school of education faculty had no idea that this resolution existed and there was no discussion about it amongst school of education faculty in some of the campuses.
Is there any interest among this readership in a comprehensive description of subject-specific student learning goals derived from the edTPA rubrics? I have been developing it and find it compelling and powerful, but I don’t want to waste time if we’re just locked in ideologically rooted agendas. Those open to dialogue on this material, please speak up.
I, for one, am extraordinarily interested. But I would think that we all would be. Why on earth would any of this not be entirely transparent AND subject to ongoing examination and critique by the education community as a whole? Who is watching the watchers here?
I would be interested too but I am offended by your use of “ideologically rooted agenda”.
What are you bringing to the table if not an ideologically rooted agenda to sell the edTPA as compelling and powerful?
Why are my concerns not part of the dialogue? It’s that kind of thinking — that questioning, skepticism, and close scrutiny are not allowed anymore in “dialogues” that scares the hell out of me regarding these national movements to standardize everything.
If you are asking will I sit and listen to a sales pitch, oohing and ahhing without pushback or questioning, then no, I am not interested.
If you respect the idea that I, a National Board Certified 3 time Teacher of the Year with 3 years of Highly Effective VAM scores with 20 years of Title I teaching experience, 2 masters degrees, and an ABD doctoral program completion can feel differently than you and might have reservations that you don’t share then yes, I’m interested in a dialogue.
Fair enough?
edTPA in & of itself, which requires candidates to successfully teach a learning segment by a particular set of criteria as determined by some body of experts, isn’t evil or even without merit. But asking $300 for external scoring from financially strapped students who over a lifetime will make far less than other credentialed professionals,
suggesting teaching through a very prescriptive manner is “best practice”, and requiring it of millions of candidates as if it were the only way to judge proficiency does minimize the possibility for increased equity and innovation in the teaching profession. we should be wary any time massive programs make a multi billion dollar corporation the center of the reform because the outcome will likely not be the ststed intent. I say this as a citizen and teacher educator of several decades. One grows weary of the criticism and “improvement programs” that make someone rich but don’t affect student learning positively
As one reads through the conflicting comments here just on edTPA directions, one can already see the serious necessity for more transparency. None of them express exactly what the student teachers that I supervise here in NYS have been told, just with regard to the videos. My students in Spanish, French & ESL have been directed to produce up to 15 minutes of filming, up to 3 segments, each of which must be unedited. Student teachers in an 8 week placement often need several weeks just to get waivers back from parents who do not speak English. Much of the approximately 60+ single-spaced pages needed to answer the questions are pure busywork, repeatedly requiring the same types of answers as to what research or ed theory supports their lesson. NYS already requires my student teachers to take 3 other standardized tests for certification (each with a fee, of course) and our college requires the Oral Proficiency Interview exam. Students seemed to be handling the first 4 tests, but now that the edTPA must be completed during student teaching, they cannot keep up. There are many additional problems I have not mentioned, but I’ll sum it up this way: With no time for duties such as parent contacts, faculty meetings or in-depth lesson plans (other than for the edTPA) my students now leave their placements much less ready to teach than they did before having to produce the edTPA portfolio. It makes me angry and breaks my heart all at the same time.