Professional Development and the edTPA

Rina Kundu
Higher Education
Representative

In the state of Wisconsin, the edTPA is a high stakes,
performance-based, pre-service teacher, summative assessment to be used by all
teacher preparations programs in 2015. The measurement aligns with state and
national standards including the Common Core and the Interstate Teacher
Assessment and Support Consortium and asks prospective teachers to demonstrate
the knowledge and skills required to enable students to learn in classroom
settings, including the art classroom, via video documentation, artifact
collection, and written reflection. Specifically, the examination will be used
to test teacher candidates’ knowledge of planning, instructing, and assessing
and requires them to submit artifacts and reflective commentaries as evidence
of how well they performed these tasks. Artifacts include lesson plans,
instructional and assessment materials, video clips, and work samples and
commentaries describe the artifacts submitted, with an analysis and reflection
on their use to deepen students’ learning in the certification area. Evidence
submitted will be graded by an external committee using rubrics that analyze
five dimensions, including planning, instruction, assessment, analysis of
teaching, and academic language. 

Recently the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee had a
professional development workshop on the edTPA for cooperating teachers. Those
of us working in higher education know more about the edTPA and its
implementation in Wisconsin than those in preK-12 settings since we have been
in the process of negotiating the examination in preparation for its adoption
by the state. Although we have criticisms of the examination, including the
perception that teaching is a neutral set of knowledge constructs, dynamics,
and procedures divorced from the environments and socio-political structures in
which it takes place, we felt it was important to share what we have learned as
we move forward towards an universal pilot this year. Furthermore, cooperating
teachers are stakeholders and leaders in the promotion of art education and
needed to know about the examination’s pros and cons. We also came to the
realization our teacher candidates need the help of their cooperating teachers
to prepare and take the examination. Cooperating art teachers have an expertise
meant to be shared through guidance. The workshop was mostly informational in
nature, sharing a knowledge base, conceptual understandings of each task, and
guidance on how to help teacher candidates construct and reflect on the learning
segment. We also gave examples of educational organizations that were for and
against the examination and why and encouraged cooperating teachers to advocate
their points of view. And lastly, we opened up a discussion on how cooperating
teachers could help us further, beyond our initial thoughts. 
 
At UWM, we have an eighteen-week placement for student teachers
during their field experience, nine in elementary and nine in secondary. We have
chosen to do the edTPA in their first nine-week placement because if teacher
candidates need remediation or fail, they can retake the examination during
their second nine-week placement. We have also asked that teacher candidates do
their edTPA on the secondary level, because art classes meet daily on this level
and thus teacher candidates are better able to collect data in relation to their
experiences within their placement environments. Cooperating teachers can
support our teacher candidates in a number of ways when it comes to curriculum
materials and instructional strategies, but cannot offer alternative responses
to commentary prompts or make leading comments in relation to edTPA drafts or
final version, cannot suggest changes on edTPA drafts or final versions, and
cannot use edTPA rubrics to provide formal feedback or score candidates. We
broke the workshop down into four sections, reflecting the examination. The
first was on creating a context for learning. Cooperating teachers can help
teacher candidates: 
a)     Become familiar with school and classroom resources, policies, practices, and
personnel;
b)     List special features of the school or classroom setting that will affect the
teaching of the learning segment (3-5 lessons);
c)     Describe any district, school or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations that
might affect the teacher candidate’s planning or delivery of instruction, such
as required curricula, pacing plan, use of specific instructional strategies, or
standardized tests; and 
d)     Consider the variety of learners in a class who may require different strategies/supports
or accommodations/modifications to instruction or assessment. This includes
learners with documented needs for accommodations.

The second part was on planning, designing and reflecting on a
series of sequenced lessons (learning segment/unit plan)
based on the National Standards and the edTPA objectives (form/structure,
art production, art context, personal) and which can be carried through from
beginning to end showing continuity among learning experiences and formative and
summative assessment strategies. We recommended lesson planning that is
constructivist in nature, engaging students’ previous knowledge, with scaffolded
activities that move from the simple to the more complex and content that has a
central focus and the four types of learning objectives; language demands
(academic vocabulary, functions, discourse, and syntax); scaffolded transitions
between lessons; engagement with students’ characteristics, development, assets,
prior learning, prerequisite skills, and dispositions; planned supports and
adaptations for diverse learners; and assessment strategies. Cooperating
teachers can help by:

a)     Advising teacher candidates on the selection of artists who can be used to build on
previous knowledge and keep students engaged;
and
b)     Asking open-ended or probing questions that encourage teacher candidates to reflect on
the planning artifact in reference to their classrooms, leaving it up to teacher
candidates to make selections and adaptations based on their knowledge of
students’ strengths and needs and on the content to be
taught.

The third part was on instruction. Our candidates will be
teaching for approximately nine weeks at the secondary developmental levels
where their learning segment must be taught in one classroom, documented via
video recoding (20 minutes maximum with one or two segments), analyzed, and
reflected upon. Recorded instruction must demonstrate rapport, respect, and
responsiveness; a central focus that connects to student assets and concepts and
contexts; language demands, and essential strategies for responding and
producing, with the requisite skills needed. Cooperating teachers can help by: 

a)     Arranging logistical support for video recording candidates;
b)     Allowing teacher candidates to practice their instruction by performing all the duties
with a trial class one week before implementing it with the sample
class;
c)      Identifying three focus students with varying abilities,
including one with documented special needs, so the teacher candidate can
utilize and demonstrate a variety of learning strategies that support diverse
learners during recording; and
d)     Discussing ways that the teacher candidate can improve their
teaching competence in supporting or challenging learners after observing their
trial and sample class and by using the three focus students selected and rubric
constructs. Leading comments aimed at helping the candidate pass the edTPA are
not allowed. 

The last part was on assessment. Using the three focus students
and the whole class, teacher candidates must document patterns and differences
in learning in relation to objectives and language use, provide written and
verbal feedback to learners using rubrics that chronicle individual strengths
and needs, create strategies that allow learners to apply feedback, and reflect
on the next steps needed after analyzing student learning. An additional
five-minute video can be used to demonstrate language use by learners.
Cooperating teachers can help by: 

a)     Having teacher candidates consistently document learning through formative and
summative assessment strategies such as written responses to artworks, completed
handouts, proposal writing and planning notes for project ideas, preparatory
sketches for project ideas, documentation of levels of elaboration on final
projects using rubrics, video clip of oral responses where language demands are
demonstrated, etc.; and
b)     Asking open-ended and probing questions that encourage teacher candidates to reflect on
how their objectives have been met and how they can guide deeper understanding
of concepts and skills, improvements in student performances, and extensions in
learning among the three focus students and whole class.