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.
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