Breakers, benders, and obeyers: Inquiring into teacher educators’ mediation of edTPA

Abstract

This article reflects a qualitative exploratory inquiry into the lived experiences of faculty members working within a system of urban schools of education as they supported diverse teacher candidates in completing the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) during its first semesters of high-stakes implementation. Drawing upon questionnaire responses and semi-structured interviews, our findings demonstrate the disparity and variation in the level and kind of support offered to teacher candidates. We discuss the ways that the policy, stance, and the ethical, pedagogical, and logistical dilemmas teacher educators faced as they supported candidates intersected to shape the supports provided. Implications focus on utilization of such test scores for evaluating teacher preparation institutions, faculty relations, and the diversification of the teacher workforce.

Navigating the contested terrain of teacher education policy and practice: Authors respond to SCALE

“…The quality of teaching and teacher education are certainly matters of equity which animate the study that I offer in this issue. I also agree that some of the challenges raised more recently about edTPA, at least in my research and elsewhere Behney, 2016;Ledwell & Oyler, 2016;Paine, Beal-Alvarez, & Scheetz, 2016;Ratner & Kolman, 2016), are, indeed, matters of program implementation that concern the perceptions of candidates and teacher educators involved directly with enactment of the assessment.…”

“…For something to be educative, the users must feel and recognize that it is so, to some degree. It's unproductive to blame the candidates or the programs, without any deep knowledge of either, when we do see candidates and programs complying with policy mandates while reporting a struggle to maintain a balance with using the assessment to inquire about program practices (Cronenberg et al, 2016;Lachuk & Koellner, 2015;Ratner, 2016). Rather, investigations of policy in practice call for us to interrogate the context that could give rise to such contradictory and conflictual experiences of an assessment, which, by design, is supposed to be beneficial to candidates and the profession.…”

High-stakes assessment in elementary education teacher preparation: Educators’ perceptions and actions resulting in curriculum change

“…In fact, teacher educators used this information to modify data analysis assignments in two specific courses in literacy and in mathematics and avoided the pitfall of missing a focus for change. These educators also expressed tensions at the program endpoint with giving feedback on candidate work and following up on candidate use of the feedback, considering the edTPA rules for providing candidate support, as also noted in the literature (Ratner & Kolman, 2016). By giving formative feedback, embedded in coursework, teacher candidates are afforded many opportunities to use the feedback as they construct knowledge and increase their self-efficacy prior to the endpoint (Whittaker & Nelson, 2013).…”

“…Teacher educators recognized the inconsistencies in standardized testing for children in K-12 education as for teacher candidates who are also learning and developing as professionals (Caughlin & Jiang, 2014). In previous research, educators addressed sociocultural learning theory (Vygotsky, 1978) recognizing novices' developmental needs for feedback, co-constructing knowledge with influential others, in contrast to a TPA summative measure in a high-stakes context with rules addressing acceptable candidate support (Chung, 2008;Margolis & Doring, 2013;Meuwissen & Choppin, 2015;Ratner & Kolman, 2016). Since schools are places of learning, teacher educators recognized the context for learning as important, considering the amount of autonomy that teacher candidates have to make curricular decisions and implement a TPA in school placements (Chung, 2008;Margolis & Doring, 2013;Meuwissen & Choppin, 2015;Okhremtchouk et al, 2009).…”

Storying teacher education policy: Critical counternarratives of curricular, pedagogical, and activist responses to state-mandated teacher performance assessments

“…However, there is a growing body of independent TPA scholarship in peer-reviewed academic journals. While some of this scholarship focuses on practical aspects of TPAs themselves, thus inadvertently allowing TPA mandates to drive their inquiry, other scholars center the broader political and ideological implications of TPAs a mechanism of neoliberal policy reform (e.g., Greenblatt & O'Hara, 2015;Meuwissin & Chopin, 2015;Pullin, 2015;Ratner & Kolman, 2016;Reagan et al, 2016;Tuck & Gorlewski, 2016). It is upon this foundation that we situate our analysis, as we collectively resist policies that silence the voices of our profession.…”