edTPA, High-Quality Performance-Based Assessments, and Teacher Preparation
Performance Assessments or Performance-Based assessments are commonplace in teacher education today. Their widespread use within the profession, however, began in the 1980- 1990’s resulting from a critique of standardized testing. The America 2000 plan (U.S. Department of Education 1991) led with a focus on making schools better and more accountable. The standards movement was a core linchpin accompanied by market-based strategies for greater school accountability and parent choice for school selection based on school performance. In addition to the authorization of regular National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reporting, the plan prioritized the development of new national examination systems. The plan encouraged higher education officials and employers to use achievement test results. The normalization of report cards for public consumption regarding the quality of schools, school districts, states, and the nation concomitantly took hold as a result.
The New Standards Project (Tucker & Resnick, 1990) championed content standards and the use of performance-based assessments as a retreat from a tradition of standardized multiple-choice exams. The thinking of the day was that performance-based assessments would motivate both students and Prek-12 teachers. Performance based-assessments are often referred to as authentic assessments, alternative assessments, and direct assessments (Baker, O’Neil, & Linn, 1993). Today in teacher preparation, performance-based assessments commonly known as teacher performance assessments, or TPAs, may occur as culminating assessments, formative assessments, diagnostics assessments, portfolio assessments, project-based assessments, work-sample assessments, etc.
In short, performance-based assessments are those in which participants demonstrate their “performance” of knowledge, skills, and or attitudes by completing “authentic” tasks, ideally in “real-world” settings.
The Educational Testing Service (n.d.) offers this definition, “a test in which the test taker actually demonstrates the skills the test is intended to measure by doing real-world tasks that require those skills, rather than by answering questions asking how to do them.”
The use of TPAs is driven by two core purposes:1) to evaluate teacher candidates as individuals and 2) to evaluate teacher education programs (Peck, Young, & Zhang, 2021). Yet, larger beliefs regarding the potential for TPAs to foster learning among teacher candidates and to advance the overall quality of teacher preparation also prevail. States like California (See Senate Bill 2042) and Massachusetts (See regulations for Educator Preparation and Licensure 603 CMR 7.00) have legislated or regulated the use and development of state-wide performance assessments for future teachers, (i.e., Performance Assessment for California Teachers[PACT] and Candidate Assessment of Performance [CAP], respectively). The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), the nation’s largest teacher education advocacy organization, led the charge for advancing the professionalization of the field by pushing for a unified accreditation system, as well as a national exam for future teachers.
Experts from Stanford University and the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE), with leadership by AACTE, developed the edTPA to help determine if new teachers are ready to enter the profession and with the skills necessary to help all of their students learn. Becoming operational in 2013 for nationwide implementation, the logic of edTPA is to be used for teacher licensure and to support state and national program accreditation, and to support program renewal (AACTE, n.d.). The momentum for state and teacher preparation program adoption of edTPA grew steadily. In turn, programs revised their curriculums to better align with the language and task requirements of edTPA. Today, 15 states have statewide policies requiring a performance-based assessment for program completion, state licensure, and or state accreditation/review for which edTPA is an approved assessment to meet this/these requirement(s) (See edTPA, n.d.).
Yet, the edTPA has not been spared criticism. One major complaint rested with the cost for exam scoring. Many continue to view the $300.00 charge as an increased financial burden toward state licensure, in general, and an added barrier for entry into the profession for low-income teacher aspirants. The national teacher shortage and widespread call for greater racial and gender diversity within the teacher workforce have been major forces causing a shift in the momentum for adoption. In 2020, the state of Georgia eliminated the edTPA as a teacher licensure requirement in four short years after making the assessment consequential in 2015 for all future teachers graduating from state approved teacher education programs seeking initial certification. In the two years to follow, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey, in succession, eliminated the edTPA as a licensure requirement for initial certification. Educators in all four states cited conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic as a strain on teacher candidates’ access to schools during student teaching and an impediment to edTPA completion. Yet, TPAs are not lost. The new rules for these northeastern states either require or give teacher preparation programs the option to continue the use of performance-based assessments for program completion. To date, only one of the aforementioned northeastern states, New York, has provided guidance to its preparation programs, defining teacher performance assessment as follows:
". . . a multi-measure assessment where candidates demonstrate the pedagogical knowledge and skills identified in the New York State Teaching Standards, which align with the four principles of the New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework, and their content knowledge and skill in teaching to the State learning standards in the grade band and subject area of a certificate sought." (New York State Department of Education, n.d.)
While the future favor and fate of edTPA hang in the balance, the use of performance-based assessments in teacher preparation remains a valued practice for a variety of reasons uniquely defined by context. As programs continue to focus on program quality and gauging the effectiveness of their graduates, the following considerations are provided to shape high-quality TPAs: Begin with the end in mind. Focus on learning. Design for feasibility.
Begin with the end in mind. Beginning with the end in mind requires preparation programs to ensure TPA alignment with their espoused learning outcomes. When relevant, alignment with state and other professional standards is necessary, as is noted for teacher preparation programs in New York. For culminating TPAs, in particular, the stakes are even higher. It is essential for authenticity that assessments are designed with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of highly effective teachers in mind. They should be developed with sensitivity to the current (and future) working conditions of effective teachers and the needs of the PreK-12 students they serve.
The attributes of effective new and experienced teachers can also be instructive for designing performance assessments to be used longitudinally. TPAs that account for the change in skills acuity from new teacher to experienced teacher may be used as tools not only to assess teacher candidates for entry into the profession. They may also aid preparation programs in providing ongoing support of and to monitor graduates’ teaching effectiveness during their first few years of employment. This longitudinal approach for beginning with the end in mind concomitantly provides the opportunity for relationship building across preparation programs and PreK-12 schools for TPA development, as well as a means for continuous program improvement informed by data on the teaching effectiveness of candidates from program completion through new teacher induction.
Focus on learning. A focus on learning for high-quality TPAs is threefold. Firstly, they should facilitate a culture of learning through apprenticeship. As such, teacher candidates are actively engaged in their learning as future professionals with the support of clinical faculty and others. Secondly, high-quality TPAs attend to PreK-12 student learning as a measure of teacher candidate effectiveness. Thirdly, quality TPAs should inform learning for continuous improvement of the teacher preparation program.
In a recent blog on the future of assessment in higher education, we emphasized assessment for engaging students in learning. TPAs that focus on learning aid teacher candidates in thinking deeply about their overall professional practice, its development, its effectiveness, and its ongoing improvement. They skillfully ask teacher candidates to critically analyze, reflect on, and articulate their professional practice.
Teaching and learning is the core enterprise of education. TPAs underscore the core enterprise when they intentionally guide teacher candidates to continually examine the impact of their teaching on PreK-12 student learning and development. They require teacher candidates to employ the findings to inform the betterment of their professional practice.
Professional learning gained through the use of TPAs can also shape program quality. Translational research in education (Jones, Hall, Procter, Connolly, & Frazlagić, 2022) seeks to mobilize knowledge drawn from research to practical application and solutions. Such research extends across basic and clinical research with a focus on addressing the needs of and to improve the conditions for communities served. When applied to the use of TPAs, the values of translation research are actualized when data from TPA implementation inform teacher preparation design and activists to foster positive impact on Prek-12 partner schools, as well as the enterprise of teacher preparation.
Design for feasibility. TPAs can take many forms. They may include video recording of teaching, as is required for the edTPA. They may include simulations, observation records, and so forth. There is no single one-size-fits- all approach for TPA design. For authenticity, however, they should require application in real world contexts in which teacher candidates engage in the core enterprise of teaching and learning. Feasibility encompasses the ease of development and use of TPAs by preparation programs, their teacher candidates, and other collaborators. For overall quality, programs must ensure that their TPAs are valid, reliable, and free of bias. Program investment in reliability studies and training for inter-rater reliability are aspects of feasibility, as well as the time and resources needed to orient and support faculty and teacher candidates on the use and management of a TPA. Of particular note, programs should consider the burden of cost associated with TPA completion for teacher candidates.
Access to appropriate schools and clinical placements for authentic teaching experiences may require costs associated with background checks, travel, etc. Many programs require digital submission of assessments for data use and reporting. Teacher candidates are often expected to bear the cost for subscription use of such data reporting systems. Lastly, scoring of TPAs by faculty and others can be labor intensive and incur related expenses. Designing for feasibility is an ethical and responsible endeavor that contributes to the overall quality, utility, and success of TPAs.
One distinctive attribute of edTPA is its standardization for use across programs from state to state. Yet, some have argued that standardization of the assessment causes rigidity. As teacher preparation programs develop for the first time or revise existing TPAs, their unique contexts, missions, and constraints certainly will challenge the efficacy of a one-size-fits-all model. Even still, beginning with the end in mind, focusing on learning, and designing for feasibility are essential considerations for high-quality TPAs.
About the Author: Dr. Jacob Easley II, is Special Assistant Provost for New Initiative at Touro University, NY. This blog results from a recent presentation for the New Jersey Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (NJACTE). @drje2
References
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translational research in schools: A systematic literature review, International Journal of Educational Research, 114, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2022.101998
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