National Assessments for Student Teachers: Documenting Teaching Readiness to the Tipping Point

Preservice teachers’ adaptations to tensions associated with the edTPA during its early implementation in New York and Washington states

“…While several scholars cautiously suggest that such policy could encourage positive changes within teacher education programs under the right conditions (Lit & Lotan, 2013;Margolis & Doring, 2013;Peck et al, 2010;Peck & McDonald, 2013), our research demonstrates the added potential for candidates, and perhaps teacher educators, to focus defensively on managing social and instrumental factors that interact with the assessment rather than improving practice through it. Over time, it will be important to investigate questions that this study, conducted early in the edTPA's use as a state licensure mechanism, does not address.…”

“…Okhremtchouk et al (2009) found that constraints in some school placement sites, including cooperating teachers' lack of knowledge about the PACT or disagreement with its tenets, hindered candidates' completion efforts. Similarly, Margolis and Doring (2013), who conducted a study of the edTPA's pilot implementation at one Washington university in 2011, question the fairness of high-stakes assessments of practice when student teachers' degrees of control over their work conditions can vary drastically from one school setting to another. Further, they indicate that candidates may find few models in their placement schools of the kind of teaching endorsed by the edTPA, which presents tensions related to both agency and representation.…”

“…Our results contribute to a critically important discussion on the implications of positioning TPAs as state-level accountability mechanisms, a trend that seems likely to grow. Specifically, we build on an emerging base of literature that explores how the policy context of highstakes TPAs impacts the learning experiences and teaching practices of the candidates whose performance they intend to measure (e.g., Margolis & Doring, 2013;Okhremtchouk, Newell, & Rosa, 2013). In our discussion of this study's results, we distinguish between productive and unproductive tensions associated with high-stakes TPAs and present several considerations for teacher educators who aim to reduce effects that undermine preservice teachers' learning and practice, particularly during early adoption of TPAs as accountability tools (Stillman, 2011).…”

Politics of policy: Assessing the implementation, impact, and evolution of the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) and edTPA

“…However, as a result of scaling up to the national level, the power for decision-making related to the edTPA is further removed from the local level (Margolis & Doring, 2013) than it was for the PACT in the California context. Furthermore, the edTPA's inclusion of multiple actors outside of the profession raises questions about the extent to which the assessment is still close to the spirit of an "assessment for educators, by educators."…”

“…In some ways, these tensions are echoed in recent empirical literature, particularly as it pertains to the role of the cooperating teacher and supervisor in the edTPA. For example, Margolis & Doring (2013) found that the implementation of the new teaching assessment created a dissonance and confusion for cooperating teachers and supervisors who had previously been clear about their role in working with teacher candidates. Excluding such key players in edTPA and PACT implementation risks silencing and marginalizing voices of those who are integral to the field.…”