Teacher education is broadly seen as a policy problem in that it has failed to produce sufficient 'classroom ready' teachers. One accountability measure that has been introduced in Australia to address this purported problem is the capstone teacher performance assessments (TPAs). All Australian pre-service teachers must pass this hurdle assessment…

The appropriate use of academic language demonstrates a learner's understanding of discipline specific--arts or education--knowledge. Educators are responsible for ensuring that learners acquire and correctly apply academic language in context. Entrance into the teaching profession requires teacher candidates to develop facility with the academic…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between participants' edTPA writing and edTPA portfolio scores. Specific questions included (a) Is there a relationship between overall word count and total score on the edTPA? (b) Are individual task commentary word counts associated with specific task scores and total edTPA scores? and…

Both within the field of world language (WL) teacher education and across teacher education in other disciplines, critiques of the edTPA have increased over the past several years. In WL language education, scholars have identified issues related to raters' use of edTPA rubrics and a serious lack of transparency about rater expertise. To better…

The formation of a teacher's identity is considered a dynamic process influenced by internal and external contextual factors. This article explores the impact that external contextual factors have on teacher candidates' identities by presenting the findings of an empirical qualitative study that investigated the relationship between teacher…

Since 2009, one-third of all US teacher preparation programs have implemented a new, technology-based teacher assessment--edTPA. Intended to replace traditional measures of initial teaching competency, edTPA utilizes a candidate-curated video lesson and ePortfolio. While research shows that these technology-based tools enhance professional…

The edTPA, a recent example of a teacher candidate assessment, has influenced how teacher education classes are taught and how teacher candidates are learning. We describe three tensions present in candidate narratives during two separate years of edTPA implementation: attention to the edTPA rubrics vs. the student teachers' real teaching, a focus…

The purpose of this study was to examine our work with the edTPA while teaching 100 elementary/middle school licensure students in the College of Education at our university. This study investigated: How did the process of implementing edTPA alter our licensure program both broadly and as individual teachers during years one and two?

Implemented in almost 900 teacher education programs across 41 states and the District of Columbia, edTPA is marketed as a content-specific, standardized portfolio assessment of beginning teacher performance. However, concerns about edTPA and its content specificity are pervasive. To that end, the researchers surveyed teacher educators with World…