This article details how a team of university professors representing five PETE/HETE programs in Washington State work together for success. At a time when enrollment in higher education is down across the nation, it is crucial for university programs to work together to strengthen their programs to recruit and retain future health and physical…

Teacher candidates are called on to create effective lesson plans to implement during their student teaching semester, and certain components of lesson plans are recognized as particularly significant. Viewing lesson plans as the foundation for impactful instruction, it is necessary for teacher candidates to have skills in evaluating their plans…

Accountability measures have quickly entered into formal teacher-preparation programs. As a response, we introduce the use of structural equation modeling vis-à-vis path analysis in secondary-grade mathematics teacher preparation as a methodology to test models to understand the strength of relationships to recommendations of prominent…

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 aim of this manuscript is to provide PHETE program coordinators/faculty with recommendations for improving CTs ability to better support TCs during the physical and health education edTPA process. The authors will provide specific examples of how they used their own empirical research findings to improve edTPA success within their respective…

Study abroad programming has seen substantial growth at U.S. institutions of higher education over the past few decades. It has cemented itself as an integral educational option at nearly all U.S. colleges and universities, including for students in teacher preparation programs. While a growing body of research shows evidence that teacher…

Ensuring that teaching candidates are well prepared to enter the classroom is a critical mission for teacher preparation programs and state agencies that approve programs and set teacher licensure standards. Teaching performance assessments (TPAs) can be used to assess the readiness of potential teachers because they require candidates to provide…

In the state of California, the Education Specialist Teaching Performance Assessment (EdSp TPAs) is the latest accountability measure to be required of aspiring education specialists. Existing literature has been overwhelmingly critical of the TPAs (Dover, 2022; Valdez et al., 2020). And now, in the dawn of the EdSp TPAs, there must be a candid…

Many quality assurance policies for teacher education are linked to the assessment of their training and although this is widely studied, the subjects' perspectives have not been taken into consideration. This study sought to answer: how do the subjects perceive these education assessments and how do those assessments influence their training? A…

Given the call by Krashen (2012) and others advocating for shorter, easier to digest research papers, we provide a shorter than usual summary of the World Language edTPA via empirical findings from the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity and researchers in the field. We argue in favor of abandoning the World Language edTPA for…

Alternative preparation programs, which "provide alternatives to the traditional undergraduate program path to teacher certification" (Darling-Hammond et al., 2002, p. 287) existed in 40 states by 1993 (Wilson et al., 2001). Today, approximately one quarter of new teachers each year enter the profession through an alternative teacher…

While it is widely accepted that teacher quality is one of the most influential factors in predicting positive student outcomes such as academic success, identifying the key attributes and indicators of a quality teacher has been challenging. Due to mounting evidence that a teacher's pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) impacts both their practices…

Efforts made by educator preparation programs (EPPs) utilize teacher performance assessments (TPAs) that include formative and summative assessments that evaluate teacher candidates' professional growth and performance. The educative teacher performance assessment (edTPA) has replaced the local TPAs to become a national performance-based…

With the addition of the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) as a high-stakes, consequential standardized examination for teacher licensure, the practice of training new generations of educators using principles of Invitational Education (IE) Theory when making andragogic decisions arrives at an intersection. Teacher preparation…

edTPA is a widely used teacher performance assessment. However, studies have raised concerns with its use. We conducted a study of candidates' and faculty members' perceptions of edTPA on their learning and performance. Analysis of responses revealed six themes: confusion about the meaning of "ready to teach"; interference with…