Developing a Culture of Learning Around the edTPA: One University’s Journey

Abstract

In this article, we discuss how an interdisciplinary faculty team at a midsized public university created supports for the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), a high-stakes performance assessment for preservice candidates being adopted by many states. We provide a general description of our work in contending with the challenge of developing a culture of learning around edTPA and share how we have constructed a program that builds an “ethos” around the goals of edTPA, its vision of ambitious, and learner-supported teaching and situates this work within the larger values and ideas of our teacher-education program. The article includes a conceptual framework for how a teacher-education program can support candidates’ success on edTPA while maintaining a focus on ambitious teaching.