Contents
Catalog Links

Overview of edTPA - Teaching Event

California Teacher Candidates are required to pass the edTPA in order to earn their California teaching credential. Your best resources are located in the Teacher’s Lounge, which has everything you need in order to complete the edTPA as well as access to the edTPA coordinator for webinars, meetings and one on one support. . Ultimately, you will create and record a 3-5 day mini-unit and submit it for evaluation. This is an incredibly difficult performance assessment that includes many nuances. Take a look at the checklist at the end of this book, to help guide you. If you ever have any questions, please reach out to our EdTPA Coordinator, Professor Curiel, at mcuriel@usuniversity.edu. You can also ask questions directly in the Teacher’s Lounge, in the EdTPA discussion forum. You MUST submit the EdTPA before you finish student teaching, or you will fail student teaching. What follows is a brief overview:

Task 1: Planning for Instruction and Assessment

Task 1 is the planning portion of the edTPA. This task is divided into 5 parts and each of the five parts have specific requirements that include recording and uploading video segments, lesson plans, and narrative to substantively support achievement of the task. For Task 1, the bulk of the task is responding to prompts about the lesson that you will be teaching. The five parts in task 1 are:

  • Part A: Context for Learning (4-page limit)

  • Part B: Lesson Plans (3–5-day learning segment/mini-unit plan)

  • Part C: Instructional Materials (5-page limit)

  • Part D: Assessments (pre-assessments, and narrative on assessment planning)

  • Part E: Planning Commentary (9-page limit)

Task 2: Instruction and Engaging Students in Learning

Task 2 is the teaching portion of the edTPA. The focus of this task is establishing an effective learning climate and showing that there is a rapport between the student and student teacher. It is critical that the contents of Task 2 align with the planning in Task 1 - they should all be on the same 3–5-day learning segment.

  • Part A: Video Clips (10–20-minute clips depending on content area)

  • Part B: Instruction Commentary (6-page limit)

Task 3: Assessment

This is the assessment portion of the edTPA to demonstrate how assessments are used to evaluate student learning, monitor effectiveness of instruction, and guide future instruction. Assessments are briefly covered in Task 1 - but that is just the planning of the assessment as well as any pre-assessment that might be used prior to the teaching portion of the edTPA. Task 3 is divided into four parts:

  • Part A: Student Work Samples (2-3 individual assessments of students)

  • Part B: Evidence of Feedback (audio/video feedback and evidence of written feedback)

  • Part C: Assessment Commentary (reflection on assessment results)

  • Part D: Evaluation Criteria (rubrics, exit slips, etc.)

ELEMENTARY Task 4: Assessing Students’ Mathematics Learning

Task 4 is only for Multiple Subject candidates. All Elementary pre-service teachers are required to teach a Mathematics lesson that reflects student achievement in procedural fluency, development of mathematical reasoning, and advancement of problem-solving skills. This task is NOT required to be aligned with Tasks 1-3 and a different classroom can be used altogether if the student teacher prefers. This task is divided into seven parts:

  • Part A: Context for Learning (similar to Task 1 but focused on mathematics)

  • Part B: Description of the Learning Segment (objectives & standards)

  • Part C: Assessment (formative assessment & directions, no student sample)

  • Part D: Rubric (copy of rubric, not evaluated)

  • Part E: Student Work Samples from the Learning Segment (three student samples)

  • Part F: Student Work Samples from the Re-Engagement Lesson (video or three student samples)

  • Part G: Mathematics Assessment Commentary (8-page limit)