Task 3: What are the requirements of the edTPA and what does an edTPA lesson plan look like? (Essential Questions C)
Pre-Posting – In preparation for your edTPA completion DURING YOUR STUDENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE we will be conducting a mini-edTPA for this course. First, print a hard copy of your edTPA handbook to refer to when watching the edTPA Overview Part II video (if you printed a hard copy for Dr. Chapman’s class you can use that one). Next watch the edTPA Overview Part II video (This video is 15 minutes long).
Posting – Post your interpretation of the key points/aspects of edTPA gathered from the video. What information do you see cutting across all of the resources you have read/seen on this topic so far? What are the cautions needed or “hints provided” for making this a quality product?
Fri. November 8, Initial posting
Response Postings – Everyone should respond at least 1-2 times to each group member with a question, clarification, or addition to the thoughts on their postings. You might consider other information, questions you still have as a future teacher, etc.
Response Postings:
By Sunday, November 10: 11:59 PM. Response postings
The main purpose of edTPA is to cultivate teacher candidate’s ability to conduct effective teaching. The core of such effective teaching is student learning. In the English as an Additional Language edTPA handbook, three tasks represent a cycle of effective teaching, including planning, instruction and assessment. According to the handbook, it states that “the planning task documents your intended teaching, the instruction task documents your enacted teaching, and the assessment task documents the impact of your teaching on student learning” (p.2). All of the three tasks focus on student learning. In other words, when composing the edTPA, we should always have our individual student in mind. As an ELL teacher, I should demonstrate my understanding of my student’s cultural, educational, family and personal backgrounds. In an ELL classroom, students present different levels of English proficiency and specific individual needs (e.g., IEP/504). These differences and diversities should all be considered and addressed within the edTPA tasks.
ReplyDeletePlanning, instruction and assessment are three phases in the edTPA. Across all of these phases, academic language is embedded. An ESL classroom prepares students with their English language ability to adjust to the English-speaking society and to achieve academic goals in schools. As discussed in our previous learning task board (Academic Language), I realized that language objectives should always be integrated with content objectives. In other words, as ESL teachers, we are not only focusing on student’s English language improvement, we should also emphasize on core content-area concepts. By addressing both of these, we can help the language learners achieve success in their new life adjustment and in academic learning simultaneously.
In order to make a quality edTPA, we should be sure that we know each of our students well. Then, we can create a lesson based on his/her needs. Also, we should collaborate with other teachers across disciplines. This is especially important for ESL teachers, because we need to know progress of content-classrooms, their schedules, periodic key concepts throughout the semester and so on. As long as we are familiar with these aspects, we can prepare appropriate lessons for the EL students.
I recently had the discussion with the H.S. ESL teacher about a student that was struggling in the classroom. The teacher was trying to determine if the student had a learning disability or all her life changes was affecting her classwork. The student is 14 and this is her first structured classroom experience. As you said these to are very difficult when they happen simultaneously. Also collaborating with the content classroom teacher is very important. Preparing appropriate lessons using quality edTPA will enhance the learning experience for the student.
DeleteDo you guys see your students every day? How many students do you see in a day. What are some strategy you guys have learn to getting to know your students? I would think that language barrier is hard. Have you ever thought of using art as a way to learn more about them? I would help you guys figure out some really cool get to know me art projects.
DeleteMegan,
DeleteAccording to my field experience so far, an ESL teacher will see a certain group of students everyday at specific times. I only observed pull-out ESL program so far, which means the students are pulled out into the ESL class based on their placement test scores. Some of the previous students who are exit from the ESL program may still come back to the study hall or return to the ESL teacher for help with a test sometimes.
In terms of knowing the students, I always use my "advantage" of being a Chinese and an ESL learner:) Usually, the ESL students are curious about world languages and even about Asian cultures. As explaining them some of my culture and languages, I ask about theirs. They are more than passionate to teach me their languages and share their cultures. Then, I guide them to talk about their favourite subjects, likes/dislikes, families, and share my experiences of English learning. Such conversations can always give me good perspectives of each student's personality, cultural/personal background, learning preferences and the like.
Using art sounds like a cool idea and the students will like it! Please let us know more about it:)
Yimu
Yimu, I think it is great that you were able to recognize is embedded in all three phases of the edTPA. I tend to overlook language as a part of teaching, but I need to realize that I will encounter a large number of students in which English will be a second language. I really think that developing relationships with the students and understanding your students at an individual level is the best way to be an effective teacher. Recognizing types of students and being able to adjust a lesson plan before delivery is something that develops with experience. The edTPA helps teachers to realize those minor adjustments that can make a huge impact.
DeleteThe edTPA is a form that is uploaded and promoted by Pearson Group. This form is based on National Concepts, it has a Field Test Handbook, Assessment Tools, that is a usable template that produces a 25 page Lesson Plan.
ReplyDeleteThe main tasks of the edTPA are:
1) Planning Instruction and Assessment
2) Instructing and Engaging Students
3) Assessing Student Learning
4) Analysis of Teaching
Some of the common strands/components of each task are assessments, rubrics with a focus and essential question, additive and analytical with the glossary embedded throughout.
Cautions for making a quality product are to tell the students what language/vocabulary they need to complete the assignment, assess where the student is at the beginning and utilize the research proven co-operative groups, and embed the language objectives in with the content objectives.
How do you plan on doing your assessment before the lesson to make the lesson work for you? For me, I would want to do it before they left the day before so you have time to really think about an effective lesson plan.
DeleteKathllen,
DeleteI think it is a neat idea to "let the students know what language/vocabulary they need to complete the assignments." In subjects like science, students are easily confused and overwhelmed by the terminologies, especially without any immediate help from teachers. Thus, it would be a good point to include in your lesson plan.
Yimu
We know that assessment of our students is very important, but when the students are at such different levels how do you approach a lesson plan. There is a 7th grader currently in my field experience that is well above his peers in understanding scientific concepts. For example, classification of organisms was introduced and using similar characteristics as a way to categorize was introduced, during the lesson he started asking questions about how characteristics between the genders can exist (sexual dimorphism). How do you challenge a student of this caliber while still keeping the other students engaged?
DeleteThe key points of edTPA I gathered from the video are that it is rubric focused and essential questions are at performance levels 1 to 5. As a novice teacher I can expect to be at level 3 and as a veteran teacher level 4. Not all areas may be at the same level, but will vary depending on my experience in certain areas. The edTPA really takes the focus away from evaluating the teacher and focuses on assessing student learning.
ReplyDeleteEdTPA focuses on three tasks:
1. Planning for instruction and assessment
2. Instructing and engaging students and assessment
3. Assessing student learning
I will admit that I’m struggling with the edTPA and need to keep reading it. Since I was not part of the discussion in Dr. Chapman’s class I’m still trying to get up to speed on this.
Its okay Audrey, there wasn't much of a discussion about the edTPA, or from what I remember. I think you are more on a level of a 4 right now, don't sell yourself short ;)
DeleteI am struggling with the edTPA as well, Its a lot to know and a lot to try to remember, it can be very overwhelming!
Audrey,
DeleteI think we are all on the same page right now, so don't need to worry about it:) As long as we keep following the edTPA handbook, I think we will be fine. It just takes time to practice and really needs us to reflect on each plan and instruction in our future commentaries.
This was a great video to watch to start to get the basic understanding or overview of the Ed TPA. There is a lot of information to read over, so being able to watch the a short video really helped me understand the Ed TPA format a little better. What I like about the Ed TPA is that it has the rubrics that we will be graded upon. This way, we know whet they will be looking for as well as nothing should be a surprise.
ReplyDeleteI also like the chart near the end, that will be really once we have to start turning in all of our information.
This whole Ed TPA book is nice reminder of everything we need to make sure we have in our lesson plans.
Megan,
DeleteI like the rubrics too. It gives us a glance of how teachers can do differently with various levels of experiences. It also helps us create our own plan purposefully and meaningfully rather than guessing what the evaluators are looking for. We can raise the bar to Level 4 even though we may at level 2 or 3, so we can push ourselves to be critical and sophisticated.
Yimu
I believe the main concept of the Ed TPA is to be able to constructively assess teaching. It provides a standardized way to evaluate lesson plans and presentation of the lesson. The ability for teachers to be able to self assess and adjust to provide increased student learning is a key component to making education successful. The video makes a great point it is very rare for a teacher candidate to reach the highest levels of evaluation. This just goes to show how valuable experience in teaching can be. The opportunity to perform the same lesson a few times goes a long way into improving the effectiveness of the lesson.
ReplyDelete