The first week of school is in the books for me, and it sure has been eventful! I went to Bethware for the Meet the Teacher night, and I fell in love with all my students and cannot wait to get into the classroom. This week in EDUC 435 we talked about all the expectations for the class, and what we have planned for the rest of the semester. I learned that we now are required to do a EdTPA instead of the big unit at the end of the semester. Apparently, almost all of the states have adopted EdTPA to be part of their way of hiring teachers. I think that this is a great idea, because now the teachers that just slide by, will actually have to prove that they can teach. However, this seems like it will be very helpful to helping us plan and reflect in the future.
Speaking of EdTPA, I figured that this would be a good blog to research EdTPA, and figure out what it is at a deeper level. First off, here is the website that you will need to register for EdTPA, and you can go here and learn a little more about it. http://www.edtpa.com/. "edTPA is a performance-based, subject-specific assessment and support system used by teacher preparation programs throughout the US to emphasize, measure and support the skills and knowledge that all teachers need from day 1 in the classroom" (edTPA) Therefore, this will be almost like a portfolio that we will create during student teaching. This portfolio will include 5 learning plans for Literature and Math. We will plan the lesson, record us teaching and assessing the lesson, and the reflect on the lesson. I also found this format online of a lesson, but I am not sure how true to the actual thing that it is. I posted the link at the bottom of the page.
I think that the edTPA hits on standard 3 of teachers know their content, and standard 5 of teachers reflect on their practice. Standard 3, because edTPA is making sure that teachers know their stuff, and can teach. Standard 5, because in edTPA we will have to reflect on the lesson that we planned and taught.
http://www.uccs.edu/Documents/coe/curriculum/TELP/UCCS%20edTPA%20Lesson%20Plan%20Format.pdf
http://www.edtpa.com/
