The TPA Game Changer: Pushing for Equity, Inclusion, and Educational Technology via Teacher Performance Assessment

• In Event: Redesigned Performance Assessment: A State’s New Assessment Tool Confronts the Shortcomings in Teacher Preparation

Abstract

In 2016, a state credentialing agency adopted a new set of Teacher Performance Expectations (TPEs) that highlights: A) an in-depth usage of technology to enhance instruction; B) the impact of K-12 students’ assets as “funds of knowledge” that can be used as a resource for instruction. In order to address the new TPEs the state agency was tasked with redeveloping their Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) with a goal that the new assessment drive teacher preparation programs to refocus their curriculum in areas relating to equity, inclusion, and educational technology.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which the redesigned state sponsored Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) is designed to disrupt traditional frameworks in teacher preparation that are anchored in deficit ideology and the superficial treatments of educational technology. Most teacher preparation programs address “diversity” through a multicultural approach that includes a single course about diversity that is embedded in curriculum, or through learning activities, integrated throughout the program, that requires candidates to plan for culturally driven learning activities that are often simplified to diverse celebrations and songs (Nieto, 2000). In both of these instances, the focus is on culture, which tends to essentialize students who come from marginalized groups instead of addressing the inequities that these students face in the classroom as it pertains to access and inclusion (Tyler, 2016; Gorski, 2016). With that, more recent research relating to “diversity’ has called for a shift in teacher preparation that extends beyond multicultural approaches to more equity-driven instruction (Darling-Hamond, 2015; Gorski, 2016).

In alignment with these trends, this paper reviews how the redesigned TPA has included a number of elements that require candidates to gather data about their students that allows them to be more inclusive and equity-driven in their practices, so that student differences are viewed as resources and assets, instead of as deficits which continues to be present in the thinking among many teachers today (Lambeth & Smith, 2016; Valencia, 2010). The inclusion of these elements emerged from the outcomes of design team perspectives, focus group data, and survey data that originated from pilot testing and an external bias review panel.

Additionally, this paper will also highlight how educational technology will be addressed in the redesigned TPA by asking candidates to enhance student learning experiences through technology. Currently, there is a disconnect between the technology related expectations that new teachers have in the classroom, and the type of training that is received in credential programs. For example, in many classrooms, there is currently a push for teachers to advance a model of teaching where technology, pedagogy and content knowledge intersect (TPACK). However, in many credential programs, TPACK is rarely discussed in content knowledge and pedagogical methods related courses. With the goal of utilizing technology in such a way that enhances learning, the redesigned TPA requires candidates to integrate technology into a lesson, provide a rationale for the technological interventions chosen, and to document their lesson via video.

Author

• Daniel Soodjinda, California State University Stanislaus