Pedagogical Performance Assessments as Challenges to Teacher Preparation Program Coherence

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Equity, Coherence, and Assessment: Enhancing Teacher Preparation Through Collaborative Insights (Table 7)

Abstract

This paper explores challenges to program coherence that may be generated during the adoption and implementation of pedagogical performance assessments (PPAs). These challenges were identified as part of a larger case study examining the experiences of a cohort of candidates navigating their final year of professional teacher education coursework. Challenges fall under categories related to disconnection, artificiality, and contradiction. A primary insight of this study is that teacher programs adopting PPAs may be served by critically examining the integration and implementation of those assessments to determine whether preservice teachers are being guided in using the those assessments as vehicles for developing and articulating personal theories of teaching and learning that are compatible with the overarching program vision of quality teaching.

Author

• Connor Warner, University of Utah