edTPA Perspectives from the Field: Influence of CCSS and Impact on Teachers of ELLs
In last week's blog post, I shared some data on the edTPA for English as an Additional Language (EAL), which is a new licensure assessment for pre-service teachers of English as a 2d Language (ESL). I focused on the connectedness between the edTPA in English as an Additional Linguistic communication and the Mutual Cadre.
This week, I'll share some themes around the implementation of the edTPA that surfaced from 3 TESOL teacher educators who are using the edTPA with their ESL teacher candidates.
Our three teacher educators are:
- Dr. Laura Baecher, Associate Professor of TESOL, Hunter Higher, CUNY, New York, NY
- Dr. Cynthia Lundgren, Banana Professor at The Center for Second Linguistic communication Teaching and Learning at Hamline Academy's Graduate School of Education in St. Paul, MN (and also a Colorín Colorado adviser)
- Dr. Luciana C. de Oliveira, Acquaintance Professor of TESOL and Applied Linguistics, Teachers Higher, Columbia University
Each of these educators sent me detailed comments on their perspective on using the edTPA, and I think it'southward most helpful to hear their comments directly. In this postal service I'll focus on common areas they described in terms of how the edTPA has afflicted their exercise for ESL teacher candidates within the Common Core framework. The areas I'll focus on are the edTPA as yet another layer amidst a number of educational changes and initiatives, academic language, lesson planning, and the impact of the edTPA on teacher candidates. For each of these areas, I'll share quotes from Laura, Cynthia, and Luciana. I'll leave y'all with some last thoughts and the opportunity for yous to chime in on this conversation.
edTPA as Some other Layer of Modify
All three educators commented on how the edTPA fit into the big moving-picture show as another layer in the numerous educational sea changes currently happening around the country, although they expressed dissimilar opinions on the assessment in full general. They saw the rollout of the edTPA every bit situated within a complex system of educational activity and cess for both ESL instructor candidates as well as the ELLs the candidates serve, and each discussed the touch on that edTPA is probable to have across her coursework.
Laura, who teaches in New York, says, "It could exist considered the perfect storm; teachers in the field and teachers coming into the field alike are under tremendous pressure to catch up on new models, evaluation frameworks, and student assessments. As a designer of the English every bit an Additional Language edTPA, and as a practicum instructor and supervisor of pre-service TESOL candidates wrestling with edTPA, I try to maintain the belief that although nosotros are currently swept upwardly in the winds of this storm of change, such changes are truly needed."
Cindy, who is based in Minnesota, notes that the edTPA hasn't "changed my course much; I have always had a component in my methods course that required a video and tuning protocol (group analysis of testify regarding whether or not student objectives were met) so that fits in nicely with what they need to do during student teaching." She goes on to say, "What has inverse the near is the 'stick' behind some of my criteria…The edTPA provides a little more than ascendancy and motivation to review 2nd Language Conquering concepts and be accurate in their connections. That makes me happy every bit I believe understanding the field is essential to advocating more effectively for ELs, programs, and curricular decisions."
Luciana notes, "As we started to implement edTPA in English as an Additional Linguistic communication as a requirement in New York State this past fall, we have also been reflecting about the process of assisting our candidates in understanding its requirements and making changes in our MA TESOL program that leads to K-12 certification."
Bookish Linguistic communication
All three educators highlighted the edTPA's focus on academic language, both as it's conceptualized for ESL teachers and too how the edTPA holds all teachers accountable to teach bookish language to all students. In the English as an Additional Linguistic communication handbook, academic language is conceptualized as competencies (e.g., grammatical, businesslike, discourse, and metalinguistic competence). Y'all'll note how the educators' views differ in terms of how academic language is addressed in this cess.
- Laura notes, "One of the ways I have seen the edTPA benefitting teachers is the demands information technology places on them to consider the content of the curriculum securely and to spend a while thinking through how students will both access this content (through bookish language) and express their agreement of this content (with bookish linguistic communication). Being asked to video moments of teaching do that show students engaged in elaborated talk about the subject thing and using academic language requires teachers to model that language, directly students to the target forms, structure the activities to prompt production of those forms, and include assessments that will measure out to what extent those forms and the content were understood. This is the kind of clean, coherent instruction that pushes students to extend their thinking and their linguistic communication use that both the Common Core and the Danielson Framework for Teaching describe."
- Cindy shares that as a result of the edTPA, "I think it might be possible to create discussions that actually put linguistic communication at the forefront and face our national stupidity nearly languages in general. I think this is specially true if we can move beyond the vocabulary focus and prescriptive lure of the Common Cadre and instead keep the focus on the purpose for which language is being used and how semantic and syntactic choices influence meaning." She adds that, "Now, all of a sudden, our faculty is in demand to provide professional person development to our colleagues on academic linguistic communication for their content methods courses and to do guest lecture spots in full general pedagogy methods courses."
- Luciana agrees with Laura and Cindy that "linguistic communication, and academic linguistic communication in particular, should be at the forefront for TESOL candidates" and sees this area "as a crucial part of any teacher's practice, but information technology is specially essential for ESOL teachers." She farther contends, "The EAL handbook is the only handbook that requires candidates to accost 'competencies'... All other handbooks define academic linguistic communication at the levels of vocabulary, syntax, and soapbox levels (which) correspond to the levels of academic linguistic communication identified in electric current work in TESOL that describes the demands of academic linguistic communication for ELLs (e.k. Freeman & Freeman, 2008; Gotlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014; WIDA Standards, p. 7). Academic language demands have been described at the discussion/phrase, sentence, and discourse levels, which would stand for with the vocabulary, syntax, and discourse levels of edTPA, respectively. I would urge the designers of edTPA TESOL/EAL to reconsider the improver of these competencies and consider changing these to more closely associate with the academic language requirements that are nowadays in the other handbooks and the academic linguistic communication literature within the TESOL field."
Lesson Planning
Cindy and Luciana acknowledged that the edTPA has impacted how they design lesson plan templates for their ESL instructor candidates and, in Cindy's instance, for general education teacher candidates. Luciana has added boosted Mutual Core standards and language demands for ELLs into Columbia'due south Teachers College lesson plan format that go beyond what the EAL handbook demands.
- Cindy says, "Lesson plan templates have been adult for several key courses in the licensure program. As a result of the edTPA, they include sections on not only differentiation for diverse populations, merely also explicitly addressing academic language needs. The reality is this is far from where nosotros need to be with our general pedagogy teachers, but information technology does represent a beginning of the conversation. Nosotros are notwithstanding struggling to get our colleagues to expect more than deeply at academic language beyond a unproblematic fix of language stems and expect more closely at the linguistic structures that are specific to their particular disciplines." She continues, "I've besides seen improvement in the depth and breadth of lesson plans from my students. I don't believe this is due to the edTPA, rather a combination of things - the backward design for planning that we use; I'm teaching more systemic functional linguistics as a way to integrate teaching linguistic communication through the content. These changes have really made a difference, but the construction of the edTPA does help go along students and me focused on elements that can easily be lost (e.g., multiple modalities, differentiation of several levels, explicit connections to theory and all-time practice, reflection on teaching and a plan moving forward based on the reflection)."
- Luciana reports, "There are primal conceptual understandings and skills that TESOL teacher candidates demand to develop that are not currently represented in the TESOL/EAL handbook. We have incorporated them into our edTPA lesson plan format." She goes on to note, "We take incorporated the CCSS as the primary content standards that our teacher candidates have to employ in their edTPA lesson plans. We have also adult a separate assignment that our teacher candidates take to complete in groups in which they:
- provide specific suggested activities for ELLs that apply the strategy.
- choose a specific pedagogical strategy that would work to address these demands while addressing the needs of ELLs
- identify the specific content and language demands of these standards
- select specific standards to focus on
- closely examine the CCSS."
Bear upon on Teacher Candidates
In discussing the impact of the edTPA on candidates, two of our teacher educators note that the introduction of the edTPA has caused different types of stress due to its potential for high stakes and its use in add-on to other assessments, and that the logistics of rolling out the edTPA can't be disregarded.
- High stakes: Laura writes, "The amount of emotional, physical, and fiscal stress teachers are under to complete the edTPA mirrors the stress many ELLs are under this spring--almost non-cease testing. Teachers in New York Urban center public schools report that their ELLs will accept received less than four days of instruction over the course of four weeks between April-May."
- Stress: Cindy shares, "It'due south important to note that Minnesota, while requiring the edTPA, hasn't gear up any criteria regarding information technology and neither has my university. The stakes may come, but at this point they practise non be. Teacher candidates are concerned; any large formal assessment is 'scary,' but there really aren't loftier stakes. Their scores on the Minnesota Teacher Licensure Evaluation cess are much more high stakes, equally that score is straight tied to their ability to get a teaching license."
- Logistics: Luciana notes some logistical challenges of filming lessons, including the permission forms that students whose classrooms are beingness videotaped demand to fill out. "Some permission forms are not readily available in most of the languages that our ELLs speak." Also, she says, "Some schools have inadequate spaces to provide the venue for video recording a pull-out or push-in TESOL group. Some schools deport TESOL instruction in hallways or in closets or in the corner of a classroom with other activities. This would greatly impact our candidates in terms of filming."
Final Thoughts
The three educators' perspectives reflect dissimilar realities of implementing the edTPA on the ground for ESL instructor candidates. While the implementation of the edTPA is certainly not occurring without fence, information technology does offering another manner to appraise teacher candidates in terms of their abilities to finer teach ELLs within a Common Cadre framework. Laura, Cindy, and Luciana take obviously worked hard at adapting the edTPA to fit their ain teacher candidates' needs so that they are best prepared to teach ELLs within the reality of their M-12 settings.
In endmost, I'll leave you with some great food for thought from Laura. She asks, "How can teachers experiment with, reverberate upon, and 'own' these new means of approaching their practise when doing then in such loftier-stakes environments? At the aforementioned fourth dimension, will these important changes occur without loftier pressure to exercise so?" Delight let us know what you think!
References
Freeman, Y. and Freeman, D. (2008). Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers: How to Assistance Students Succeed Across Content Areas.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Gottlieb, Yard. and Ernst-Slavit, Yard. (2012). Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts.Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Printing.
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Source: https://www.colorincolorado.org/blog/edtpa-perspectives-field-influence-ccss-and-impact-teachers-ells
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