Cultural sensemaking and the implementation of edTPA technological tools: lessons for the field
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Cultural sensemaking and the implementation of edTPA technological tools: lessons for the field Craig De Voto1 · Michael K. Thomas2
© Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2020
Abstract Since 2009, one-third of all US teacher preparation programs have implemented a new, technology-based teacher assessment—edTPA. Intended to replace traditional measures of initial teaching competency, edTPA utilizes a candidate-curated video lesson and ePortfolio. While research shows that these technology-based tools enhance professional practice, the authors demonstrated that unintended consequences occurred when such tools were incompatible with the cultural contexts implementing them. Employing a multiple-embedded case study, qualitative interviews, focus groups, and field observations (N = 75) were conducted across eight teacher preparation programs. Findings indicate that policy design and organizational factors influenced how programs culturally made sense of and implemented edTPA’s videotaping and ePortfolio tasks for teacher candidates—substantively or instrumentally. In the process, the authors developed a theoretical and practical understanding of how, and under what conditions, large-scale, technology-based policy tools may be implemented successfully across education contexts. Keywords edTPA · Teacher education · Technology · ePortfolios · High-stakes assessment
Introduction In the past decade, three-quarters of states and one-third of all teacher preparation programs (TPPs) have adopted a new, technology-based assessment—the Teacher Performance Assessment, colloquially known as edTPA (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education 2019). Developed by Stanford University, edTPA was designed to address frequent criticisms of poor teacher preparation nationwide (Whittaker et al. 2018). Specifically, edTPA measures a “candidate’s readiness to successfully begin his or her career as a teacher” (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity 2015, p. 46) using a candidate-curated video lesson and ePortfolio. Over 170,000 teacher candidates * Craig De Voto [email protected] Michael K. Thomas [email protected] 1
University of Illinois at Chicago, 1240 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607, USA
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University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607, USA
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C. De Voto, M. K. Thomas
have used edTPA as part of a state teacher-licensure or degree-completion requirement. In the process, edTPA has become the most influential technology-based policy tool implemented in contemporary American teacher education (De Voto 2019). While research shows that video lessons and ePortfolio tools enhance candidates’ reflection on their professional practice (Gibbons and Farley 2019; Jaeger 2013; Kang and van Es 2018; Kleinknecht and Gröschner 2016; Lomask et al. 2018), edTPA’s reliance on such tools is producing unintended implementation problems. One emergent difficulty has been that the technical requirements for candidates producing such video recordings actually
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