Oh No.... It's edTPA!

For Science Methods, we had to complete Tasks 1,2, and 3 of edTPA.  As I have gone through the education program, the word edTPA makes everyone scared.  When I saw I had to do this I was kind of nervous.  I had never had exposure to these tasks before and I was not sure what to expect.  I hear that it is time consuming and sort of difficult to complete. 

For these tasks, we completed commentaries and other parts that related to the lessons we taught during fieldwork.  It related to the lesson directly and the students' performance during the lessons.  These tasks were definitely time consuming; however, it was good to be exposed to it.  Now, not only do I have an idea of what to expect next semester in Social Studies Methods but I am prepared for when I have to actually do the edTPA during student teaching. 

As for the tasks, they included a lot of different parts about the lessons we taught during fieldwork.  Task 1 has 5 parts to it (A-E).  This task what about the planning of what was going to be taught.  It asked to provide the demographics of the class and school that the lesson is being taught at, the lesson plans written that are going to be taught, all of the materials for the lessons, and the evaluations that are going to be used during the lesson.  Lessons are all about planning and preparation; it is the only way a lesson will be effective in the classroom.  We want our students to get the best learning experience in the classroom possible, and that happens by planning it.

Task 2 required a video of us teaching the class.  This was great to see and reflect upon because it allows you to see exactly what you do when you teach a whole class.  The next part of task 2 was reflection on that video and the instructional choices that were made.  Lesson plans are not always perfect and there will be something that will not go according to plan.  This task allows you to reflect on what parts of the lesson worked with the students and what parts of the lesson did not work with the students. As teachers, we always need to be improving our lessons so that our students get the most out of them.  We need to be differentiating lessons so that they were for the students in our class; no student is the same.

The final task that we completed was task 3.  Task 3 focused on student work from the lessons we taught them.  We were able to see where students struggled during the independent practice and what could be done to change that.  It also gave us the opportunity to provide feedback to the students by complimenting them and providing constructive feedback.

Each of these tasks help for the teacher to see and reflect upon what can be done differently during lessons to ensure that all students succeed.