significantly increases teacher quality. Wilson et al. ( 2014 ) corroborate those
findings in their study of a Connecticut state portfolio assessment that resembles the
edTPA; that is, TPAs can more powerfully predict teachers’contributions to student
achievement and more accurately identify the characteristics of effective teaching
than exclusively written alternatives.
Yet our chapter’s central dilemmas remain, despite these studies. First, they do
not address the problem of representing the complex dimensions of teaching in
measures of quality, as Fenstermacher and Richardson ( 2005 ), Berliner ( 2005 ), and
Zeichner ( 2012 ) do. And second, they do not explore how policy contexts in which
TPAs are positioned as high-stakes tests might impact candidates’interpretations of
quality and representations of practice via those assessments. Wei and Pecheone
( 2010 ) suggest that it may not be possible to disentangle the design principles and
conceivable consequences of TPAs from the policy contexts in which they are
situated—a position with which we agree. This means that the edTPA, as a policy
tool for gatekeeping entry into the teaching profession, could impart a limited or
potentially confounding definition of high-quality teaching and steer how teachers
(and teacher educators) decide what dimensions of practice to prioritize or suppress.
In what follows, we draw from our study of candidates’experiences with edTPA
implementation in New York and Washington States to discuss the tensions
associated with representing teaching practice in the assessment. In short, we
interviewed over 50 candidates seeking licensure in grade levels and subject areas
across the K-12 spectrum about their knowledge of the edTPA and its place in their
teacher education programs, their processes of completing it, and their viewpoints
about its fairness, credibility, and consequences for teaching and teacher education.
The tensions we identify in the next section center on two key questions: (1) how do
candidates conceptualize, construct, and attempt to fully portray teaching within the
context of the edTPA; and (2) how do the externality and ambiguity of the eval-
uation process impact candidates’choices about what elements of teaching should
be discussed and demonstrated and what dimensions should be concealed or
omitted?
40.3 Tensions Associated with Representing Teaching
in the edTPA
40.3.1 Conceptualizing, Constructing, and Fully Portraying
Teaching Quality
While most participants in our study perceived the edTPA to credibly identify and
measure important professional competencies, some described tensions that mirror
Berliner’s( 2005 ) and Zeichner’s( 2012 ) aforementioned concerns: respectively,
(1) to what extent can a set of discrete tasks or exercises demonstrate the construct
of teaching; and (2) what are the consequences for representing teaching
40 Representing Teaching Within High-Stakes Teacher... 601