Missing the mark: Indigenous teacher candidates and edTPA

The teacher education department at the small private liberal arts college where I am an assistant professor was notified in 2014 that graduating teacher candidates of that same year had to meet edTPA certification requirements. Needless to say, the department immediately prioritized preparing teacher candidates for edTPA. Preparation efforts were multi-faceted and accelerated to meet rapidly approaching deadlines. First, the department devoted the bulk of its time and effort to preparing candidates for edTPA. Concomitantly, cooperating teachers and student teaching supervisors were advised on ways to support the candidates. It was my responsibility to revise and reorganize our teacher education courses and student-teaching seminars to align them with edTPA requirements, leaving scant time to assess systematically and holistically the complex nature of edTPA. Once I started applying edTPA standards in the classroom, I had concerns similar to those enumerated in previous chapters of this book. However, edTPA-mandated deadlines prevented me from subjecting those concerns to thoughtful consideration.