CalTPA Guidelines for Acceptable Support
This document outlines policies and guidelines for supporting candidates during their completion of the CalTPA. These guidelines apply to all support providers including faculty, supervisors, cooperating teachers, master and/or mentor teachers, peers, and others who may provide assistance (e.g., tutors). Consistent with research on student learning, programs are encouraged to help candidates examine in meaningful ways the Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs) evaluated by the CalTPA, and to discuss how they will demonstrate their performance in relation to those expectations. Since the CalTPA is to be embedded within a preparation program, it is expected that candidates will engage in professional conversations with faculty and district or school support providers about teaching and learning associated with the outcomes assessed by the CalTPA. Faculty and support providers are encouraged to review with the candidate the language, structure, and progression of a candidate's submission against the CalTPA rubrics, and to provide formative feedback and guidance to the candidate as part of the preparation program experience.
The following activities constitute required forms of support for candidates completing the CalTPA:
- Providing candidates with access to the CalTPA assessment preparation materials and other explanatory materials about the CalTPA and expectations for candidate performance on the assessment
- Explaining CalTPA instructional cycles and rubrics, and guiding discussions about them (e.g., orientation or overview sessions for each cycle)
- Engaging candidates in formative experiences aligned with the CalTPA (e.g., assignments on the plan, teach and assess, reflect, and apply sequence; practice in informal assessment of student work or having students use educational technology)
- Ensuring that candidates complete the assessment within a cooperating school or district during their clinical experience and verify appropriate permissions for all individuals who appear in any video recording
- Engaging candidates in formative experiences aligned with the CalTPA (e.g., getting to know students, incorporating student self-assessment, reflecting on video-recorded instruction)
- Providing candidates who are not successful on the CalTPA with additional support focusing on understanding the cycle(s) and rubric(s) on which the candidate was not successful as well as on understanding what needs to be resubmitted for scoring and the process for resubmitting responses for scoring
The following activities constitute acceptable forms of support for candidates completing the CalTPA:
- Referring candidates to the CalTPA Glossary and discussing definitions and clarifications of key terms as used in the assessment materials
- Reviewing examples of effective teaching (e.g., lesson plans, classroom observations, feedback to students) using CalTPA rubrics or support documents
- Referring candidates to a writing workshop or center for assistance in improving writing for course assignments, as long as the assistance is not in the form of direct editing of candidate responses
- Recommending and/or providing specific assistance to address areas in which a candidate has demonstrated a need for improvement (e.g., reflective writing, professional writing about students, using knowledge of students to plan instruction, differentiating instruction)
- Explaining scoring rubrics by using them in formative exercises or assignments outside of the ones the candidate will submit for scoring
- Linking content and experiences from the preparation program to the TPEs as measured by the CalTPA cycles and rubrics
- Providing a schedule/timeline for completion of CalTPA
- Conducting "check-in" meetings to discuss timelines and deliverables, and to ascertain or address candidate questions
- Co-planning an instructional segment with a cooperating teacher or peer, while ensuring that the evidence submitted for the CalTPA represents the original work of the candidate(s)
- Providing access to translations of instructional materials for Single Subject submissions that include evidence in languages other than English
- Paraphrasing or answering candidate questions about the content of an instructional cycle, rubrics, directions (including templates), or support documents such as the CalTPA assessment materials
- Encouraging candidates to self-assess draft responses or video recordings against the CalTPA rubrics without providing direct edits to responses or specific answers to CalTPA prompts
- Answering common questions about the CalTPA in a group setting
- Facilitating candidate discussion groups that are intended to provide peer-to-peer support for completing the CalTPA while maintaining the original work of each candidate
- Directing candidates to resources on current research and evidence-based practices, and to experts in the field who are knowledgeable about the content of the cycles and rubrics
- Assisting candidates in understanding how to use the electronic platform for accessing materials and uploading submissions
- Arranging technical assistance for video-recorded portions of the CalTPA
- Providing and discussing support documents such as these guidelines for acceptable support and the CalTPA Rules of Participation
Although there may be many opportunities for support providers to encourage a candidate's deeper understanding and demonstration of pedagogy, other supports are not acceptable within the CalTPA process. These unacceptable forms of support will undermine the use of the assessment as a determinant of a candidate's status with respect to the TPEs and as an indicator of preparation program quality and effectiveness. Engaging in these activities could lead to a candidate's loss of the credential and jeopardize a program's accreditation status.
The following activities constitute unacceptable forms of support for candidates completing the CalTPA:
- Providing a candidate with the content or answer in response to a CalTPA prompt or task (e.g., selecting for a candidate the focus students, analyzing student work, determining next steps for instruction for a group of students)
- Editing a candidate's response prior to submission
- Conjecturing on CalTPA performance requirements, expectations, or what is deemed as sufficient evidence
- Using institutional terms and definitions as substitutes for those used in the CalTPA
- Offering critique of a candidate's draft responses prior to submission for official scoring that provides specific, alternative responses or answers to prompts
- Telling a candidate which video clips or work samples to select for submission
- Telling a candidate which sections of video clips should be annotated
- Describing scenarios or hypothetical examples, or using submissions from other performance assessments to approximate CalTPA performance standards or "benchmarks"
- Uploading a candidate's responses (written or video-recorded) to publicly available websites or through social media
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