Teacher Education
Did you know you can boost a teacher candidate’s edTPA task 3 score by using a video assessment tool?
Most teacher prep professionals already use video to prep candidates for task 2, but research shows that video assessment can improve your candidate’s score for edTPA task 3.
The data doesn’t lie.
Early on, Dr. Kirsten Koetje at Seattle Pacific University (SPU) gravitated to active learning strategies like video analysis. Tasked with overseas observations of international students, Dr. Koteje found from personal experience that video analysis was “a really positive strategy for developing teachers.”
She wanted some qualitative evidence to back up what she was seeing. Her question was simple: “Does video analysis help teachers and how could we measure that?” To measure it, she ended up going with edTPA scores because she resides in an edTPA state.
While there were a few surprises in her research, her hypothesis that video analysis positively impacted teacher candidates proved correct. Specifically, in Dr. Koetje’s published findings, she discovered a positive correlation between the number of video analyses a candidate conducts and their edTPA task 3 scores.
Wait, edTPA task 3? Yes, that’s not a typo. The results initially surprised Dr. Koetje as well. She, like so many other programs, assumed video assessment would increase edTPA task 2 scores.
Similarly, Austin Peay State University (APSU) initially focused on using video assessment software to prepare their students for edTPA task 2. As Dr. Cheryl Lambert simply put it, “GoReact helps students practice uploading video and viewing feedback, which is a big part of edTPA.”
Yet about a year after using GoReact, Austin Peay State University, like Dr. Koetje, recognized the untapped potential of using a video assessment tool like GoReact for edTPA task 3.
In an interview about a year ago, Dr. Benita Bruster remarked how videos aren’t just for task 2: candidates can submit snippets of feedback videos for edTPA task 3. Beyond just practicing recording and uploading videos, Dr. Bruster saw GoReact as a way to “raise our edTPA scores and to help our student teachers to be able to give more direct, explicit feedback to students that they’re teaching.”
But why is the strongest correlation with edPTA task 3?
Is it truly surprising that using a video software focused on assessment would help candidates raise scores for an edTPA task centered on assessment?
Video assessment uses state-of-the-art features to enhance feedback and analysis, and deepen reflective practice.
Take a look at GoReact, a video assessment software. It offers features like multimodal and time-coded feedback, and customized rubrics and markers.
Now consider the tasks a candidate must complete giving a fair and effective assessment:
If you put the two together? It’s spot on. For example, creating customized markers in a GoReact video for candidates to use helps them practice identifying the exact moment when a skill is performed with customized markers.
By including a custom rubric, teacher candidates take the next step of analyzing how well that identified skill is performed by comparing it to a set, universal standard of a rubric.
So there you have it: simply using a video assessment software with customized markers and rubrics walks students through the steps of assessing and analyzing someone’s work.
And customized markers and rubrics are just two of the many feedback and reflective enhancing tools GoReact offers. Just think of the possibilities in helping your students hone their assessment skills for edTPA task 3.
Now that you know you can use video assessment to raise your candidates’ edTPA task 3 scores, here are some best practices to get the best results. We’re listing three—to go with the three themes that arose from Dr. Koetje’s research and APSU’s experiences.
Notice that we’re specifically discussing “video assessment” software—not just any old video. Think of it this way: while asking students to watch and reflect on YouTube teaching videos can help develop analytical skills, those skills are infinitely sharper when using assessment-focused features.
According to Dr. Koetje’s findings, the strongest correlation in the data set was between the total videos a candidate critiqued. She points out that the total number wasn’t just self-evaluation, it included evaluating others as well. So to get the most out of it, have your candidates assess themselves, peers, and have them do it a lot.
As soon as Dr. Bruster realized the potential for edTPA task 3, as the chair of her department at that time, she met with the faculty teaching an assessment course to brainstorm ways to use GoReact to hone assessment skills. This is an excellent step to take in your own program. Identify when assessment is taught in your curriculum, and work with faculty to build a strategy to utilize video assessment to cultivate that skill.
The takeaway from all of this is that there are lots of benefits to using video assessment for edTPA. If your program already uses video assessment software for task 2, this article hopefully helps you realize the new ways that you can incorporate video assessment to boost edTPA task 3.
If you don’t use video assessment software at all, what are you waiting for? Video assessment is a simple and affordable tool that better prepares your candidates for task 2 AND boosts edTPA task 3 scores.
For more edTPA tips, read “How to Do edTPA the Easy Way, Not the Hard Way.”
