1
The edTPA is a performance-based, subject-specific assessment portfolio required for initial teaching licensure in the following states where Relay has campuses: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Tennessee. It's designed to evaluate a novice teacher's readiness to teach — specifically, how well they can plan lessons, engage students, and analyze learning. This article explains what the edTPA is, how it's structured, and where to find the resources you need to get started.
In This Article
What the edTPA Measures
The edTPA assesses three interconnected areas: Planning, Instruction, and Assessment. Across these areas, you'll demonstrate that you can design lesson plans that address your students' strengths and needs, engage real students in meaningful learning, analyze whether your students are learning, and adjust your instruction to become more effective.
As part of your portfolio, you'll submit unedited video recordings of yourself teaching in a real classroom. Portfolios are scored by a national network of highly trained educators using subject-specific rubrics.
The edTPA Tasks
The edTPA is organized into three tasks, each representing a stage in the cycle of effective teaching. Task 1 documents your intended teaching, Task 2 documents your enacted teaching, and Task 3 documents the impact of that teaching on student learning. Each task is scored on five rubrics, with each rubric scored on a five-level scale.
Task 1 – Planning for Instruction and Assessment
You’ll describe and justify your plans for a learning segment — a sequence of 3–5 connected lessons built around a central focus for student learning. Your submission includes lesson plans and written commentary addressing your knowledge of your students, the academic language demands of your lessons, and how your assessments align to your learning objectives.
Task 2 – Instructing and Engaging Students in Learning
You’ll submit unedited video clips of yourself teaching your learning segment, along with written commentary explaining what the video demonstrates about your instruction. Your clips should capture meaningful interactions between you and your students that reflect your subject-specific teaching approach. Your learning segment can be taught in-person or synchronously in a virtual learning environment.
Task 3 – Assessing Student Learning
You’ll analyze student learning by examining whole-class performance on one assessment from your learning segment, selecting three individual student work samples for closer analysis, providing written feedback to those students, and proposing next instructional steps based on your findings.
Task 4 – Re-engagement Lesson (Elementary Education Only)
Note: Task 4 applies only to candidates using specific four-task Elementary Education handbooks (Literacy with Mathematics and Mathematics with Literacy.)
In this task, you design and teach a re-engagement lesson in response to what you learned about student learning in Task 3. Task 4 is scored on three rubrics rather than five.
If you're unsure whether your handbook includes Task 4, check with your advisor or Relay's edTPA coordinator.
Your edTPA Handbook
The edTPA is required for initial teaching licensure in the following states where Relay has campuses: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Tennessee.
There are 25 subject-specific edTPA Handbooks, each tailored to a specific content area and grade band. Your handbook outlines everything specific to your certification area — what artifacts to submit, what video evidence is needed, and how your portfolio will be scored. Read through the full handbook before you begin working on your edTPA.
You can access your handbook and templates in two ways:
- Through the Canvas Planning for edTPA and Curating the edTPA modules [LINK NEEDED]
- Through the Pearson ePortfolio system after registering for the assessment at edtpa.com
Who Developed the edTPA
The edTPA was developed by Stanford University faculty and staff at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE), with substantive input from teachers, teacher educators, and subject-matter experts. The assessment builds on more than 25 years of performance-based assessment development, including work from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Standards portfolio, and the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT).
The design and review teams have included hundreds of university faculty members, representatives from national subject-matter organizations such as NCTM, NCTE, and NSTA, and K–12 teachers. Stanford University is the exclusive author and owner of edTPA.
