Abstract
Following increasing criticism of the variability in graduate teachers’ readiness to enter the profession, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) introduced a program accreditation requirement that all initial teacher education (ITE) providers must implement a Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) in the final year of their teacher education programs. AITSL were not prescriptive in how ITE providers must meet the program standard which has resulted in 12 TPAs being implemented across 42 ITE providers. This paper outlines the development and implementation of one endorsed TPA designed to measure the readiness of graduating teachers, whilst taking into consideration the learnings from well-known TPAs and our own experiences. With this being one of the earlier unfunded TPAs in Australia to have been approved through the accreditation endorsement process, the paper offers some insights into meeting the additional accreditation program requirements and raises some longer-term considerations associated with implementing TPAs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-16 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Australian Journal of Teacher Education |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
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In: Australian Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 48, No. 1, 1, 2023, p. 1-16.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a Teaching Performance Assessment in Australia
T2 - What Did We Learn?
AU - Spooner-Lane, Rebecca
AU - Broadley, Tania
AU - Curtis, Elizabeth
AU - Grainger, Peter
N1 - Funding Information: AITSL is funded by the Australian Government, to lead the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to promote excellence in teaching and school leadership. Through the release of AITSL’s (2015) ITE Program Standards, the inclusion of Standard 1.2 required ITE providers to include an assessment of classroom teaching performance, across a sequence of lessons that reflects the range of teaching practice. With the release of the program standards, higher education providers of ITE began to discuss the impact of the requirement for a capstone assessment in terms of development and implementation. In May 2016, the teacher regulation authority Queensland College of Teachers (QCT) who accredit ITE programs in the state of Queensland, called together ITE providers for a presentation of a concept TPA developed by the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education at Australian Catholic University (ACU) and the QCT. Providers were then invited to engage in a pilot of TPA implementation with ACU. Given Queensland ITE providers were scheduled to be among the first providers in Australia to undertake accreditation according to the new program standards, which included providing a long-term plan to collect and show evidence of the quality required of graduates to be considered ‘ready’ for entry into the profession, it was critical that ITE providers had a clear plan for development and implementation of a TPA. Later that same year, in October 2016, AITSL developed a national grant process to offer financial support for groups of ITE providers to “stimulate the development of TPAs in line with Program Standard 1.2 that will be used across multiple ITE providers” (AITSL, 2017a). In 2016, the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) led an expression of interest for the tender which included five ITE providers across three states and territories. The application was one of six expressions of interest that were received for consideration, with only two out of six expressions of interest taken to further development and awarded funding in 2017. The successful consortia were led by the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education at ACU resulting in the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA) and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at Melbourne University resulting in the Assessment for Graduate Teaching (AfGT). With QUT moving into accreditation of three postgraduate programs in June 2017, the development work for the TPA continued. A small group of teacher educators formed a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to develop and implement the TPA assessment tool and assessment rubric. A community of practice recognises that learning is a social process situated in a cultural and historical context (Wenger, 1998). The members comprised a diverse set of teacher educators with teaching experience across the three preservice teacher degree programs (early child, primary and secondary education). The community of practice enabled the members to collaboratively design a TPA fit for purpose. Capitalising on individual strengths, members of the community undertook different tasks but came together to share and refine ideas, to discuss challenges and difficulties, and problem solve. In this article, the authors share their experience of contributing to the design and implementation of the Quality Teaching Performance Assessment (QTPA). At the time, there was a high level of uncertainty about the TPA in Australia (e.g., what the TPA should look like and how it should be assessed), which was evolving alongside the accreditation of ITE programs that were being assessed at the same time. In Queensland, the optimal intention was to accredit ITE providers through the use of one TPA (the newly funded consortium developing the GTPA), however, AITSL was clear at the national level that some individual providers would have the capability, capacity and resources to develop their own TPAs. A context statement from AITSL indicated, Throughout 2017, AITSL is funding two Consortia of ITE providers to develop, trial and/or validate TPA tools under the TPA Grant Program. All ITE providers are required to have a TPA in place for their 2018 graduate cohort. As such there will also be non-Consortia TPAs being developed, trialled and implemented. (AITSL, 2017b, p. 15) Darling-Hammond and Snyder (2000) argued that, If such [teacher performance] assessments are treated largely as add-ons at the end of a course or program rather than as integral components of ongoing curriculum and instruction, the time, labor, and expense of conducting them could be overwhelming within the institutional constraints of teacher education programs. (p. 527) It is plausible that the significant investment of resources required in the development and implementation of a TPA (including program redesign, assessment expertise, school partnership development, staff professional development and additional administrative resources and on-going assessor training) may have precluded some smaller ITE providers from developing their own TPA. Many providers, looking for certainty in the accreditation process, joined AITSL’s funded and already endorsed TPAs. The QTPA was the first TPA in 2019 to be endorsed by AITSL’s Expert Panel as an individual submission from an ITE provider in Australia. However, endorsement was only given on the understanding that further improvements to the TPA were planned and completed. These included: a) ensuring that training and moderation processes ensured reliable and consistent judgements between panels and different pre-service teacher programs over time; b) ensuring appropriate processes were put in place to periodically recalibrate TPA assessors’ ongoing consistency; c) a review of inter-rater reliability to determine whether the training had been effective and d) evidence of cross-institutional moderation for providers within a consortium with the expectation that users of the TPA submit a selection of TPA submissions for purposes of moderation and data analysis. Endorsement of the QTPA was achieved on the fourth submission for review by AITSL’s Expert Panel. However, it is important to note that there were some conflicting judgments and suggestions from review to review. This may be because members of the panel were not consistent from review to review and there was a lack of published guidelines at the time as to what was expected of ITE providers designing their own TPA. Fortunately, endorsement of the QTPA resulted in other ITE providers expressing interest to form a consortium. The QTPA is implemented across two Australian States (Queensland and Western Australia) and four individual ITE providers (QUT, University of Canberra, University of Southern Queensland and University of Sunshine Coast). The members are responsible for further refining the TPA tool and assessment rubric and engage in cross-institution moderation to ensure consistency in assessing preservice teachers at a Graduate Teacher Standard. Using a self-study method (Loughran, 2006), the authors reflect on some of the key decision-making points involved in the development and implementation of an accredited TPA. The decisions underpinning the development of the QTPA are primarily informed by learnings and shortcomings from the two most commonly researched TPAs in the United States. Adopting a reflexive approach enabled the authors to reflect on highlights and criticisms of the edTPA and PACT, in an attempt to further strengthen the QTPA process. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Social Science Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Following increasing criticism of the variability in graduate teachers’ readiness to enter the profession, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) introduced a program accreditation requirement that all initial teacher education (ITE) providers must implement a Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) in the final year of their teacher education programs. AITSL were not prescriptive in how ITE providers must meet the program standard which has resulted in 12 TPAs being implemented across 42 ITE providers. This paper outlines the development and implementation of one endorsed TPA designed to measure the readiness of graduating teachers, whilst taking into consideration the learnings from well-known TPAs and our own experiences. With this being one of the earlier unfunded TPAs in Australia to have been approved through the accreditation endorsement process, the paper offers some insights into meeting the additional accreditation program requirements and raises some longer-term considerations associated with implementing TPAs.
AB - Following increasing criticism of the variability in graduate teachers’ readiness to enter the profession, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) introduced a program accreditation requirement that all initial teacher education (ITE) providers must implement a Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) in the final year of their teacher education programs. AITSL were not prescriptive in how ITE providers must meet the program standard which has resulted in 12 TPAs being implemented across 42 ITE providers. This paper outlines the development and implementation of one endorsed TPA designed to measure the readiness of graduating teachers, whilst taking into consideration the learnings from well-known TPAs and our own experiences. With this being one of the earlier unfunded TPAs in Australia to have been approved through the accreditation endorsement process, the paper offers some insights into meeting the additional accreditation program requirements and raises some longer-term considerations associated with implementing TPAs.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85170833902&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.14221/1835-517X.5692
DO - 10.14221/1835-517X.5692
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85170833902
SN - 0313-5373
VL - 48
SP - 1
EP - 16
JO - Australian Journal of Teacher Education
JF - Australian Journal of Teacher Education
IS - 1
M1 - 1
ER -