TPA Format and EdTPA

In my overall career as a student who will someday be a teacher, I have only written and taught one lesson plan. The first time I saw the template I remember feeling pretty intimidated, but I was in a group with three other students who were familiar with the format and walked me through the process. After having one relatively successful experience definitely lessens my stress about writing and/or teaching lessons; however, I know there is a lot of room for improvement and that the edTPA is much more than a lesson plan.

In the lesson plan that I wrote last quarter, the only reference that I cited was one of my textbooks and there wasn't much thought on an overall teaching philosophy. I had ideas about how I wanted to do things, but I know that I didn't include as much detail as I should have and that detail should have included more than a mention of a textbook. Learning and implementing theories/theorists is something I need to get better at and more comfortable with. I want to be able to tell students why we're doing what we're doing in class and to have explanations for activities, assignments and readings, which starts with the lesson planning process.

The edTPA process scares me a little, mostly from observing the stress that I see in classmates who will be submitting theirs in the next few months, although I understand the purpose of the process.  It makes sense to have our teaching capability measured by our proficiency in lesson planning and enacting that lesson in class. I'll feel a lot better about the edTPA process once I start getting some classroom experience and can see how I need to improve or tailor my lesson plans to my classes.

We've talked a lot about differentiation in class, but that's not something I've had to actually do in a classroom setting. The hypothetical differentiation of a lesson plan to be inclusive to everyone in your class may be different than the actual needs of a class.  I keep hearing that every class is different and moves at a different pace and will have a different personality, which to me, means that I'll have to learn to differentiate my plans as the school year progresses. Time management or the amount of content to include in one class session is hard for me to get a good handle on for the same reason. Luckily, I'll get plenty of classroom time in over the course of the next year or so before I even need to stress about the edTPA to be thoughtfully preparing for my assessment.