After watching my girlfriend struggle through the edTPA for the past few weeks, I was relieved when she finally submitted it. Here's her take on the beast.

edTPA is a word that might not mean anything to most people. But, if you’re an education major, especially one who is student teaching or close to student teaching, you know all too well what the edTPA is. I’m currently student teaching, and I just submitted my edTPA. This is what I’ve learned through this experience.

First, no one can really prepare you for the edTPA. The rubrics and handbooks have to be hidden until you are preparing to submit your edTPA. This means that no one can really prepare you for it, and you’ll have no idea what you need to do until you get access to the handbook. Even teacher preparation programs cannot really prepare you for what is to come. My department tried to do everything that they could to prepare us for it: They prepared a portfolio on Google sites for us to complete that resembles the edTPA. There were three classes where you needed to update your portfolio. One is at the beginning of your time in the education department, one is in the middle, and one occurs the semester before you student teach. We had to explain what we were doing in our placements each time we updated our portfolio, so we had a new page for each class. Then, we had to present it. While the writing on the webpages vaguely resembled what I now know as the edTPA, I still did not feel adequately prepared for the actual assessment. This is not my school’s fault, because even though they tried, I learned that there’s just no way to really prepare students for the edTPA.

One of the most difficult things about the edTPA is that student teachers have to complete everything towards the beginning of student teaching. I had a new placement for student teaching, so I had to get everything ready for the edTPA while I was still just getting to know the students. I was still learning which class would be best to videotape while I was in the process of teaching my lessons, and therefore videotaping. Speaking of videotaping, one thing that I learned is that no matter how early you give the students the video permission forms, there will always be one student who still has not turned theirs in. I still have students who have yet to turn them in, and I’ve already submitted.

There are two ways that you can approach the edTPA. Either you can wait until the last minute to complete all of the commentaries, or you can work on them steadily throughout the time between when you taught the lesson and when you submit. I approached it the second way, while a majority of the people I am student teaching with approached it the first way. I’ve learned that the second way is the best way. Even though it is difficult, completing the commentaries as you go takes a lot of pressure off of you that you’d normally have if you waited until the last minute to complete the commentaries. I was lucky, because my cooperating teacher wants me to do most of my planning way in advance; all of my April was planned towards the beginning of March. This meant that I had more time to complete the commentaries throughout the five weeks from when I taught the lesson to my submission date. While many of my student teaching colleagues were stressing the last week before submission, I was able to submit two days early, and I had less stress during my spring break. Therefore, while it may be difficult, it is way more beneficial to work on the commentaries a little bit at a time.

When I was trying to prepare for the edTPA, I had wished that there was someone to give me tips throughout the process. Now that I’ve submitted, I want to give some tips and reassurance to any education major out there who will be completing the edTPA soon. No one can prepare you for it, and it is really stressful to have to do something of this caliber towards the beginning of student teaching, but you can do it. Ask questions if you have them; your professor is there to help you, and they know what you need to do in order to be successful. Follow your professor’s deadlines on writing drafts, if they give you any. Make sure to read the entire handbook, and use the rubrics provided to make sure you included everything that you need to. Talk to your friends who are also student teaching and vent to them. They know what you are going through, and they may have a solution to any problems you have. The greatest feeling you will ever experience is finally having submitted, even if you’re like me and are extremely afraid that you will fail. When you’re done, celebrate! You really deserve a break from stress after you finish. And please, if you only take one thing from this, let this be it: Do not wait until the last minute to write all of your commentaries! Work on them at night, during any free time you have from planning and grading. You’ll thank me later, I promise.