PRINCETON, New Jersey, Sept. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Teacher candidates required to submit a teacher performance assessment can now use the Praxis® Performance Assessment for Teachers (PPAT) to effectively demonstrate what they know and are able to do in a classroom.
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This portfolio-based performance assessment — developed in collaboration with 26 teachers and teacher educators from 16 U.S. states and territories — is designed both to inform a teacher candidate’s student-teaching, and to measure the candidate’s success in planning instruction, implementing it, analyzing the results and reflecting upon the whole experience in a way that promotes continuous improvement and professional growth. PPAT is predicated upon the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) model core teaching standards and indicators.
“The PPAT will help educator preparation programs ensure that their teacher candidates can positively affect student learning in the classroom,” said Diane Bailey, Vice President of ETS’s Teacher Licensure & Certification Programs. “Delaware and Hawaii have already signed on to use PPAT to help them place effective teachers in their schools.”
The assessment contains four tasks (Task 1 is formative while Tasks 2, 3 and 4 are summative) designed to allow candidates to demonstrate real-world teaching skills. These include:
Task 1: Knowledge of Students and the Learning Environment
Task 2: Assessment and Data Collection to Measure and Inform Student Learning
Task 3: Designing Instruction for Student Learning
Task 4: Implementing and Analyzing Instruction to Promote Student Learning
In order to ensure that the scoring process is fair and reliable, the PPAT will use multiple raters for each candidate. Each of the three summative tasks will be evaluated by two independent raters, and no rater will evaluate more than a single task submitted by a given candidate. In other words, each candidate’s assessment will be evaluated by six different raters. All raters will be trained and certified on a given task before being allowed to score submissions for that task. ETS will also carefully monitor the raters as they score to ensure that they apply the rubrics accurately and consistently throughout the rating process.
For more information about the registration process, including submission dates, deadlines and fees, please visit http://www.ets.org/ppa/test-takers/teachers/about.
About ETS
At ETS, we help advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC ® tests, the GRE ® tests and The Praxis Series ® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org
