Next Generation Science Standards and edTPA: Evidence of Science and Engineering Practices

Abstract

Science teacher educators in the United States are currently preparing future science teachers to effectively implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and, in thirteen states, to successfully pass a content-specific high stakes teacher performance assessment, the edTPA. Science education and teacher performance experts have developed a crosswalk designed to highlight specific tasks within the secondary science edTPA; in these tasks preservice science teachers are prompted to plan, teach, and assess their students as they engage in learning science explicitly aligned with the NGSS (author). The researchers in this study used qualitative methods to analyze archived actual preservice science teacher edTPA portfolio artifacts to test the efficacy of this crosswalk. Evidence of student engagement in the NGSS scientific practices was found, comfirming some components, and modifications of the NGSS and edTPA Crosswalk are suggested based on the results.