tpa pt. 1

TPA
[tee pee aye] noun
(Teacher Performance Assessment)
1.A series of lesson plans, video recordings, reflections and student work samples that will indicate whether or not one is fit to become a teacher.
2. A factor that may be taken into account to determine whether or not one will graduate.
3.The most dreaded part of student teaching.

"Sorry I haven't seen you for the past 3 months, I was working on the TPA."



Okay, I'm exaggerating. I have heard numerous TPA horror stories, but in reality, it has not been that bad so far. Early Childhood majors have a tendency to freak out unnecessarily, myself included. There was some initial stress in regards to not knowing if I could complete it by the deadline but I decided that rather than asking for an extension I am going to do my best to create some awesome lessons with the resources and knowledge that I have and hope for the best. The TPA is intended to focus on a series of language arts lessons, but since I have only had one week of experience in this classroom I did not yet feel comfortable taking over language arts. So I got creative and developed a series of lessons about the social studies topic this week that tied in a specific language arts content standard.

Enough of the teachery jargon. The lesson was very simplistic, but I believe it served its' purpose well. I read the story... 

If you have never read it before, please do. It's a lovely little story. Throughout the book I asked questions about Officer Buckle and Gloria's friendship as well as how the illustrations related to the words in the story.

the not so good

• The classroom dynamic is much different in Brazil than in the US, which may not be properly understood by the people grading the TPA
• I put post its in the book to remind me of questions I wanted to ask students, and one of the most important ones fell out! Luckily I remembered what I needed to.
• At one point, a student got up and touched the camera that I had set up in the back of the room. Yikes...

the good

• The students were engaged, laughed at all the funny parts and asked lots of questions.
• Overall, the students were well-behaved and did not get out of hand at any time.
• My cooperating teacher said she thought it went really well :)

Unrelated to the TPA, I feel a lot more comfortable in the classroom this week. My teacher and I are getting along fabulously and I really feel at home in this school.