The edTPA as an Occasion for Structuring Faculty Dialogue Across the Divide? A “Checklist Manifesto” for a More Inclusive Teacher Education

Abstract

Collaboration across teacher education in the service of a more inclusive preservice pedagogy is now taking place within a context of high intensity accountability that includes the widespread adoption of the edTPA. This analysis explores how teacher educators in special and general education might advance the preparation of preservice students for inclusive teaching when faculty are obliged to use the edTPA to measure candidate learning. Drawing on Atul Gawande’s (2009) work in the field of medicine related to the value of using checklists to improve outcomes among experts in practical settings, the author proposes the Teacher Education for Inclusion Checklist. This tool is designed to help overcome the underappreciated power of the historical divide between general and special education, which often serves as a default position for how teacher educators work together, and to provide guidance for how faculty might engage in dialogue across the assessments mandated by the edTPA.