What did you learn about teaching, your students, and yourself?

This Sunday is graduation day at Hofstra University. Graduation days are times to celebrate and think about the things you have learned. In this post I share thoughts about teaching from graduates completing the teacher education program.

New York State student teachers are saddled with a series of questionable tests that they must pass in order to become certified. Probably the most difficult is the edTPA, a sixty page commentary that includes video segments that is submitted electronically to Pearson (Mis)Education for evaluation, but no feedback for improvement. The project is so complex and stressful that it essentially swallows up the entire student teaching experience, interfering with the ability of prospective teachers to really learn how to teach.

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