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Equipping new teachers in today's society is a noble and challenging task. Of late, many additional licensing standards for teachers create additional responsibilities for universities that provide pedagogy, knowledge, and content for teacher candidates. Identification of best practices that support teacher candidates on the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) is of interest to many teacher education programs. The purpose of this research was to analyze whether incorporating a "mock edTPA" had beneficial results on the passage of the edTPA. This study spanned fourteen ten-week quarters and included 688 teacher candidates who were preparing to become certificated teachers at a university in Washington State. The questions that were posited were: (1) does a capstone class requiring a mock edTPA benefit students; and (2) which edTPA rubrics are the most challenging, and why are they challenging? This research study found that adding a mock edTPA prior to the student teaching experience did not produce a statistically significant difference in scores when compared to the group who received an embedded curriculum. When comparing the two different time periods, the passing rate was not significantly different and there was little difference in the mean scores of both groups.

Observing university students’ attentiveness to direct instruction frequently finds students multi-tasking. The World Wide Web has made it possible to be in other parts of the campus, city, or even world with a click of the button. Electronic devices offer Facebook, Tweets, E-mails, Minecraft, or a free cyber connection to the latest and upcoming online blog. Activities as such may be more alluring than the professor standing at the podium. This research study is twofold involving 38 students who attended a required class with a focus on assessment in early childhood education. Two separate populations were analyzed, both attending a winter 7:30 a.m. class (2018, 2019). Research questions were: (1) will providing students with note taking guides and assigning points for the completion of those guides increase student learning through the documentation of the final class grade? (2) Will providing students with note taking guides and assigning points to the completion of those guides improve attendance? From this research, it is evident that a positive increase in final grades occurs when guided notes are supplied, required, and inspected. There was no significance in higher attendance percentages, although the mean between the two classes showed a slight increase in attendance of the dependent group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]