edTPA is not an exam. It is a portfolio, and it is scored on your writing about your teaching
The lessons can go well and the portfolio still score badly, because what is assessed is the commentary: whether you can explain your decisions, connect them to your students, and cite the evidence in your own artifacts.
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The commentaries carry the assessment, and they are writing tasks
Across planning, instruction and assessment, the commentary prompts ask you to justify decisions and to point at specific evidence. Candidates describe what they did and score in the middle. Candidates who explain why, connect it to what they knew about their students, and cite a timestamp or a line in a work sample score higher on the same lesson.
The rubrics are published, and they describe what each level looks like. Reading the level you are aiming for before writing is the single most useful thing most candidates do not do. The language of the rubric tells you what the commentary has to demonstrate.
The other recurring problem is evidence that does not match the claim. A commentary asserting you adjusted for a struggling learner needs a moment in the video or the work sample where that adjustment is visible. Assertions without evidence are where the middle scores come from.
- Commentary prompts answered fully, part by part
- Decisions justified rather than described
- Every claim tied to specific evidence in your own artifacts
- Written against the published rubric level you are aiming for
What we work on
Your own portfolio, your own handbook
- Reading the rubrics and what each level actually requires
- Structuring commentaries so each prompt is answered
- Selecting video clips and work samples that evidence the claims
- Writing about students without identifying them
- Academic language and the assessment of student learning task
This one has a hard line, and it matters
- We do not write any part of your commentaries.
- We do not select or edit your video evidence.
- We do not plan your lessons or design your assessments.
- We do not supply sample portfolios or commentaries.
- We teach the writing, read what you wrote, and tell you what the rubric will not credit.
edTPA requires you to attest that the work is yours. Submitting material written by anyone else is a serious matter that can affect certification, not just a grade, and some states treat it as a licensure issue. Check your program's rules on outside support before using any service, including ours. Read the full policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on your program and state, and the boundary is usually between feedback on your own draft and anyone producing content. Programs commonly permit support that does not involve writing or editing your commentaries. Check your handbook and your program's policy, and tell us what it says so we work inside it.
Because the rubrics score the commentary rather than the lesson. If the writing describes what happened without justifying the decisions or citing evidence, the score reflects the writing. This is the single most common cause of a surprising result.
Specifically and with a pointer. Not students were engaged, but at 4 minutes 12 seconds two students who had not contributed earlier began explaining the strategy to each other, which shows the scaffold working. The timestamp is what turns an assertion into evidence.
No. Video evidence contains identifiable students and is governed by the consents your program obtained, so it should not be shared outside it. We work with your written commentaries and with what you tell us the video shows.
Portfolios can usually be resubmitted in whole or in part depending on the state and the tasks involved. Read the score report against the rubrics to find which specific rubric rows fell short, because a resubmission that improves the wrong thing is a wasted cycle.
Your handbook sets page limits and they are enforced. Working to the limit matters, because the commentaries have to answer every part of every prompt, and candidates who spend the allowance on description run out of room for justification.
Send the commentary drafts and your handbook
We will read them against the rubrics and tell you which claims are unevidenced and which prompts are only partly answered.
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