Letter from Jack O'Connell re: Video Taping

At the TPA/Task Stream Faculty meeting held in Visalia on Friday, October 10th, it was suggested that we post the letter from Jack O'Connell, State Superintendent regarding the need to video tape our teacher candidates during the Culminating Teaching Experience Task lesson.

The letter, and suggested letters to be sent home from the principal of the participating school and the teacher candidate can be found at the indicated link at the bottom of the blog.

Assessor Training Information

Fresno Pacific University provides Initial Training to Calibrate and Recalibrate in reading the CalTPAs.

The purpose of the Initial Training to Calibrate is to train you to conduct a fair and equitable assessment of each teacher candidate’s performance using professional judgment in conjunction with standardized scoring protocol. In order to be hired as an assessor you must demonstrate that you can score a TPA accurately. This process is called calibration. By the end of the training you will know whether or not you have successfully “calibrated.”

Students will use a web-based submission process called Task Stream to submit their TPAs to the university. You will be asked to sign up for Task Stream and you will be assigned to student’s assessments through Task Stream. Access to a computer and the internet is a requirement to assess TPAs for Fresno Pacific. You will have two weeks to read your assessments from the date of the student’s submission.

Assessors are required to recalibrate yearly for each TPA they calibrated. This must be done prior to the first day of the fall window of submission. Assessors will be given the opportunity to come into the university to read their TPAs or may do so online. Assessors who wish to Recalibrate online will contact the TPA Coordinator for the log in and password to access the TPAs.

Training for new assessors is done as needed. This will usually be scheduled just prior to the opening of a submission window. If you have a question about training please contact Joanie Martin at joanie.martin@fresno.edu.

How to register for Task Stream

You can begin working on your TPA's sign up for a TPA, called Self-Enrollment, you must first create an account with Task Stream. You are asked to purchase at least a one year subcription for $42. If you anticipate being in the program longer than a year, it is your responsibility to extend your subcription as needed.