CalTPAs

1️⃣ CalTPAs: The Basics

The CalTPA is organized into two comprehensive instructional cycles that guide you through the essential stages of effective teaching: Plan, Teach and Assess, Reflect, and Apply. Completed entirely within your school placement, these cycles allow you to demonstrate your skills in a real-world, subject-specific classroom setting. Throughout each cycle, you will provide various forms of evidence—such as video clips of your instruction paired with written or verbal commentary—to show how you connect your planning to actual student learning. By following this sequence, you’ll showcase your ability to design meaningful lessons, evaluate student progress, and use those reflections to grow as an educator. The CalTPA is managed by Pearson’s Evaluation Systems Group. To register for or submit your assessment cycles, visit the California Educator Credentialing Assessments website. This site also provides essential details on submission deadlines and reporting schedules.

2️⃣ The Two Instructional Cycles 

The assessment is divided into two distinct cycles. While they share a similar workflow, their focus shifts from the individual learner to the assessment of the whole class.

➗ Cycle 1 - Math

In Cycle 1, the primary goal is to design and deliver a standards-based math lesson tailored to the unique strengths and interests of your students. You will focus on the class as a whole while paying close attention to three specific "focus students" to ensure your teaching meets diverse learning needs.

Cycle 1 focuses on the design and delivery of a single, engaging math lesson tailored to the diverse assets, interests, and abilities of a whole class and three specific focus students. (An English Learner, a student with an IEP, 504 plan or identified disability, and a student who faces a different challenge (trauma, foster youth, housing instability or social-emotional needs). 

• Planning & Objectives: Candidates select a state standard to develop a lesson with one primary learning goal and one academic language goal. The focus is on defining clear expectations for what students will know and be able to do.

• Instructional Design: Candidates create content-specific activities and strategies designed to build a deep, thorough understanding of the mathematical concepts.

• Monitoring & Support: During the lesson, candidates must actively assess student understanding and make real-time adaptations to meet individual learning needs.

• Environment & Execution: Through a video-recorded lesson, candidates demonstrate their ability to maintain a safe, positive learning environment, provide social-emotional support, and utilize materials that enhance the specific content.

In short: Cycle 1 is about showing you can plan a rigorous lesson, adapt it for specific learners, and maintain a supportive classroom culture while doing so. The cycle concludes with reflection and forward planning. You will use the findings from your assessments to justify how you would approach future instruction for these students. 

📖 Cycle 2 - Literacy 

Where Cycle 1 was a "snapshot" of a single lesson, Cycle 2 is about the "big picture"—demonstrating your ability to manage a multi-lesson series (3–5 lessons). This cycle shifts the focus toward the continuous loop of teaching, testing, and adjusting based on data.

Cycle 2 focuses on the design and delivery of a series of 3–5 engaging literacy lessons tailored to the diverse assets, interests, and abilities of a whole class and one specific focus student.

• Planning & Objectives: Candidates use assessment data to design a lesson series that integrates state standards with academic goals and English Language Development (ELD) objectives.

• Instructional Design: Candidates emphasize the interaction between standards and instruction, using a series of lessons to move students toward mastery of literacy content.

• Monitoring & Support: Assessment is treated as an ongoing process. Candidates gather evidence from multiple sources to determine student progress and use those findings to inform instructional decisions.

• Environment & Execution: Throughout the series, candidates analyze student work and provide formal feedback based on formative and summative results, using these insights to plan future instruction.

4️⃣ The Four-Step Process (Plan, Teach and Asses, Reflect and Apply) 

Every cycle follows the same "Inquiry Cycle" logic. To pass, you must show growth and connection between these four stages:

1. Plan: How do your students' backgrounds (assets and needs) influence your lesson design?

2. Teach & Engage: How do you maintain a positive learning environment and engage students in higher-order thinking?

3. Assess: How do you know they learned it? How do they know they learned it?

4. Reflect: If you taught this again, what would you change based on the evidence of student learning?

❗Top Tips

• Content Specificity is Key: Don't just teach "facts." Show students doing the material.

• Asset-Based Language: Avoid describing students by what they "can't" do. Instead of "John is a struggling reader," try "John is a social learner who benefits from audio supports and peer discussion."

• The "Golden Thread": Your written commentary must match your video. If you claim you used "Checking for Understanding" every 10 minutes, the scorers need to see it in the clips!

• Know Your Rubrics: The CalTPA is scored on a scale of 1 to 5. A "3" is a passing score. Always look at the "Level 3" and "Level 4" descriptors in the official handbook before you start writing.

✅ Essential Resources 

• CTC Official Portal: For the most up-to-date handbooks and templates.

• CTC's CalTPA FAQ

• Preliminary Multiple Subject and Single Subject Credential Program Standards and Teaching Performance Expectations 

• California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP) 

• Where to access the current CalTPA assessment materials.