edTPA common mistakes
edTPA · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing the Planning Commentary as a lesson narrative - describing what the class will do ("First students will sort the cards, then we will discuss") - rather than explaining the reasoning behind the design choices.
Candidates are used to writing lesson plans, which are descriptive by nature, and they answer the prompt sentence as if it were a 'what happens' question. The prompts actually ask how and why particular choices support particular students.
What to do instead
Rework each commentary prompt into a claim–evidence–rationale sentence: state the decision, cite the specific part of the plan or the specific student it serves, then attach a 'because' clause naming the learning principle. If a paragraph could be swapped into another candidate's submission unchanged, it is too generic - add a detail only true of this class.
Stating the central focus as a topic or activity ("the water cycle," "a close reading lesson") instead of a learning goal that names the concept, the skill, and the strategy students will develop.
Curriculum documents and cooperating teachers often speak in topics and activities, so candidates inherit that framing and never convert it into a learning target.
What to do instead
Write one sentence: 'Students will [skill] by using [strategy] to understand [concept].' Then audit every objective, task, and assessment item against that sentence; anything that does not build toward it is either cut or relabeled.
Treating academic language as a vocabulary list - naming five key terms and stopping there - with no language function, syntax, or discourse identified and no planned support for any of them.
Vocabulary is the most visible language demand and the easiest to list, so candidates stop at the surface and never analyse how students must use language in the discipline.
What to do instead
For the central focus, name all four: the language function (e.g., explain, argue, compare), the content-specific vocabulary, the syntax (the sentence or text structure students must produce), and the discourse (how talk or writing is organised in this subject). Then state one concrete scaffold for each, and carry at least one of those scaffolds into Task 2 evidence.
Selecting the three focus students loosely - three 'average' or struggling students with no IEP/504 student, no English learner, or profiles that copy eligibility language rather than describing observed learning behaviour.
Candidates pick students who are easy to write about or who had a good lesson, and they lean on official documentation because it feels authoritative.
What to do instead
Choose from the Context for Learning tables: one student with an IEP or 504 plan, one English learner, and one student with another identified learning need. For each, write two or three sentences of specific, observed evidence (what they did in a prior lesson, what they can and cannot yet do) that predicts how they will respond to this plan.
Submitting video clips that show only teacher talk, directions, transitions, or silent worksheet time - no segment where students interact with each other or with the teacher about the central focus.
Candidates record a lesson and then search for footage afterwards rather than planning a recordable segment, and the camera often captures the teacher because that is where the microphone is.
What to do instead
Plan a 5–8 minute discussion or small-group segment in advance, place the camera to capture student faces and voices (with permission), and record more than one lesson. Before submitting, screen each clip against a checklist: is the central focus visible, is there teacher–student interaction about content, and is there student–student interaction?
Retelling the video in the Instruction Commentary ("the students discussed the problem and then I explained the answer") with no timestamps and no analysis of why the teaching move worked or failed.
Because the candidate already knows what happened, description feels like sufficient evidence, and finding timestamps is time-consuming.
What to do instead
For each prompt, use the pattern: at [timestamp], I [specific move]; student(s) [specific response]; this shows [claim about learning]; this worked/did not work because [principle]. Two or three timestamped moments per prompt beat a page of summary.
Showing no evidence of eliciting and responding to student thinking - questions are closed, only correct answers are taken up, and a wrong answer is corrected by the teacher rather than used to probe reasoning.
Pacing pressure makes candidates rush to the right answer, and they may not recognise a missed misconception while teaching.
What to do instead
Pre-plan three or four open questions and a written plan for how you will respond to an anticipated wrong answer (probe, revoice, ask a peer to compare). Deliberately choose that segment for the clip, and in the commentary analyse one moment where you responded to student thinking rather than evaluated it.
Giving the three focus students vague feedback ("Good job," a smiley face, or a score with no comment) and providing no record of how the student acted on it.
Feedback in the moment often is verbal and unrecorded, and candidates are reluctant to create extra paperwork during the lesson.
What to do instead
Use a short written feedback form for each focus student with three parts: a specific strength, one specific improvement tied to the success criteria, and a next step. Record the student's response to the feedback (a revision, a retry, a verbal comment) so the commentary can show the feedback was used, not just delivered.
Analysing only the focus students' work, or presenting a list of scores, without a whole-class pattern and a defensible claim about what the class did and did not learn.
Focus students are the required element, so candidates assume that is the whole analysis, and a score list looks like data without requiring interpretation.
What to do instead
Build an item-level table for the whole class (or a representative sample), state the pattern with numbers (e.g., how many students met each success criterion), then interpret it: what does this show about the central focus, and which part of instruction explains it? Use the focus students as a contrast case within that pattern.
Ending the Assessment Commentary with generic next steps ("I will reteach and differentiate") that are not derived from the analysis and do not name who gets what.
Next steps are written last, under time pressure, and candidates default to formulaic phrasing they have seen in templates.
What to do instead
Write next steps as three named actions tied directly to the identified pattern: one whole-class instructional change, one specific scaffold for each focus student, and one extension for students who already met the criterion. Each must reference the evidence that prompted it.