All University of Iowa student teachers who are completing preparation for initial licensure as teachers are required to complete edTPA, a performance-based assessment, as one of the requirements for completion of the Teacher Education Program.

What is edTPA?

  • edTPA is a pre-service assessment process designed by educators to answer the essential question: "Is a new teacher ready for the job?"
  • edTPA includes a review of a teacher candidate's authentic teaching materials as the culmination of a teaching and learning process that documents and demonstrates each candidate's ability to effectively teach his/her subject matter to all students. 
  • Due dates for submission vary based on when the student would like the results. Usually students are given a deadline that will allow them to have their edTPA portfolio scored in time to apply for their license prior to graduating from the UI College of Education. If a student does not submit by the deadline, they can still graduate. They just will not be able to apply for their teaching license until their portfolio is scored.
  • Students are highly encourage to submit several days before the due date. Submission confirmation usually only takes 30 minutes or less, but submission processing can take up to 3 days.

As students navigate through the edTPA process, they will need to complete the following steps to successfully transfer and submit their edTPA portfolio using Tk20 as an Integrated edTPA Platform Provider System:

1. Review policies and register for the appropriate edTPA assessment on edTPA.com.

2. Login to Tk20 and complete their edTPA portfolio in the Portfolios tab. If students do not see an edTPA portfolio in their account, they need to contact their campus Tk20 Unit Administrator. Any questions regarding Tk20 can be sent to COE-tk20-help@uiowa.edu.

3. Validate their authorization key in the first tab of their edTPA portfolio.

4. After uploading all required documents and audio/video clips as defined in the edTPA handbook, click Transfer to Pearson.

5. Upon successful transfer, sign in to the Pearson ePortfolio system and review their assessment to ensure the transfer was successful. (There is a way to recall, revise, and resubmit before finalizing submission. See Tk20 Guide for edTPA candidates, p. 12

6. When they have confirmed that all parts of their assessment are ready for submission, they should submit their assessment using the Pearson ePortfolio system on edTPA.com. They will receive an email notification confirming that their assessment has been submitted. Once the submission has been completed, their assessment is ready to be scored. No additional actions are required

Your program's handbook and some support materials are password-protected. You can access these documents by logging into uiowa.tk20.com and reading the instructions on your main portfolio page.

  • Handbook
  • "Making Good Choices"
  • "Understanding Academic Language in edTPA"
  • "Understanding Rubric Level Progressions"

If you have questions regarding your handbook, please contact Pearson Customer Support.

Additional tech guides and forms are linked in the Tech Guides section below.

Subject Content Endorsement Area edTPA Handbook Minimum Score
Elementary Education TEP K-6 Elementary Literacy 39
School Teacher Librarian K-12 School Librarian/Library Specialist 39
Art Education TEP K-12 Visual Art 39
English Education TEP 5-12 Secondary English Language Arts 39
Foreign Language Education TEP-5-12 (or K-12)
(Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, or Spanish)		 World Language 31
Mathematics Education TEP-5-12 Secondary Mathematics 39
Music Education TEP K-12 Performing Arts 39
Science Education TEP 5-12
(Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Physics, and/or All Science)		 Secondary Science 39
Social Studies Education TEP 5-12
(American Government, American History, Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Psychology, Sociology, and/or World History)		 Secondary History Social Studies 39
Special Education Instructional Strategist II: BD/LD K-12 Special Education 39

Tech Guides & Support Documents

  1. edTPA Tips for Mac Users
  2. Download iMovie
  3. Import from iPad, iPhone
  4. Record video directly into iMovie
  5. Trim clips
  6. Automatically enhance video and audio
  7. Stabilize shaky clips
  8. Export a QuickTime file
  9. edTPA Video Exporting Guide for iMovie

The only edit you are permitted to make is to cut at the beginning or the end of video to meet the time guidelines. To do this you should upload to your YouTube channel, edit, and download as an MP4. After that, you can compress the video and upload. Use the following guides to help with the video uploading process.

  • Arabic
  • Burmese
  • Chinese Simplified
  • Dari
  • English
  • Farsi
  • French
  • Gujarati
  • Hindi
  • Indonesian
  • Krundi
  • Napali
  • Somali
  • Spanish
  • Swahili
  • Thai
  • Vietnamese