This highly detailed resource is intended to be your constant companion as you work your way towards your teaching credential, begin formal classroom instruction and beyond. This online resource is designed to help learners navigate the CalTPA process while simultaneously supporting new teachers as they master the complex and nuanced tradecraft of teaching. The Handbook is broken down into twelve easily searchable and navigable chapters, to be enjoyed as presented or sampled for quick reference. At heart this book unpacks the CalTPA requirements and represents them as productive practices for cultivating equitable and effective learning environments. 

Chapter 1: An Overview of CalTPA, presents and clear and logical overview of the CalTPA process. Chapter 2: Exploring Student Assets. provides an overview of student assets and recommends strategies for leveraging them for learning. Chapter 3: Supporting all Learners with UDL and Anti-Biased Teaching, digs deeply into the mindsets and tools that allow all of your learners to benefit from each lesson. Chapter 4: Skills and Strategies to Deepen Understanding and Engage Higher-Order Thinking Skills, provides practice and strategies for engaging your learners more deeply with the content. Chapter 5: Making Connections Between Standards and Learning Goals, helps to unpack the concrete steps involved when interpreting standards for your learners. 

Chapter 6: Supporting Language Development, takes a deep dive into the productive practices surrounding teaching to learners with diverse language backgrounds. Chapter 7: Introduction to Accommodations and Adaptations, is an overview of the specific kinds of strategies and tools that teachers can employ to meet the needs of diverse learners. Chapter 8:  Overview of Key Pedagogical Strategies for the CalTPA, as the title implies provides the foundational teaching strategies recommended by CalTPA. Chapter 9: Assessments: Informal, Self-, and Formal, reviews the key modes of assessment and provides recommends about their best and timely usage. Chapter 10: Supporting Focus Students, provides tools, tips and strategies for meeting focus students’ needs. 

Chapter 11: Educational Technology and the CalTPA, explores the relationships between CalTPA standards for learning and the adoption of digital learning tools, environments and affordances. Chapter 12: Strategically Using the Assessment Guide Rubrics, offers tips for incorporating the CalTPA guide rubrics in ways that meet the needs of your learners. Chapter 13 (the bonus chapter!):   Utilizing Data to Support Students with IEPs, 504s, or GATE Designations, takes a sneak peek at some sophisticated methods of gathering and applying data in order to meet the needs of diverse learners. 

Melissa Meetze-Hall (pronounced Metz) is an educator, coach, and co-author of the new CalTPA Handbook: Unpacking Equitable Practices in the California Teaching Performance Assessment. With over two decades of experience supporting new teachers and administrators, and as a lead assessor for California’s performance assessments, Melissa has a unique perspective that shines in this newest publication to support candidates with successful completion of the CalTPA.

Dr. Meetze-Hall’s research and publishing focus on the importance of video and coaching for professional reflection and growth. She is the author of numerous educator research studies, many in collaboration with teacher preparation and induction partners. Melissa lives and works in southern California, where she teaches for the Educational Administration program at the University of Redlands and is an adjunct professor in the Teacher Education Department at National University. She spends her free time hiking and exploring the Pacific Coast.