Educator Preparation Data Model Domain - Overview

Owned by Gabrielle Garonzik
Last updated: Feb 17, 2022 by Steven Arnold
2 min read

The Teacher Preparation Data Model has been renamed to the Educator Preparation Data Model to better reflect the capability of the model to support all types of educator preparation. Read more about the name change We're renaming TPDM, here's why

Key Entities

This domain contains:

  • The Candidate entity that represents a "candidate for certification or licensure", or a student that is attending a university or alternate certification provider and is enrolled in a program that will meet the necessary requirements for certification as defined by the state, and has not yet received certification.
  • The EducatorPreparationProgram entity that represents a state approved course of study, completion of which signifies a candidate will have met all requirements necessary to obtain a certification or licensure to teach within K-12 schools.
  • The PerformanceEvaluation entity and related entities that Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) can use to capture performance data about Candidates and Staff teachers to drive the analysis of effectiveness and improvement.
  • An expansion to the Credential entity which uses the early-access person entity to associate to a credential, so any person-role (e.g., Student, Candidate) can be associated with a credential.
  • An expansion to the Survey entity and related entities to support survey requirements that are a cornerstone of most EPP implementations.

Key Concepts

The key concepts include the following:
  • A key design decision was to define Candidate as separate from the current Ed-Fi Student. Candidates will take courses related to their certification and then have rounds of clinical placement, shadowing staff at a K-12 school initially and then teaching the classroom themselves.
  • In the Ed-Fi model enrollment is generally handled by an association to a school (StudentSchoolAssociation or StudentEducationOrganizationAssociation), but EPPs track and care about improvement at the program level. Therefore, educator preparation programs are the primary source of "enrollment" within the model for the candidate.
  • Performance evaluation is a 4-layer hierarchical structure that defines the metadata (how a person will be measured) and the individual ratings. This allows EPPs to capture performance data about Candidates and Staff teachers to drive the analysis of effectiveness and improvement.
  • The credential model as defined in EPDM uses the Person entity to associate credentials, so any person-role (e.g., Candidate, Student, Staff, etc.) can be associated with a credential.
  • SurveyResponse is extended to include an optional Person reference.