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Abstract

Teacher education programs have widely used edTPA to assess if a teacher candidate is ready to teach. Using a framework of Baudrillard’s (1994) hyperreality, this study examined how preservice music teacher candidates performed the discourses of edTPA within their planning, instruction, and reflection in their student teaching placements. Employing an ethnographic case study of two undergraduate senior music education cohorts, data included an open-ended questionnaire, fieldnotes from class discussions, and conversations between the teacher educators–researchers. Findings suggest that candidates (a) exhibited constant performance anxiety when attempting to meet the demands of the edTPA video requirement, (b) were hesitant to go off book from a carefully scripted lesson that aligned to edTPA standards, and (c) embodied what they believed to be the hyperreal discourse of good teaching as defined by edTPA in ways that did not necessarily align with their developing or real teacher identities. Music teacher candidates conceived of a hyperreal teaching persona that, when triggered by the onset of a recording camera, reflexively enacted the extensive expectations of edTPA. Music teacher educators might consider these hyperreal discourses and their ramifications as they prepare teacher candidates for licensure and their future music classrooms.

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