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The educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) is a performance-based assessment designed for beginning teachers to demonstrate their readiness to teach (SCALE, 2014). As more states come to adopt this assessment, many facets of its implementation need to be reviewed. One component is the role of the cooperating teacher in the implementation of the edTPA. Since the assessment is completed during the culminating clinical experience for teacher candidates, it seems logical to assume that the cooperating teachers who host student teachers during this field experience are "stakeholders" in the edTPA. Cooperating teachers are also members of the teaching profession and may feel that they have a stake in determining who is ready to enter their profession. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of cooperating teachers as stakeholders in the edTPA, to determine their beliefs about the edTPA, to discuss ways to support cooperating teachers with the edTPA, and to examine how the edTPA has influenced the student teaching experience from the cooperating teachers' perspectives. The researchers also sought advice from cooperating teachers about how best to structure the student teaching experience given the addition of the edTPA.

Math Circles are designed to allow students to explore mathematics using a problem-solving/inquiry approach. Many of the students attending our Math Circle are mathematically talented and curious. This study examines the perspectives of the students and their families in determining why students attend Math Circle, what they enjoy about Math Circle, and what they perceive as differences in Math Circle from their classroom mathematics instruction. Findings indicate that students and parents feel that our Math Circle offers more challenging work than students are finding in their regular classroom and that the Math Circle provides a scholarly camaraderie among participants.