Educator/Administrator Evidence Guidance

Evidence collection is one of the most open ended components of the evaluation system. There is tremendous diversity is the amount and types of evidence submitted. This is significantly due to the complex nature of teaching and the difficulty of documenting the quality of the task, but also due to variety of expectations of evaluators.

You should strategically select only those documents that best demonstrate your progress towards your educator goals and performance on the standards.

Overall Guidance:

• Speak with your evaluator about what kinds of evidence would be helpful.

• Keep in mind that the point of this task is to provide your evaluator with evidence for the to use in rating your performance on tasks that are not easily observable otherwise.

• Remember to submit only the evidence necessary. Choose your evidence wisely so that it is clear to the evaluator. Too much evidence can hide exemplary work.

• If you are finding that you are spending more than an hour or so submitting this evidence, let your CEA representative know so that we can help you make the process more streamlined.

• If your school does not have efficient tools for scanning non-electronic evidence, merely summarize and list the evidence in Teachpoint. You can then submit the hard copies to the evaluator. Also, let the CEA know so that we can ensure all educators have access to these tools.

Teachpoint Guidance:

• The CEA recommends that you complete one EDUCATOR RECORD OF EVIDENCE FORM

There is one box for each category of evidence you are required to submit:

Progress towards Student Learning Goal

Progress towards Professional Practice Goal

Standard III, Family and Community Engagement

Standard IV, Professional Practice

There are also boxes for optional categories of evidence:

Standard I, Curriculum Planning and Assessment

Standard II, Teaching All Students

In each box, briefly describe the evidence and how it shows progress or achievement of a standard.

Attach the evidence for that category to that box by clicking the paper clip. Select "Upload" "File" or "Google Drive File" not "Add Link"

If you upload a link, the document can be changed later, whereas if you upload the file, it creates a permanent record of the document as it is at that point in time.

• Some educators have used smartphone apps to take photos of evidence for ease of uploading. Be advised of the following district policies:

"The school district policy is that only school-owned electronic devices and cameras can be used to take photographs of students and/or student work or if a personal electronic camera is being used that the photograph of students and/or student work must be stored only to a district owned media card. Any other personal use of equipment to take photographs of students and/or student work is not permitted by CPS policy. Therefore, use of personal phone to take photographs of students and/or student work would be a violation of the school district policy."

Last names of students should be redacted if student work is being uploaded as evidence.

Below is a quote from the MTA guidance about evidence collection. The entire section about evidence collection is available in a link at the bottom of this page.

THERE HAS BEEN AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF MISINFORMATION ABOUT THE EVIDENCE REQUIREMENT.

➤ EVIDENCE BY STANDARDS, NOT BY INDICATORS: Evidence must relate to the four standards and/or the professional practice goal and student learning goal. It is not necessary – or required – that there be evidence for each indicator. It is important to remember that practice is judged on each standard, not on each indicator. The collection and organization of evidence are the responsibility of both the educator and the evaluator. However, this is not “make-work.” See a district example of this type of practice on the next page.

➤ A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE MAY RELATE TO MULTIPLE STANDARDS: It is also important to note that one artifact may be used to demonstrate proficiency on multiple standards and may apply to multiple indicators. For example, one standards-based unit of instruction may be used as evidence for Standards 1-4. See example on next page.

➤ EVIDENCE MAY RELATE TO EDUCATOR PLAN GOALS: Some evidence may be clearly related to professional practice and/or student learning goals.

➤ EVIDENCE IS A SAMPLING: For the most part, evidence should be a sampling of the work that educators perform and the resulting student work; evidence is not meant to be inclusive of all that educators do. Evaluators may wish to identify common artifacts, something that most educators are expected to provide, such as lesson plans or unit plans.

➤ EVIDENCE SHOULD DEMONSTRATE PROFICIENCY: In the educator’s professional judgment, once sufficient evidence has been identified and/or collected to demonstrate proficiency on one or more standards, there is no need to add more. It may be helpful to provide the evaluator with a brief rationale for the use of each piece of evidence. See examples at the end of this section.

➤ EVIDENCE COLLECTION METHODS: There is no requirement that educators collect evidence in binders. Unfortunately, some districts have contracted to use electronic evaluation systems that are driving the implementation. This is the tail wagging the dog. Districts should reconsider software systems that make unnecessary work for either the educator or the evaluator.