My colleagues were somewhat skeptical of my data and document collecting 2 years ago. They looked on with some amount of "Why are you doing all that?" "Why are you going to all that trouble?" as I created my notebooks of evidence and detailed table of contents.
Now, what are we asked to do as part of our evaluation? "Print out our communication to parents, e-mails, or parent communication and place it in this binder we're giving you--under the Communication tab. And, let's go ahead and put your lesson plans in this binder we're giving you under the Lesson Plan tab. Oh, and let's keep your resources you're using under this Resources tab in this binder." Hummm. Sounds like document and create a notebook of evidence divided by the TAPS areas.... been there, done that.
Well, at least I have a couple of years of practice in doing this. Now I have 4 notebooks on my shelf instead of 2.
Two things to remember this year: you can't document your way to a higher score, and your lesson plans need to be thorough.
Respectfully,
Glenn
