Creating a digital Danielson Evidence Binder

Hi Dear Friends!!!

My school district is embracing the Danielson model of teacher evaluations.  There is still some dispute in our district on what types of items should be included for showing student growth, so that part is missing right now.  This year our school district was simply asking for volunteers that would be willing to pilot this model.   I volunteered.  I realize it would require more work, but it's something that will be expected in the future years.

I created a binder with sections for Domains 1-4.   In this binder I have things such as copies of parent e-mails and communication and district logs of activities.  That is all that I have in this binder!!!  My administrator is a proponent of less paper, so I decided to keep the rest of my evidence in a digital file.  I love it, especially since I did away with most of my paper files in my classroom this past summer.   I keep most everything on my flash drives in files labeled with each subject area and month.  

First, I had to get my desktop of my Mac organized.  I would have many files, so I created this screen saver for my desktop.

 

The graphics are by Ashley Hughes.  You can grab this screen saver by clicking on the photo below and saving it.  Then go into the preferences on your computer.  Go to screen saver, and upload this photo.

To create my Danielson Digital Binder, I first purchased a flash drive.  I would load my file from my laptop onto the flash drive to give to my administrator.    Then I created files on my desktop so that I could easily copy my "evidence" from my other flash drives.  Here's a photo of the files I created.  I created a language arts, behavior management, writing, social studies/science, lesson plans and newsletters, parent communication, and reading.  You can include whatever files fit for Domains 1 and 4.  I could have also included a student data file with samples of student work.  Rather I decided to make a file within each subject area for uploading samples of student work.

Once I created files on my desktop, I simply began copying my "evidence" from my flash drives into the files.  This was easy since I have already have my information organized on my flash drives.  For reading, I included things I had created to go with our reading series and other products I have purchased to go along with our reading series.  I also had copied student work and uploaded these samples into an area called " student work".  I included rubrics created, photos of bulletin boards created,  and research projects as well.  I did this for each file area.  In my behavior management, I included copies of my rules, clip chart, classroom coupons, information handed out to parents, and etc.  In my parent communication, I included notes that I've sent home, information with passwords for various online tools students have access to, and my parent handbook that is given at the beginning of the school year.  In my lesson plans and newsletters, I included a copy of my online digital lesson plan book, lesson plans that I daily have out on my desk just in case a substitute is needed, and copies of newsletters that are e-mailed to parents on a weekly basis.

After I had copied all the information I wanted,  I then created a file on my desktop called " Mehrtens' Digital Danielson Binder".

Before I dragged and dropped all of my files into this one file, I created an introduction that I placed in each file for my administrator to look it.  I basically just mentioned some of the things my administrator was going to find in each file.   Here's a look at one sample of this:

If you would like this cute little format, you can snag it HERE for free from my Google Docs.  The graphics are by the amazing Ashley Hughes.

Finally, once I had created and placed these introduction pages into each file, I was ready to drag and drop all the files into my "Mehrtens' Digital Danielson Binder".   Then I was able to insert my new flash drive and drag my file onto the flash drive.  Voila!  It's ready for me to give to my administrator tomorrow.

I would love to hear from all of you on any suggestions that you have.   This is my first time with this type of evaluation, and so I'm on a huge learning curve right now.   What are some things you have included and have you created a digital binder rather than a paper binder? 

Thanks so much for stopping by friends!!!