A teacher's responses to pre- and post-conference prompts are not only informational thoughts and ideas that can inspire great dialog between the principal and teacher; they can also be used as evidence in the evaluation process.

The previous article covered how a princpal views a teacher's responses to pre-conference prompts. This article takes it a step further and provides the steps required to code sections of prompt responses as evidence.

Since you're still working in the pre-conference phase and specifically on the pre-conference prompt responses, you'll need to get into the observation for this teacher.

1. Click on the Pre tab.
2. Make sure the sub tab called Responses and Notes is active.
3. You'll see each of the teacher's responses to the prompts in their own unique gray area.

To code the first response as evidence, click on the green button called Code as Evidence in the top right corner of that responses gray area.

The domain and component bar for your district's instructional framework will appear between the prompt and the teacher's response.

Identify a section of the response that you would like to use as evidnece, and follow these steps:

1. Highlight the text.
2. Mouse over the components in the component area. (As you mouse over each component, its name will be displayed temporarily. This is not shown below, but it will be shown on your screen as you do it.) Select the component that you will use for coding.
3. The component's code will appear at the left and right ends of the selected text.

If you change your mind about the text you coded, click off of the highlighted text to de-select it. Then follow the steps directly above (highlight the same text and click on the component that you used for coding.) The following alert will appear on your screen. Confirm your decision to "uncode" the evidence by clicking the green YES button.

The coding will be removed from the text that you had coded, and you can start over.

When you have finished coding all of the text in the response that you want to use as evidence, click on the green DONE button in the top right corner of that response.

The coding bars will disappear, but the coded text will remain.

Repeat the instructions above for all unique gray areas on the page that contain teacher responses to the pre-conference prompts. If the teacher has written and shared the summary notes from the pre-conference, you can code them, too.