Our career can be considered a type of life story, a specific genre. In exploring our career story, we can make sense of what we have done, are doing, and might do in our profession (Maclure, 1993). Move 1 helps us brainstorm the basics of this career story by gathering and selecting the most important actions of our plot. Then, we will unpack those actions to make connections and help others see our impact.
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What I did
As individuals who are already potential leaders, it can be busy work trying to select the right actions of our story because we are usually the ‘doers’. This means we are likely to have a long list of things that we’re involved in and have done in our workplace. So, which ones do we select? And which ones are valued by assessors? Brainstorming these actions, and evidence of their impact, is one of the most important moves of our story-building because it will be the sequence of these actions that help us create an overall claim about who we are as a leader.
Hear from our teacher, Kami, as she reflects on what she ‘did’ and how her actions actually turned into a story of impact:
Download video transcript here.
We can think of our actions as a type of evidence that we get to share with an assessor or reader. Evidence, however, is more than just an artefact and should have a clear reason for why it appears in our story. As we learned in our work with Independent Schools Queensland, quality evidence is made up of four components: action, artefact, reasoning, and impact. Evidence that includes these four components ensures that it is authentic, reliable, measurable and clearly demonstrates impact.
Evidence that you can draw on to demonstrate your impact might include:
- Feedback from students using Microsoft forms, exit cards, student videos.
- Feedback from a colleague via an email expressing appreciation for leadership.
- Data from the Learning Management System indicating collegial take-up.
- Notes for a project plan for coordinating the work of colleagues.
- GPA of your students pre and post intervention.
- Observations from a colleague
- Data about workshop attendance.
- Emails from a colleague thanking you for your mentoring and how the mentoring impacted their practices.
- Advice to a preservice professional (e.g. preservice teacher, an apprentice), and progress shown over time.
- Leading a team to plan an intervention and evaluate the data.
For teachers, there are many different actions that demonstrate impact which could include:
- influencing peers through initiating new feedback strategies with students,
- using video exemplars to demonstrate evidence of supporting colleagues adopting a particular teaching practice,
- student surveys showing satisfaction and improved student results,
- increasing professional knowledge and applying the professional knowledge to the classroom or implementing school wide initiatives
- initiating and leading programs
- modelling exemplary teaching to colleagues
More examples of demonstrating impact are offered by AITSL here.
Activity.
Choose one action that you are considering including in your story and use it to respond to the following questions:
Does your action have an artefact or product of the action?
Does your action have a clear and logical reason for why you did it?
Was the action good and how do you know?
What evidence will speak to your reader?
Readers value evidence that is high quality and authentic. Evidence is considered authentic when it states what the applicant did and how this influenced others to act. High quality evidence is:
Remember, every person’s professional story is different, including the context in which that story is situated. This difference makes it impossible to list the exact evidence pieces to include in your story but also offers you the creativity to tell the reader who you are through the evidence you share with them. Three key reminders are:
- Be authentic: readers connect with evidence that helps them imagine who you are as a professional and leader. They want to understand ‘you’ and your contributions. What makes you stand out?
- Spell it out: readers need to be told how your evidence links to your professional standards. Make it as easy as possible for readers and assessors to understand your achievements as they relate to your professional standards.
- Summarise your key achievements first: this is the hook that will help readers want to know more about the details that will come later.
Put it into practice
- Write: download this table to start brainstorming your evidence using the four components of what constitutes quality evidence: Brainstorming quality evidence
- Share: your quality evidence brainstorming table with a colleague and seek feedback
- Plan: select a date to complete your next move.