Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2025
I’m Lisa McCulley, Director of Research and Evaluation at Resources for Learning (RFL), a small, women-owned business based in Austin, Texas. At RFL, we partner with educators, administrators, and school districts to support meaningful improvements through thoughtful and collaborative evaluation projects.
In recent years, my team has noticed a shift in what educators and school leaders expect from evaluation. Gone are the days when a lengthy, formal, end-of-year summative report was enough. Today’s educators want real-time insights to inform their decisions, adjust their practices, and foster continuous improvement. This new demand has opened the door for evaluators to reimagine reporting and respond creatively.
Offer real-time evaluation insights. Summative reports still have value, but they’re not the only form of feedback we can offer. Too often I have spent a great deal of time crafting a traditional report only to provide already out-of-date insights upon delivery. Clients I work with increasingly request interim findings—midyear or quarterly pulse-checks—that let them quickly adjust programming, intervene effectively, or address stakeholder feedback promptly.
Shift reporting from static to dynamic. My team has tried to move beyond PDF reports and embrace interactive dashboards, enabling stakeholders to explore and interact with evaluation data directly. Imagine a district that wants ongoing monitoring of its instructional coaching program—how many coaching sessions took place, key topics covered, or coach reflections. Dashboards empower stakeholders to easily dive into the data they’re most interested in and make informed decisions throughout the year.
Deliver focused quarterly or midyear briefs. My evaluation team will sometimes produce short (2-3 pages), visually appealing briefs periodically throughout the year. These can be enhanced with visuals like graphs, photographs, and meaningful quotes from stakeholders to highlight successful practices or short-term findings. These briefs help educators quickly understand emerging trends and act on insights right away. One of our clients has moved away entirely from formal reports and wants a single abbreviated, graphics-based, outward facing brief that they can use in multiple ways, making their evaluation results more digestible and visually appealing to their various stakeholders. In a similar vein, designing simple visuals or infographics specifically crafted for social media, district websites, or newsletters can engage stakeholders more frequently.
Explore multimedia presentations and video summaries. Short, engaging videos, narrated slide decks (2–3 minutes) or even podcasts are excellent for summarizing findings in a compelling way. For example, one of our clients requested that we present evaluation findings entirely through slides, allowing them easy access for board meetings.
As evaluators, our roles are evolving. This shift challenges us to develop new skills and become increasingly dynamic communicators of findings. Embracing creative reporting strategies can make our evaluations more meaningful and responsive to educators’ needs.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Educational Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the Educational Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our Ed Eval TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.