Originally posted by stephanie kwok on January 27, 2019
A website that I’d like to share this week is teacherspayteachers.com
This is a website on which teachers can create educational resources such as lessons and worksheets and share them online with other educators around the world. Nowadays, teachers do not necessarily have to go to buy professional resources from the store; rather, it is sometimes better that they don’t, as resources are not always perfectly suited for one’s particular class or ability level.
Teachers also do not have to create their own resources from scratch. At teacherspayteachers.com, educators can search for what they need and download appropriate resources for a generally nominal fee. Teachers can also sell their resources or share them for free. I love this website as it is a collaborative hub through which teachers can develop and share their ideas and creativity with one another for one another. I have downloaded numerous resources from here, but often still end up adapting them in some way in order to suit the unique profiles and needs of my own classroom.
I have browsed through Teachers Pay Teachers a few years ago and it is indeed full of great resources, and kind people, but I have a problem with the model. It supports educators to spend their own money to purchase educational materials for their profession. Of course teachers can spend their own money however they like but the resources they are purchasing should be supplied by their school or school district, not coming out of their own pocket. For new teachers especially there is pressure to succeed and be prepared but all of that pressure should not be on them alone. I would highly recommend any new teacher to connect with their administration, district and colleagues to find resources. Many districts have support programs to help new teachers with these sorts of issues but unfortunately they can easily be overlooked.
Teachers Pay Teachers has been such a useful tool for me as an educator in the primary years. It was particularly supportive in my first two years of teaching when I was struggling to locate resources. I believe that it shouldn’t be used to inform the learning process, but it acts as a great tool to supplement the learning process. Even now, when I feel stuck planning engaging activities for a particular subject, Teachers Pay Teachers often helps me find ways to present concepts in innovative ways. Usually, the activities are easy to tailor to meet the needs of my learners. I’ve found resources on TPT that actually get me excited about teaching a topic that I generally don’t find very interesting. I haven’t posted any activities on TPT myself, but in the future, I would love to use this channel to share it with my colleagues in the teaching community. My fellow intermediate colleagues have found that TPT doesn’t have as many resources for their age groups. To be honest, I browse through the ‘free’ section of the site.