{"id":2839,"date":"2023-05-01T04:55:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T09:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/?p=2839"},"modified":"2023-05-01T07:41:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T12:41:28","slug":"online-resource-warehouses-some-hard-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/curriculumsolutions.net\/blog\/2023\/05\/01\/online-resource-warehouses-some-hard-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Resource Warehouses: Some Hard Data"},"content":{"rendered":"
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image via ucdavis.edu<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Online curriculum warehouses are a widely-utilized resource for curriculum materials and also big business. Probably the best known of the bunch is Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT), which boasts on its website that two thirds of U.S. teachers have downloaded at least one item from them, to the tune of a billion downloads in 2020 alone. When we analyze student work artifacts for audits, we frequently find materials from TPT; in fact, I can\u2019t think of an audit I\u2019ve done in the last 5 years that didn\u2019t have at least a handful of artifacts from TPT. They are, literally, everywhere in U.S. schools.\u00a0 Their prevalence begs two important questions:\u00a0 Why do teachers use them? And, Should they be using them? Luckily, they\u2019ve begun to attract scholarly attention so there is now good research that helps answer both of these questions.\u00a0 We also have some interesting survey results that shed light on the reasons behind the reach of these marketplaces.<\/p>\n

Who and How Often?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A combined Northern Arizona University-Elon University survey<\/a> of 1300 teachers in 2022 found 78% of respondents used the TPT site at least once a month. The caveat here is that the survey was disseminated via social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) so the sample doesn\u2019t reflect all teachers, only those teachers engaged in social media. How that impacts use of TPT is not measurable.\u00a0 \u00a0An earlier American Teacher Panel survey from 2017 found that 73% of teachers said they had used TPT, so the results are similar.\u00a0 That survey also reported that 55% of ELA teachers said they used TPT for curriculum materials at least once a week. What I couldn\u2019t find was whether there were big differences in usage by content area. My suspicion is that there may be at least some because of the heavy focus on ELA and Math to the exclusion of other content areas in many schools\u00a0 — meaning teachers often have more extensive resources in these areas.\u00a0 Purely anecdotally, \u00a0we\u2019ve seen a lot of TPT stuff in elementary social studies and a fair amount in science in our audit work.<\/p>\n

It’s worth mentioning that three quarters of respondents that used the site said they had paid for materials out of their own pockets. This feels like a significant point but how<\/em> it\u2019s significant isn\u2019t clear.\u00a0 We know teachers are generally underpaid, so the willingness to use their earnings to purchase lessons may be indicative of a deeper problem pushing teachers to use TPT. Enter the next question…<\/p>\n

Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most common response on the NAU survey (61%) was that concepts and skills were insufficiently addressed in existing district curriculum materials.\u00a0 One of the study\u2019s authors noted<\/a>\u00a0 that teachers cited “insufficient curriculum materials but exactly what they mean by that is unclear.\u00a0 We did have folks who said, \u2018I have no curriculum. My state, my district, or my school gives me nothing,’ But other respondents said, ‘I have some curriculum, but my state just adopted Common Core or some variant of that, and so some of the curriculum is just kind of off.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Still others said the curriculum provided for them was fine but they wanted materials that were more entertaining or engaging for students.*<\/p>\n

The problem with the survey results is that they are primarily measuring teachers\u2019 perceptions<\/em> of their situations.\u00a0 Whether or not those perceptions accurately reflect what their districts provide (coverage, quality) is an open question and not one that is (or could be) answered by the survey.<\/p>\n

A study from Fordham Institute<\/a>\u00a0 in 2019 interviewed teachers about why they supplemented with TPT activities, and their responses were similar:<\/p>\n