The One Where Teachers Pay Teachers

A large part of being a teacher in insuring that you students learn and gain knowledge. It is important that the students are active in their learning. Coming up with interactive resources, group activities and new content year after year to keep up with the changing trends in education is difficult. Luckily, there is a resource where teachers can share with other teachers as well as use and purchase resources from others. (also a great way for a teacher to make some extra cash!!) This site, Teachers Pay Teachers is filled with teacher entrepreneurs who have creatives minds they want to share with fellow teachers all over the world.


While learning about Networked Knowledge Activities, Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) comes to mind. The 6 networked knowledge activities- collect, curate, share, broker, negotiate, construct- can help engage students and alter the way a teacher plans their lessons. "When students are engaged in networked knowledge activities as part of their coursework, they must tackle that same mental shift from traditional instructor-led learning to distributed student-led learning. Instructors may struggle with the idea of ceding some parts of the class agenda to students – not to mention handing over control and trusting students to act responsibly and be self-directed – students may struggle to take over that agenda, assume control, and direct their own learning activities." Teachers Pay Teachers will help teachers find resources that align with their curriculum that others have already used and proven successful to take some of the stress off the teacher as well as provide that engagement that students need in their own learning.


Here is how I utilize TPT to engage in networked knowledge activities.


1. Collect & Curate: When I first started using TPT, I search topics that pertained to my classes and downloaded free resources available. I was able to save these on my computer and flash drive and Google drive for later use. TPT allows you to "Make A Wishlist" where you can save items you are interested in. Similar to pinning on Pinterest or saving and bookmarking to your browser or computer. An example here would be looking for note taking worksheets, worksheets for movies/videos, etc

2. Share: on TPT you have the ability to share you work. I create lessons for my students and I post them on TPT, either for free or for money(a way for teachers to make a little extra $$). This allows me to share my creations with other teachers in my field. I have sold multiple projects that I created relating to business topics.

3. Broker: This would consist of me taking the resources found or purchased on TPT and distributing to my students in the classroom as a project or activity for them to learn. An example here would be a large semester project I purchased for my marketing course where students had to create a Food Truck and do different activities each week that related to the creation, marketing and financing of their truck.

4.Negotiate: Once the resources are purchased or downloaded from TPT, negotiate would be the students using the resources to work on the activities. The Food Truck activity I purchased was for group work. Students were given their partners and had to work together and collaborate to decide what type of truck they wanted to use for the project and how they'd split different tasks.

5.Construct: This would be the students taking the directions provided from the resources on TPT and creating their final project for submission. For the Food Truck project, students had to create a logo, slogan, menu, truck design, social media posts, flyers, etc for their selected truck. They used knowledge they had from two years in marketing courses to put together the project components.

If you are a teacher, go check out Teachers Pay Teachers. You are sure to find awesome activities you can use in your classroom to transform your lessons where students can be active participants in their learning!