Educators’ perspectives on and motivations for using TeachersPayTeachers.com

Accessible and Useful? Considering the Science Education Resources on OER Commons

“…Among the many sources available to science teachers, OER Commons may be an important and central one: It contains resources for every content area and grade level and allows for organizations or units (e.g., state departments of education and non-profit organizations) to share all of their materials via a central, easy-to-use platform. Further, the kinds of materials available through OER Commons could serve as a complement to what OpenSciEd creates: where OpenSciEd creates entire units developed with a coherent ("storyline") approach (Edelson, 2020), we know that educators may turn to resource marketplaces to fill gaps or supplement the curriculum or textbook they are provided (Carpenter & Shelton, 2022). For this reason, examining the science education contents of OER Commons may reveal a fuller picture in terms of the OER available for science teachers.…”

“…Most of these resources are of a very different type than the most prominent OER project in science education-OpenSciEd-as most resources are readings and activities and laboratory investigations. Though these two material types are a part of OpenSciEd curricula , those offered through OER Commons stand apart and likely serve a different purpose for teachers-filling specific gaps in their curricula (Carpenter & Shelton, 2022). Notably, relatively few textbooks are available, though this may be a function of the amount of time required to create a textbook relative to a single activity; notably, textbooks were viewed to a somewhat greater extent than many other material types.…”

“…Notably, relatively few textbooks are available, though this may be a function of the amount of time required to create a textbook relative to a single activity; notably, textbooks were viewed to a somewhat greater extent than many other material types. In all, though, a great variety of resources are available to science educators as OER through the platform-resources that largely are similar to those available through the commercial TeachersPayTeachers platform (Aguilar et al, 2020;Shelton et al, 2022).…”

“…Some research has investigated teachers' perceptions of the materials available through various platforms and marketplaces-especially TeachersPayTeachers For instance, Aguilar et al (2022) examined the contents of practically all of the English/Language Arts and Mathematics materials (lesson and unit plans, printables/worksheets, and assessments, among other types) on the commercial platform Teachers Pay Teachers using educational data mining methods, finding that the more than 500,000 resources were primarily for elementary teachers and a relatively small percentage (40%) were aligned with the national Common Core State Standards. Other studies using similar data mining methods have found that some of the most-downloaded resources on TeachersPayTeachers were "ready-to-go, fun materials"-along with decorative items (e.g., bullet board ideas; Shelton et al, 2022). Though educators report that TeachersPayTeachers help them to address the limitations of the materials available to them (Carpenter & Shelton, 2022), their quality (at least for social studies resources) is questionable (Harris et al, 2022).…”

“…Other studies using similar data mining methods have found that some of the most-downloaded resources on TeachersPayTeachers were "ready-to-go, fun materials"-along with decorative items (e.g., bullet board ideas; Shelton et al, 2022). Though educators report that TeachersPayTeachers help them to address the limitations of the materials available to them (Carpenter & Shelton, 2022), their quality (at least for social studies resources) is questionable (Harris et al, 2022). Further, we know that TeachersPayTeachers is very unequal in terms of the rewards earned by the educators who list their materials on the platform: a remarkable 81% of sales are attributable to the top 1% of sellers (Koehler et al, 2020).…”