A Website for Teachers by Teachers

By Sean Scarpiello

Every year, teachers are faced with the daunting task of planning lessons that fit into the school district’s dynamic curriculum. For many experienced teachers, this may not be difficult because after years of teaching the same material, it is easy to fine tune the course. For other less experienced teachers, this can be tough. It may take several years of teaching a subject to gauge what students can easily digest and what they have difficulty comprehending. In both cases, a group of educators collaborated online and created a website called teacherspayteachers.com. Here, teachers at all different levels can purchase the lesson plans of other teachers. The site also offers free products for teachers looking to improve their classes or add something new to class.

The concept of this sort of site is novel. Every year, teachers make lesson plans which are often not shared among teachers. Since each teacher makes a lesson plan, it would only make sense to get other opinions on plan. By collaborating with other teachers, teachers can bring more experience into their class rooms. When a teacher buys one of the lesson plans for sale on this website, they are able to see how another teacher would teach a similar class. The teacher may like some aspects of this new lesson plan and incorporate these good ideas into their own class. They may also see some things that do not work and can decide to leave these ideas out. Overall, by seeing the class through another teacher’s eyes, a teacher can look at their class in a new way. They will be able to adapt their lessons to fit the class better by using others experience and essentially collaborating with their counterparts.

This concept is also great because teachers of Kindergarten to 12th grade can use the site. Also, teachers at all levels of experience can benefit from the site. A new teacher can go to this site and get an idea on how to run a certain class. They can learn about what works and what doesn't. By learning from the successes and mistakes from other teachers in the same position, newer teachers can improve their classes rapidly. Older or more experienced teachers can also benefit from this site. Teaching the same subject year after year with little change can become monotonous quickly. These types of teachers can go on this site, purchase some material, and use what they learn to spice up the lesson plan. They may find new, interesting, or ingenious way to teach a difficult subject. Also, they will find ways to keep the class engaged in the class. Either way, if used properly, all teachers can find innovative ways to allow their students to get more out of class.

Some people may argue that the site would allow teachers to become lazy and just completely adopt the new lesson plan. This is highly unlikely because the curriculum of each school district and state differ slightly. Also, each curriculum is changing a bit each year and needs to be updated and fine-tuned. Also, the majority of the lesson plans are cheap. This allows teachers to purchase several different plans and take a little from each. On the contrary, if teachers do not want to buy anything from the site, there are still many free downloads and blogs for teachers where they can find new ideas to bring to the class room.

In all, teacherspayteachers.com offers and abundance of materials that all teachers can use. Teachers can buy fully made lesson plans or browse ideas and concepts in the free download or blog sections of the site. Essentially, teachers at all levels of education with varying levels of experience can find way to improve their classes and improve their students’ learning experience.


Source: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/