Hey Tappsters!
Welcome to the USA Teacher Tapp blog 🎉 Eight weeks in and our Teacher Tapp community continues to grow!
Teacher Tapp becomes even more valuable as more teachers join! Share the app with your colleagues and help grow the community. The easiest link to spread the word is onelink.to/teachertapp – it takes them straight to the app store! 📲✨
Let’s jump into this week’s roundup of fresh education data insights…
1. Thanksgiving break
The holidays are here! For just under a third of teachers (31%), that means a WHOLE WEEK off! Around half have three days off (49%), a tiny number have 4 days (3%) and then 15% are off just for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. This is pretty consistent between schools – whether you’re in a High School, Middle School or Elementary School!
Is this the best break of the year? For 21% of teachers, yes it is! But the majority don’t feel as if it’s any different to other breaks (67%). 11% of teachers say they enjoy it less than other breaks – and 1% don’t enjoy it at all!
When it comes to in-school celebrations – it’s Elementary teachers that are more likely to be marking the holiday with a special lunch when compared to middle and high schools (37% vs 19%).
Speaking of lunches, we wanted to know whether teachers would prefer to wash the dishes or do the cooking for Thanksgiving 🧑🍳. At the time of writing, the question is still open, but currently cooking is ahead (58% vs 39%), will it still be later today?
2. Teachers working outside the classroom
Teachers will sometimes work outside the classroom to supplement their salary – but how common is it, and what kind of work do they do?
Over half (52%) of you do some kind of education-related work outside the classroom – this might include running a club, tutoring, or providing training to other teachers. A smaller number (17%) earn money in ways unrelated to the classroom (working in a bar, providing babysitting etc).
Just 39% don’t do any other work. But how does this compare to teachers in other countries?
In England, teachers are far less likely to be earning money outside the classroom. Only 27% do education-related work, and only 9% have jobs unrelated to the classroom.
3. Typed vs Handwritten
The pen is mightier than the sword! But is it as mighty as a computer keyboard?
Elementary schools typically have their students handwrite work that is graded (60%) whereas less than half of High School and Middle Schools do (43%).
Of course, some states require students to learn cursive (18%) but, when it comes to the writing choices of teachers…it is a mixed bag!
Half of you never write in cursive, while only 15% of you always do so. The rest vary a lot!
But here is something you might have wondered – does it matter if you write with your left or right hand? Apparently not! Even when we adjusted for left and right-handedness, the likelihood of writing in cursive doesn’t change.
As Teacher Tapp grows we will be able to share breakdowns for responses in High school, middle and elementary schools – so be sure to share the app with your friends! The easiest way to do it is to send them the direct link to take them to the app store: onelink.to/teachertapp.
➕ total Tapps over Thanksgiving
This is our first Teacher Tapp Thanksgiving, and more than 150 took time on this special day to share their thoughts on the app.
The longest streak so far is an impressive 55 days—held by teachers who joined when Teacher Tapp USA launched at the Festival of Education 👏.
Even though the app is still brand new, half of our users already have streaks of 14 days or more!
And talk about dedication—teachers have answered nearly 160 questions in just under two months. Amazing work! 🎉
Remember, if you ever have an issue with your streak or want to suggest a question for the app, we’re just an email away at usa@teachertapp.com.
Daily Reads
We know lots of teachers on Teacher Tapp LOVE the daily reads, if you have ideas of reads we could feature, get in touch by emailing usa@teachertapp.com and we will check it out!
This week our most-read blog was…the 40/40/40 rule
