Hey Tappsters!
Welcome to the USA Teacher Tapp blog ๐ Week TEN of tapping! Welcome to all who joined this week!
The more teachers we have, the more valuable the insights we can share. Share the app with your colleagues and help grow the community. The easiest link to spread the word is onelink.to/teachertapp โ it takes them straight to the app store! ๐ฒโจ
Now let’s get into the data…
1. Festive Classrooms
The festive countdown has absolutely begun, and classrooms across the country are getting ready for the Christmas holiday.
๐ 59% of schools have a Christmas tree either up or being put up!
๐ 77% have already worn, or will soon be donning, a Christmas jumper ๐งโ๐.
But when it comes to Christmas gifts, what are the top choices BY teachers FOR teachers?
Top Three gifts to get your son or daughter’s teachers for Christmas…
- Gift vouchers ๐ณ take the pain out of choosing!
- A heartfelt note ๐
- Office supplies ๐๏ธ because all teachers love stationery…right?!
And then we imagined a world where Santa had the power to make special Christmas wishes come true. We gave three choices: an extra free period EVERY WEEK for a WHOLE YEAR; $300 or model student behaviour every lesson for the whole of January.
The top choice was the extra free period (57%), second choice $300 (30%) and last pick was the good students (12%).
Are you ready for the holidays? Look out for some more questions about the festive period over the next week. We will still be asking questions all through Christmas and look forward to hearing from you! ๐๐ฅ๐งโ๐
2. Teacher Partners โค๏ธ
There are lots of reasons why teachers might end up marrying or romantically partnered to other teachers – shared holidays, someone who understands classroom workloads…plus, you’re working so much you’re likely to meet your partner at work!
But just how common is it? It turns out, common, but not typical!
Looking at just those in relationships, 28% are partnered with a teacher, and 72% are not.
How does this compare to other countries?
From looking at our data around the world we can see…
๐ In the Netherlands, 14% of teachers report being single. This is slightly LOWER than in the US and in England, where 18% of teachers are single.
โค๏ธ In England, if you are a man you are more likely to be married to a teacher (and we also think this is likely in the US, but the sample size is still quite small so will have to wait for the panel to grow before we can be absolutely sure!).
๐ In the US, more teacher partners work in K-12 schools than Pre-K or Colleges (23% vs 5%) – and this is broadly the same as in England too!
3. Selling teaching resources
The advent of the internet has made sharing and selling resources much more straightforward. Many US websites exist purely to facilitate the selling of resources between teachers.
In October, when thinking of all the different places teachers sourced the resources for their lessons – half of the teachers (52%) took them from an online source, and a third (33%) used a resource their school had purchased.
However, teachers are most likely to use a resource they made themselves (72%). These resources are usually the result of tried and tested methods, finessed over time, suitable for your context and teaching style…so how would teachers feel if their school took these resources and sold them?
Schools selling curriculum plans
Feelings were split. Although more disagreed than agreed (55% vs 20%) a significant group neither agreed nor disagreed (25%), suggesting that perhaps the scenario needs a little more detail. For example, if the school sells the resources, would this require extra work on behalf of the teachers? And if so, would teachers be credited or renumerated for their creation of the resources?
How about if the government chose schools to sell their curriculum resources? Some have made the argument that the current system of selling resources from school to school speaks to a disconnected system.
This time, more were in favour of schools being picked to create and sell curriculum resources (46% vs 20%). However, again a significant 33% neither agree nor disagree – suggesting that either more details would be needed before they had an opinion, or that the opinion hinges a lot on “yes, if…”.
Do you have experience of buying or selling school curriculums? What would the system need to have in order for you to be supportive of it? Let us know either via the app of on social media and remember to tag us @TeacherTapp.
โ Who are the quick draw Tapsters?
There are always 23 hours and 59 minutes available to answer the three daily questions – but how many of you are answering straight away? And how does that compare to other countries?
45% US 36% England 52% Flanders, 49% Netherlands
Last place – England ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ – 36% answer in the first hour.
๐ฅ 3rd place USA ๐บ๐ธ, 45% complete the questions in the first hour.
๐ฅ 2nd place the Netherlands ๐ณ๐ฑ with 49% replying with speedy thumbs.
๐ฅ and first place ๐ง๐ช Belgian! They tip just over into the ‘majority’ with 52% answering in the first hour ๐.
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…all about the 40/40/40 approach to long-term planning for your curriculum.
