Online Mathematics Teacherpreneurs Developers on Teachers Pay Teachers: Who Are They and Why Are They Popular?

Abstract

Online teacherpreneurs are teachers who use social media platforms to create, sell, and distribute educational resources to others. For many teachers, they have become the new curriculum developers in our virtually intensive world. Curriculum development in mathematics education has a large impact on how students understand concepts, but little is known about these online mathematics teacherpreneurs influences on the curriculum. Therefore, as part of a larger study investigating the top 500 free elementary mathematics educational resource developers on TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT), we surveyed the teacherpreneurs who created these top resources. Using the constant comparative method, we analyzed 58 responses to learn more about the online mathematics TpT teacherpreneurs: who they are, how they believe they became popular, and what they believe their teacher customers want when searching for resources. We found these teacherpreneurs identified themselves as teachers with typically over 10 years of experience creating classroom resources. Many attributed their popularity to advertising their resources via social media and having a large number of products available for teachers. They identified beliefs that teachers want easy to use, free, quality materials that are visually appealing. Implications, including findings that indicate a misalignment between what teachers say they want and what the teacherpreneurs believe teachers want, are discussed.

Keywords

• social media
• teacherpreneurs
• Teachers Pay Teachers
• curriculum developers