Analyzing 500,000 TeachersPayTeachers.com Lesson Descriptions Shows Focus on K-5 and Lack of Common Core Alignment

Abstract

TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT) is the largest online teacher resource exchange, boasting over 3 million materials and over 1 billion downloads of those materials and not enough is known about the kinds of materials teachers access through TpT. We used web-scraping, cluster analysis, and natural language processing to break down the pre-pandemic TpT marketplace of over 500,000 resources along dimensions of grade level, content focus, resource type, cost, authorship, and ratings. We also relate the features we observe to the number of ratings received, offering a glimpse into the factors that may predict teachers’ use of these materials. We draw three main conclusions from this work: First, TpT predominantly serves elementary school grades; second, Common Core standards, while present, are not a focal point of most content; and third, close to 70% of material is characterized as being a “printable” or an “activity,” which suggest direct pedagogical values. We discuss the implications of this work and suggest that TpT suffers from pitfalls associated with being a market-based platform that is not bound by the need to adhere to sound learning theory or best pedagogical practices.

Keywords

• Educational Data Science
• Teaching resources
• Common Core
• Online
• Supplemental materials