I’ve spend the last few weeks downloading and reviewing materials from the TES resources section. For those of you who haven’t come across it before, it is an online repository (free to access) for teachers to upload their own resources and share them with other teachers. Other teachers can also leave feedback, allowing authors to refine and improve their work if they wish.
People who know me and visit my site know that I regularly upload and share resources and ideas from my own classroom, however looking through the TES resources gave me an insight into what might be happening across a range of other teachers’ classrooms.
First of all I was impressed by the altruism of the teachers who had chosen to share resources, with some teachers having uploaded and categorised dozens of individual resources. Most of the resources I saw (over 75%) of them were useful or better, and I found many examples that I thought were worth highlighting (and will form the basis of later blog posts). However as I looked through the resources some nuggets of advice began to form in my head for those who want to share resources.
Explanation. When looking at some resources it was not obvious how the resource could be used. A lesson plan or even brief notes of explanation really help someone else see what the author had in mind when they created the resources.
Presentation. Something as simple as changing font size and line spacing can change how a resource is received by students (and other teachers). There isn’t really any excuse for a resource that uses half a side of tiny text and lots of empty white space. Are there any royalty free clipart images you could include to make your worksheets look more appealing to low ability or low literacy students?
Differentiation. Perhaps you differentiated your lesson or perhaps you changed the activity for a particular group. Either an included lesson plan or a few lines of text about what you might like to change can make the world of difference to teachers looking to download.
Assessment. Unfortunately we live in a data driven education system. While this might not be my preferred way of working, we have to play the game by the existing rules. Adding levels to your learning objectives or outcomes (if you have them) can be a life saver for your time pressed or newly qualified colleagues.
Categorisation. You created a resource for a specific group and topic. Make sure when you upload your resources you chose the right categories for your material – that will help others find your resource and increase your audience.
Is it a time saver? It takes a couple of minutes to create a table and put in some headings. Unless a table (for example a results sheet) is part of another activity, think carefully about if you need to upload it at all. You don’t have to upload everything you create!
Consider the learning. Ultimately we want to see students learn and make progress. Does an activity or resource allow a student to demonstrate this progress? If it doesn’t should you be sharing it as good practice?
I’ve uploaded lots of resources to my own site, and allowed my resources to be uploaded to the TES site. Perhaps in future I need to eat my own dog food and consider how I might improve the quality of my own resources or the accompanying description to make them more useful to my teaching colleagues.
Fiendishlyclever 