Howdy, Friends...and TpT Sellers!

Today I am coming at you with six simple steps to start tracking your TpT Seller statistics! I have been part of the TpT family for two years and have learned so much a long the way.

Teachers Pay Teachers is making data collection easier than ever with their new Dashboard for sellers. Personally, I have several different platforms to share ideas with other teachers, including this blog, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Followers here, followers there, followers, followers everywhere! I figured new sellers especially could benefit from a starting point.

Create a convenient place to store the data you will be collecting. For the past year, I have been using a 1/2'” binder. I didn't like that my binder had to be planted on my desk. I often found myself taking screen shots of my stats at certain times of the month when I remembered what day it was...I'd forget, delete the photo, and well, it wasn't very successful.

I recently purchased a planner that fits in my purse and that is large enough for all of my important information I like to keep within it. I can now take everything I need to track my stats with me everywhere I go! So, pick a house…binder, planner, folder, etc. I have used the random sticky note method...but I can't seem to keep track of all of them!

Select or design pages to go inside your house, (binder/planner/folder) that meet the needs of the audiences that you reach. 

Basically, I want to track my TpT store and my social media accounts. When thinking about what sheets are best suited for you, think of what platforms you are a part of...and what platforms you will soon grow into as a seller. You may not have an account yet, but may be interested in expanded into that space soon. I started one at a time and tried to get proficient before moving onto another. There are many free and paid resources of stat trackers/data collectors right within the TpT site that are specially designed for its sellers. 

Decide how often you want to collect your stats (daily, weekly, monthly, and annually). Personally, I track my stats when I am able, but ALWAYS try to record them faithfully on the 15^th of the month (middle of the month) and on the last day of the month). This allows me to see growth…and growth motivates me. If I haven’t posted a new product, I might have the inspiration to finish one of my many “works in progress.” The great thing about the data sheets I use is that they are based on a monthly calendar with boxes for tracking data daily, so I just fill in the boxes whenever I am able to do so!

*TIP: A great thing about TpT is you can always go back to specific dates and track your earnings and how many products you sold. (So you can backtrack with this information as needed!)

If today is a "Data Collecting Day," log into each of your accounts TpT and social media and record the number of followers you have on recording sheets or calendars. (Data sheets I use in the calendar format are shown in the photograph to the left.)

Sometimes I make additional notes in extra notes or on the margins if something exciting happens on a particular day, such as "I hit 400 followers today!" or "The Top TpT Seller started following my account."

I like to note when I post new products and on which day I sold my first one. This is another way I encourage myself to stay persistent!

Using the new TpT Dashboard is great for analyzing data. You can look at how your store is doing this week as compared to last year. If you a new seller, you can look at your sales and decide which days are your best days and which are your slowest days. There is definitely a pattern! The most obvious pattern you will note is the summer slide…readers and sellers have this problem! The beginning of summer is pretty slow for most sellers and then it tends to pick up as the Back-to-School rush starts.

I tend to look at weekly and monthly data, more so than the day-to-day data. Within a month, I look at which products were most popular. For instance, this summer my biggest seller is pacing guides. I can make an apparent correlation about this as it is the summer and many teachers are planning their new school year. Also, there are many new teachers who are looking for a starting point so they can begin to look up resources for their new class. You know, Pinterest, and now Instagram are the most popular places for summer professional development! 

I would be amiss if I didn’t include Step 6. Now, that you have reflected on your data, make business decisions based on your data. If you sell Product A during testing months, you might want to change that to your "Featured Product" a few weeks before it usually starts selling. Last summer, I committed to revising some older looking products to bring them up to my current standards! (I still have a ways to go with that being said!) 

Another example of an analysis might be: If I am selling a lot of puzzle type resources, I might want to expand my line in this area.

Think of ways that you can expand on the good things that you are noticing.

If you are using a binder or planner, feel free to check out this resource which is what I am currently using to track my stats. Whatever you use, commit to looking at your data, analyzing it, and making a plan for the betterment of yourself as a teacherpreneur!

Planner or Binder Inserts for TpT Sellers

Happy Tracking!

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Laura Williams

 

Howdy, friends!

 

It has been a while since I have written, but I have not forgotten you. I must take a moment to express my gratitude to all of you who read this faithfully or happen to stumble across this link off of Pinterest, Facebook, or some other source. I am very honored that you continue trust me to provide insight into my practice and resources that I use with my students for you, through Teachers Pay Teachers. My Facebook fans have doubled in one week and I have absolutely no idea why! If you have the answer, please comment and let me know! Whatever the case, I am delighted that you would spend part of your busy day here on my blog!

 

For many years, we have been committed to assessing students, whether it be a benchmark or common assessment for a unit or a mastery test, such as the infamous STAAR test (given here in the great state of Texas.)  We saw this significantly increase after No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was passed into legislation. Though much attention has been on the assessment of our students and standards, what has been forgotten is the day-to-day mastery of our learning target.

 

When we teach a unit or subunit, we have many things that need to be taught in order to gain mastery at the end. Each of these pieces can be broken down into daily learning target. "Today, we will learn how that two addends put together make a sum." Or, "today, we will learn how to order numbers from least to greatest."



The daily learning target is what I want my students to know by the end of the day's mini-lesson. We create small goals for our students to master during the week, so that by the week's end, we can give them a summative assessment (on the entire subject). In the last few years, our practice as teachers have changed. More emphasis has been given to the formative assessment of students.

I often use a quick question that the students need to answer or give them some type of application that they need to do on a sticky note. I can use the sticky note to check their understanding of the daily learning target. It often sounds like this: "Draw an example of..." or "Create a..." This promotes higher order thinking/critical thinking skills.

 

Look at the example of the Circle Map (Thinking Maps) of Light Energy. Here is a quick insight into what I think when I see this map at first glance:

1. See the sticky note of "Angry Birds." I may go up to that student and ask, "Tell me why Angry Birds is an example of light energy." Based on the student's response, I would know if they need additional support (intervention) on the topic of light energy.

2. See the sticky notes of the sun, night light, stars, and glow-in-the-dark stickers, I can quickly see that all of those students have a very exact example of light energy, thus demonstrating mastery of the daily learning target in science.



Students were instructed in science to "Draw an example of light energy."

Here is a math example of a number bond unit.



Students were instructed in math to "Create a number bond with two addends." (Texas TEKS K.3AC) 

How do you use sticky notes in your classroom?

 

Happy Stickin'!

 

Laura 

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Laura Williams

Howdy, friends.

Aside from filling up my shopping cart today on Teachers Pay Teachers, I am preparing my things for the new school year. I have been VERY busy and haven't put as much thought into as I feel I should. I have been doing curriculum writing for my school district in the area of science which consumes a lot of personal time, but I love it!

I created a data analysis and graphing bundle recently based off of what I did in my kindergarten classroom this past year. A big push from our school district last year was graphing since it is so heavily tested in the upper grades on the STAAR test (Texas). I recently completed a "study" on the third, fourth, and fifth grades mathematics assessments and was blown away at the results. See the full results on the Preview for the bundle.

5 Minutes a Day Bundle

Anywho, I proved that data analysis and understanding how to read and interpret data from graphs is very important, especially in the format of a table. Okay, you may have known that--but I proved it to myself! I created and designed more than just a cutesy pack, but a practical pacing guide with scaffolded critical thinking questions (based off questions found on STAAR in the three grade levels--they are shown below clipped together with binder rings--binder rings sold separately.). Looks can be deceiving! THIS IS A HIGHER LEVEL THINKING SKILLS BUNDLE OF JOY!

5 Minute a Day Bundle

The idea behind the pack, and what I do in my classroom, is to devote five minutes a day to graphing and data analysis. I have used a system where I do a small five minute piece a day, and by the end of the week, I have a beautiful graphing wall. Disclaimer: it wasn't so beautiful last year. I used sentence strips, index cards, random colored markers, etc. This is why I dedicated so much time and thought creating this pack for you as it is something I will be using in...three weeks! Saddle up!

Students take ownership as they collect and record the data on the graph of the week (each student "graphs in" weekly). Each day, something different is done we collect on the first day (including converting data on bar graph to a table, questioning, and labeling the parts of the graph to build content-specific academic vocabulary).

5 Minute a Day Bundle

The scaffolded questions are written to be a direct match to the TEKS (Texas Standards). They grow in complexity and are arranged in stages. Stage 1 represents basic "right there" questions while Stage 3 are the most complex questions where students have to combine the data set. In the middle are inferencing questions and basic operations (finding the difference, etc.) As a bonus, I added some sentence stems cards (for English learners) and multiple choice cards (for upper grade to write their own questions.)

There is also an extension piece that is added, especially designed for English learners. Look at the photograph above. Do you see the blue arrows? These are blackline masters and include significant vocabulary for data analysis and graphing. A special piece I like to do with my students is having them label the graph, after we study it for a few days. Not only do they begin learning the content-specific words, but they also have a concrete example for learning these new words. If you label the graph and table every week, can you imagine what smart statisticians you will have in your classroom?

My students were very successful in this method of teaching graphing and data analysis and I know yours will be too!  There is only printing and preparing on your end...everything is done for you!

I hope this post inspires you to incorporate data analysis in your classroom and if you want to use my five minutes-a-day data resource, it's in my TpT shop. 

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Laura Williams