This month I will explore, in-depth, five possible side hustles for educators. These are tried and true ways that educators can establish themselves as a brand, create content, and make a little extra money on the side. All five of these are possible income streams, and I will feature each one in its own post, along with my own experience creating and monetizing content and how much success I’ve had with each method or platform.
Curriculum Development: Use your expertise as a teacher or writer to create and sell curriculum materials on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers (now TpT) or Teachers Notebook. I’ve been selling on TpT for five years.
Freelance Writing, Copyediting, pr Proofreading. Write articles or blog posts for websites or publications in your area of expertise. You can find freelance writing opportunities on sites like Fiverr or Upwork. I’ve had great success with Fiverr, although it is a LOT of work.
Create Online Courses: Teach online courses or workshops through platforms like Udemy or Skillshare.
Blogging: It’s still possible to make money blogging! The primary ways people make money blogging are through ads and affilate marking.
YouTube: Although this is a very difficult platform to break into, and making videos is very time-consuming, some creators are able to make a living off of YouTube alone. I think with consistency and persistence this can be a valuable income stream.
I have created content and made money, or attempted to make money, on the following platforms:
TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS (TpT)
FIVERR
UDEMY
WORDPRESS
YOUTUBE
This month I will share my experience with each platform, as well as tips and tricks for how to create an audience and make money, as well as my progress on each platform over the next 30 days.
Research projects are an essential part of the English and Language Arts classroom. These types of projects allow students to develop critical thinking skills, improve their writing, and gain a deeper understanding of the subject they are studying. By focusing on the process of research, rather than just the end product, teachers can help students become more confident and skilled writers.
On the other hand, simply providing students with a large project prompt and little guidance can often result in unweildy papers that contain large amounts of cut-and-pasted information, irrelevant quotes and blocks of text, and pla·gia·rized passages.
One of the key benefits of focusing on the research process is that it helps students develop critical thinking skills. When students are given the opportunity to conduct their own research, they are forced to think for themselves and evaluate the credibility of the sources they are using. This can be a challenging task, but it is an important part of the learning process. By teaching students how to evaluate sources, teachers can help them become more discerning readers and writers.
Another benefit of focusing on the process of research is that it can improve students’ writing skills. When students are given the opportunity to conduct their own research, they are exposed to a wide range of information and ideas. This can help them develop their own ideas and arguments, which they can then use to improve their writing. By focusing on the process of research, teachers can help students become more confident and skilled writers.
Finally, focusing on the process of research can help students gain a deeper understanding of the subject they are studying. When students conduct their own research, they are not simply regurgitating information that has been presented to them by their teacher or a textbook. Instead, they are actively exploring the topic and forming their own conclusions. This can help them develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the subject.
In conclusion, the process of research is an essential part of the writing classroom. By focusing on this process, teachers can help students develop critical thinking skills, improve their writing, and gain a deeper understanding of the subject they are studying. By providing students with the opportunity to conduct their own research, teachers can help them become more confident and skilled writers.
Classroom activties for students learning the research process:
Brainstorm topic ideas in small groups
Make a mindmap
Develop a list of key words
Find and evaluate at least 3-5 sources on your topics
Learn the difference between primary and secondary sources
Compare the results of different search engines
Take notes on index cards
Write a thesis statement
Make and outline
Give a short talk on your research process and what you’ve learned about your topic so far
Self-determination theory is a psychological theory that explains the motivation behind human behavior. It suggests that people have a basic need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and that satisfying these needs is essential for psychological well-being and optimal functioning.
In the writing classroom, these three needs can be particularly important for student success and motivation.
Autonomy refers to the feeling of being in control of one’s own actions and decisions. In the writing classroom, providing students with choices and allowing them to take ownership of their own learning can foster a sense of autonomy and increase their motivation to write.
For example, giving students the option to choose their own writing topics or allowing them to collaborate with their peers on a writing project can help them feel more in control of their own learning.
Competence refers to the feeling of being capable and effective in one’s actions. In the writing classroom, providing students with the necessary tools and support to improve their writing skills can help them feel more competent and motivated to write.
For example, offering writing workshops along with individualized instruction and student-teacher writing conferences can help students develop their skills and feel more confident in their abilities.
Relatedness refers to the feeling of connectedness to others. In the writing classroom, creating a supportive and inclusive learning environment can help students feel more connected to their peers and teachers. This can increase their motivation to write, as they feel that their writing is valued and appreciated by others.
For example, providing opportunities for students to write about topics and issues they care about about, having students share their writing with their peers or a larger audience, and making sure students receive timely and constructive feedback from the instructor or their peers, can help them feel more connected and motivated.
Overall, incorporating the principles of self-determination theory in the writing classroom can help foster a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness among students, which can in turn increase their motivation and engagement in the writing process. By supporting students in satisfying their basic psychological needs, teachers can help them become more confident and successful writers.
A rubric is a tool that teachers use to help them communicate expectations, provide focused feedback, and grade products, can be invaluable when the correct answer is not as cut and dried as Choice A on a multiple-choice test. But creating a great rubric is more than just listing expectations and assigning percentage points. A good rubric needs to be designed with thought and care in order to be most helpful to teachers and students.
Steps to Creating a Rubric
Step 1: Define Your Goal
Before you can create a rubric, you need to decide the type of rubric you’d like to use, and that will largely be determined by your goals for the assessment.
Ask yourself the following questions:
How detailed do I want my feedback to be?
How will I break down my expectations for this project?
Are all of the tasks equally important?
How do I want to assess performance?
What standards must the students hit in order to achieve acceptable or exceptional performance?
Do I want to give one final grade on the project or a cluster of smaller grades based on several criteria?
Am I grading based on the work or on participation? Am I grading on both?
Step 2: Determine Your Criteria
This is where the learning objectives for your unit or course come into play. Here, you’ll need to brainstorm a list of knowledge and skills you would like to assess for the project. Group them according to similarities and get rid of anything that is not absolutely critical. A rubric with too much criteria is difficult to use and can be overwhelming to the students. Try to stick with 4-7 specific criteria for which you’ll be able to create unambiguous, measurable expectations in the performance levels. You’ll want to be able to spot the criteria quickly while grading and be able to explain them quickly when instructing your students. In an analytic rubric, the criteria are typically listed along the left column.
Step 3: Create Your Performance Levels
Once you have determined the broad levels you would like students to demonstrate mastery of, you will need to figure out what type of scores you will assign based on each level of mastery. Most ratings scales include between three and five levels. Some teachers use a combination of numbers and descriptive labels like “(4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, etc.” while other teachers simply assign numbers, percentages, letter grades or any combination of the three for each level. You can arrange them from highest to lowest or lowest to highest as long as your levels are organized and easy to understand.
Step 4: Write Descriptors for Each Level of Your Rubric
This is probably your most difficult step in creating a rubric. Here, you will need to write short statements of your expectations underneath each performance level for every single criteria. The descriptions should be specific and measurable. The language should be parallel to help with student comprehension and the degree to which the standards are met should be explained.
Again, to use an analytic essay rubric as an example, if your criteria was “Organization” and you used the (4) Exceptional, (3) Satisfactory, (2) Developing, and (1) Unsatisfactory scale, you would need to write the specific content a student would need to produce to meet each level. It could look something like this:
Examples of Rubric Criteria
For a Paper/Essay
clarity, organization, grammar
context of & purpose for writing, content development
genre & disciplinary conventions
sources & evidence
control of syntax & mechanics
communication, critical thinking, content
thesis, structure, use of evidence, analysis, logic and argumentation, mechanics
ELA Source 
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