Meet the Maker: Mikey Sivert

In our Meet the Maker series, we shine a light on some of the many talented educators behind the resources on TPT, offering readers a behind-the-scenes look at their process and their story. 

“When you’re in a time pinch and you have to decide between taking care of yourself as a human or spending hours at night making a resource for your kids, you want something that’s ready and done so you can enjoy your evening and relax! I am proud to be one of those ‘problem solvers’ that finds solutions for teachers and impacts students in positive ways.”

Meet Mikey Sivert, the educator behind the store Mikey D Teach – SELebration Learning. We chatted with him about how he helps upper elementary school teachers find ways to integrate social-emotional learning (SEL) into their daily curriculum and enhance their classroom community. Read on to learn more about his approach to creating SEL resources that save educators time and relieve their stress.

What’s a piece of advice you’d share with educators this school year?

Give yourself grace! You are doing a great job. Educators are often harder on themselves than anyone else. While we would all wish that every single school day would be perfect, that’s just not realistic. Take deep breaths, use positive self-talk, laugh with your kids! 

This is a tough and challenging time in education, and unfortunately, we have some negative pressures coming our way. The last thing we need is to feed ourselves any more negative pressure than we’re already getting! Treasure the days that go well, and learn from the days that aren’t the best — but don’t allow yourself to dwell on the bad. Your kids are lucky to have you as their teacher!!!

What are two resources you’d recommend for back to school?

This is my all-encompassing Back to School SEL resource that includes activities for students and guides/ideas for teachers who want to incorporate more SEL into their school day this year.

Back to School Kit for Social-Emotional Learning | SEL Activities and Strategies
Grades: 3rd-5th | Classroom Management, Classroom Community

My best-selling resource that quickly helps teachers check in with their students each morning.

Daily Check In For Social Emotional Learning for Google Forms™
Grades: 3rd-8th | Classroom Management, Classroom Community

What’s a resource from another educator that you’d recommend? 

These activities from Kristine Nannini are always a hit with my kids! I always judge a back-to-school icebreaker activity by the amount of moans I get from my kiddos, and they never complain about these! Fun, engaging, and community building! (They also love these!) 

What inspired you to start selling on TPT?

I found TPT when I began teaching a new grade level (and therefore new content to me) in 2012. I was trying to find student-friendly content statements (or “I can” statements) and a TPT resource popped up in my Google search. 

Later that year, I was looking for some help in social studies because my textbook just wasn’t cutting it. My kids were bored, and it just didn’t have the information I needed to truly align to my state’’s standards. While I found most of what I was looking for on TPT, I couldn’t find everything I needed, so I resorted to making my own activity for the lesson. I remember thinking, “If these other teachers can sell their stuff, why can’t I?!” 

So, I listed my first resource, and eventually, had my first sale!

What motivates you to create resources for teachers?

I know what it’s like to have a lesson that is in our school-provided curriculum that just doesn’t work for our kids. Or, the bigger issue I often see is that it doesn’t meet the needs of exceptional learners. 

One of my business values is to save educators time and relieve their stress. Knowing that my resources do that for teachers is my motivation to keep creating new resources and improving the ones that already exist.

Tell us a bit about how being a TPT Teacher-Author changed your life.

I think the obvious one is that TPT allows me financial freedom that educators across the country (and many places in the world) simply do not have. 

More importantly, I truly feel like being a Teacher-Author has improved my teaching skills — more than even my Masters’ programs did! I know how to design resources that meet the needs of all students, academically and emotionally, and that naturally has evolved into how I teach in my classroom. I was named Teacher of the Year in 2019, and my nominator’s essay had lots of evidence as to  why I deserved the award. I remember reading it over and thinking, “Well, I do that in my classroom because of my work with TPT!” 

Another example is that I would not have considered myself a lot of things (like a graphic designer or a savvy business owner) but you learn so much when you have a TPT store! I have so many skill sets that I don’t know that I ever would have developed without TPT.

What’s your favorite thing about being a part of the TPT community?

The people! TPT employs such amazing people who support not only the Teacher-Authors, but also the teachers who visit the site. They truly care about education and educators, and they are a big part of why TPT is so successful. Any time a teacher interacts with TPT, they’re chatting with a true advocate for education and love teachers!

TPT Teacher-Authors are one-of-a-kind people who have made my life better. There are all of these amazing and wonderful people who want to help educators and students, and together we provide such value and support for education. I have developed so many true friendships over time with many Teacher-Authors — we’re like a family! 

I also love interacting with my customers. I often get Q&As and emails about my resources and about how I can help them even more. My work to support Buyers is very meaningful and is something I don’t take for granted.

What’s a life lesson you have learned from being a TPT Teacher-Author?

Do the thing that scares you. I know it’s cliché, but it’s true! If I had let the thoughts of “I’m not good at this TPT thing,” or “Who is going to buy MY products?!” win out, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

It’s clear that you put a lot of time into your resources. Can you tell us more about your creation process?

I have a “GPS” analogy I use for my resource creation. When I plan out a resource, I always start with two things: 

• What does the teacher need to teach? (Standards, concepts, etc.)
• What does the student need to learn? (How do I make this engaging?, How will they know they understand the concept?, etc.)

I call these things my “destination.”

Once I know what my destination is, I can plan out my route. This includes deciding what kind of resource I want to make. My store’s focus is social-emotional learning (SEL) , but within that, I often make ELA-based resources. I have to make decisions like what reading passage I’m using (Am I writing my own? Am I making a picture book companion?) and how I’m going to use that passage to get an SEL concept across to students.

I make all of the student-facing parts of the resource first. I have come to find in my work that no matter how well I might plan things for teachers, if the kids aren’t engaged or understanding the lesson, there’s no way the resource will work in a classroom!

A very important part of my resource creation process is to test my resources in my classroom. I’m making products my own 5th graders would actually need or could benefit from, so when I test my products, it’s something that fits in the scope and sequence of my own classroom. Using it with my own students is important because I can tweak and edit parts of the lesson based on their reactions and engagement during the lesson.

Once I have a solid student-facing resource, I create the teacher guide (which includes things like instructions and helpful hints).

I always make sure, as I work, that I’m always checking my “GPS” to make sure that my resources continue to meet the needs of the students and the teacher.

Where do you find inspiration for your resources?

My inspiration comes from all over the place! A good picture book or novel I’ve read, standards that are released by groups like CASEL, newly released state standards, a need I see in my own classroom, a need I hear about from other teachers. . .

The list of ideas just continues to flow in!

What are some of the ways you incorporate research-based strategies into your resources?

As an SEL creator, a lot of the research suggests that students learn best by using real-world examples. Often, I will use scenarios or “social stories” that my students might actually experience in their daily lives.

For example, I am working on a student agency resource right now. I wrote social stories that an upper elementary  child might experience. I have one story where a girl is being teased on the playground. I ask the students to use their agency as if they are the girl being teased (self-agency), and to use their agency as someone watching this happen (bystander-agency).

The real-world application of these soft skills helps students practice the skill in isolation before it happens in real time.

What are some ways you ensure your resources work with students?

In addition to what I discussed earlier, I also rely on teacher feedback (both from customers who leave a comment after purchasing one of my resources on TPT, as well as direct communication via email and Instagram). I need to know that my resources work with my students, but it also needs to work for other teachers in other educational settings as well. It really means a lot to me when they take the time to tell me what they love about a resource, and what I could do to make their lives even easier!