Our Company
Teacher Inspired Practical Stuff Inc. (T.I.P.S.) creates, compiles and publishes supplemental materials written by teachers for teachers. At T.I.P.S. we are not trying to reinvent the wheel: our goal is to gather practical, effective strategies from new and veteran teachers. We concentrate on finding the techniques that produce results.
As teachers, we know the overwhelming amount of work that needs to be done during the course of the year, including balancing administrative demands and parental concerns, satisfying curriculum guidelines, and of course, meeting individual student needs. We also know that, with so many competing priorities, even the most well-intentioned teachers may have to rely heavily on worksheets (or worksheet activities) to supplement a lesson. But wouldn’t you rather deliver a lesson with the aid of a comprehensive, hands-on and practical activity that capitalizes on the interests of your students?
T.I.P.S. was created to help those teachers who aspire to offer practical, innovative activities that are easy to understand and implement, while at the same time enriching the curriculum and improving the students’ learning.
Our Quality Standards
All T.I.P.S. materials are designed to help participants (teachers, administrators, substitutes, and parents) in the educational process improve the learning outcomes of their students.
We stress the importance of student-centered, hands-on learning activities which integrate writing throughout the curriculum, and we strive to lead teachers away from relying too heavily on worksheets as a means of teaching and assessing their students.
Our quality standards ensure that all materials, ideas, activities and approaches have been thoroughly tested, are practical, can be implemented quickly, and are not worksheet driven. Furthermore, all products have been tried in the classroom and shown to produce results.
Founders
Maria Calamito-Proto
T.I.P.S. President
Maria holds a Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education and a Masters Degree in Reading. She has been certified to teach in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, and is currently certified to teach in both Elementary Education K – 6 and Reading/Language Arts 1 – 12 in Connecticut. She has experience teaching kindergarten to fifth grade. While teaching third grade in southern Florida, she ran the mentoring program for all new teachers. It was while teaching third grade that she met Rachel, her friend and business partner. On Rachel, Maria writes,”Rachel has the most wonderfully creative brain and has shown me how to make writing fun for both the teacher and the students. She taught a weekly writing workshop and motivated the students to explore writing in ways they never had before. Her excitement for combining great literature with fantastic writing activities was felt throughout the entire school community. More importantly, she taught me that it is indeed possible to bake chocolate chip cookies in a toaster oven during a 20-minute lunch break. Everything I ever needed to know, I learned in third grade!” Maria currently lives and works in Connecticut.
Rachel James
T.I.P.S. Principal Educational Writer
Rachel holds a Bachelors Degree in Primary Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has taught in Canada, England, and the United States. Rachel has worked part-time as a creator and teacher of a guided research and writing program. She has also worked as an instructional writer with the SpellRead Program and then as a professional development writer focusing on researching and writing teacher in service training for school districts nationwide. When teaching 3rd grade in southern Florida she met Maria Calamito-Proto. During Rachel’s last year with the school she created and administered writing seminars for teachers in pre-kindergarten to fifth grade that guided teachers on how to inspire students to write. Along with leading workshops focusing on teaching, presenting, and assessing real writing in the classroom, she also worked with the school’s administration to create writing program standards for the entire elementary school. On Maria, Rachel says, “Maria and I hit it off immediately. I was so pleased to be working with someone who not only took teaching children as seriously as I did, but also someone who was confident enough in her teaching that she could step outside of the regular curriculum and readily explore other ways to challenge our students. I’ve learned so much from working with Maria-from how to better interact with parents and staff, to how to organize myself and my students. The new teachers at our school were lucky to have her in charge of the teacher mentoring program-especially since she knew about the cookie trick!” Rachel currently she lives and works in Freeport, Maine.
The TIPS Team
After collaborating on many teaching projects, Maria and Rachel decided to work together full-time creating a series of teacher materials that would be useful in today’s classroom setting. Along with input from colleagues, parents, and administrators, the duo surveyed educators across North America to better understand what today’s teachers require to meet their teaching goals. All products created by the team are reviewed by reading specialists, content area teachers, special education teachers, veteran teachers and administrators, whose input gets assessed and incorporated before any T.I.P.S. product goes to market.
