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Community Review for Teaching Channel
My Take
The Teaching Channel is not a teaching tool to be used with students - it is a tool for teachers. It is like attending a conference session on "how to" implement a lesson or practice. Many Common Core standards have been specifically addressed - listed and demonstrated - in lessons. All of the lessons include an objective and "Questions to Consider" that help the teacher glean information from the video. Each lesson includes a PDF of the Instructional Plan, Sample Student Notes, Handouts and/or links to materials and Teaching Notes. These make it easy to duplicate or adapt the lesson for one's own use. Unlike other Graphite apps and programs, Learning Channel videos would rarely be used in class, but they can prepare a teacher to teach a new lesson or improve his/her practice.
Seeing lessons being taught is in itself valuable because teachers rarely get into each other's classrooms. To observe a teacher's questioning techniques, reviewing of information, and addressing vocabulary often gives teachers new ideas on how to introduce an activity. I recommend it to see ho other teachers "do it" or to get ideas to teach a specific topic.
How I Use It
I have used The Teaching Channel to get ideas, specifically in implementing engineering activities. Many of the video clips show how a teacher prepared and implemented a single activity with students. These range from specific subject areas - Language Arts, Science, Engineering, etc. to demonstrating Best Practices such as Facilitating Academic Discourse or Ideas for Assessment. I have also used this site in working with new teachers to show examples of different skills and pedagogies, such as Using a Warmup to Review Content, Differentiation or Student Engagement.