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Teacher Review for Ted-Ed: Thinking & Learning

Ted in Students' Heads

Ryann G.
 Special education instructor
P.S. 129 John H Finley
New York, United States
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My Grades 3, 4, 5
My Subjects English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Arts, Health & Wellness
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My Rating
Learning Scores
Engagement
Pedagogy
Support
My Students Liked It Yes
My Students Learned Yes
I Would Recommend It Yes
Setup Time 5-15 minutes
Great for Further application
Knowledge gain
Student-driven work
Whole class
Great with ELL
General
Low literacy
Special needs
How I Use It
We used Ted talks for individual projects. For example, students learned about various topics including Atrazin frogs, plastic in the ocean and BPA in baby products. Students appeared engaged because the topics involved their everyday lives and they could make connections to what they wanted to learn. Limitations for my students: I needed to summarize and provide small clips for the heavy knowledge overload by some presenters. Other presentations that provided a lot of images kept students attention longer.
My Take
I think Ted talks are great and provide low literacy students a good source for informational writing. Students are able to reach the same rich content as their peers. Ted can also provide background knowledge or extend understanding of various topics. Some videos use a lot of domain specific vocabulary that needs to be previewed for students.