Five TED Talks That Have Changed My Classroom

TED

www.ted.com

I’ve long been a big fan of TED talks, and stumbled on a blog post with the idea to “Give TED” for the holidays (#GiveTED). I previously posted about TED Ed, but this post is focused on the TED Talks as both an inspiration and teaching tool.

TED Talks started out as a distraction to me while on the treadmill, but have since spurred some of the most creative projects and fundamental changes to my classroom. I even use some as content in my flipped classroom approach. So this holiday season, I’m sharing five TED Talks that have made positive impacts in my classroom.

Image Source: TED Blog

Candy Chang: Before I die I want to…
This talk led to the building of a “Before I Die…” wall in my classroom.

From TED: “In her New Orleans neighborhood, artist and TED Fellow Candy Chang turned an abandoned house into a giant chalkboard asking a fill-in-the-blank question: “Before I die I want to ___.” Her neighbors’ answers — surprising, poignant, funny — became an unexpected mirror for the community. (What’s your answer?)”

Cesar Kuriyama: One second every day

I’ve been doing this personally since last spring, and I’m planning a classroom one-second project for the spring.

From TED: “There are so many tiny, beautiful, funny, tragic moments in your life — how are you going to remember them all? Director Cesar Kuriyama shoots one second of video every day as part of an ongoing project to collect all the special bits of his life.”

Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity

A must-watch for any educator.

From TED: “Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

Ed Tech food for thought!
From TED: “Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education — the best teachers and schools don’t exist where they’re needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.”

Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

Inspiration for my Environmental Science students’ upcoming sustainable agriculture service project.

From TED: “Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where ‘the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.’ ”