15 TEDs to Add a Health and Wellness Thread to Your Anatomy Class

15 TEDs to Add a Health and Wellness Thread to Your Anatomy Class

We have our students in Anatomy complete five TEDitorials of TED Talks that deal with transitions and changes to the Healthcare system. Here is a list of the TEDs that we provide for our students to choose from.

12 TEDs to Create a Thinking Attitude for Environmental Science

12 TEDs to Create a Thinking Attitude for Environmental Science

Here are my suggestions for 12 TED Talks to get students to think about sustainability and their role as stewards of the planet.

10 TEDs to Create a Learning Environment for Your Flipped Science Classroom

10 TEDs to Create a Learning Environment for Your Flipped Science Classroom

It is my humble opinion that the number one key to the success of a "Flipped Classroom" is the development of a classroom environment that values learning over the accumulation of grades.  Creating a community of learning that we all benefit when we all participate in the process of gaining knowledge.   While this may seem "utopian", there is an actual joy that comes about in students who lose the the stress of being defined by a letter.  

I use these TED's in my classroom and as home viewing content to assist in the development of that learning environment for the students entrusted to my care.  

TEDitorials - Increase Science Literacy

TEDitorials - Increase Science Literacy

For the last five years, I have incorporated more writing in my Science curriculum by an online assignment called a TEDitorial.   

I use these TEDitorial assignments as a means incorporating the 6 C's of my classroom into one assignment.  In developing an editorial opinion students are encouraged to develop critical thinking skills.  Many of the TED Talks involve aspects of Art and Culture, bringing to light for the students the importance of design and beauty in the process of science. The aspects of online assignments, viewing the TED and researching support brings the 
utilization of connectivity into play. 

Students have become so compartmentalized in the subjects we teach they tend not to bring their English minds to the table when it comes to writing in science.  While I explain to students that their are differences in the way we may present information in science, it is important that their written communication is organized, clear and concise and demonstrate the same expectations of gramar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling as they would in a paper for English or History. 

To accomplish this, I have used an assignment called a TEDitorial.  I select and post a TED video (http://www.ted.com/) on my classroom Moodle site every Monday throughout the semester.  Students must view five TEDs throughout the semester and compose and post an editorial supporting or denying the claims of the TED presenter.  Students must incorporate their own research and information from our classroom discussions to support their opinion of the presenter's information. Support for their opinion can be made through an outside source, A personal experience or a counter-example.

The trend through the semester of this assignment has been very typical.  I usually need to spend a great deal of time explaining the difference between a summary of the TED and an editorial for the first two submissions.  I also spend a great deal of time correcting the English aspects of their writing. Which most students can't seem to understand why this is important in science course.  By the third submission most students are actually writing editorials and submitting extra in the way of links to websites they discovered while researching the topic further.  I also have discovered that interest tends to peak about the fourth editorial and students watch several of the TEDs before choosing one that they have more passion about and truly want to editorialize.

I have found that many students begin to visit the TED site on their own to search out information about other topics on top of the science and learning based TEDs that I have selected for them.

TED-Ed - Flipped Lessons

TED Ed - Flipped Lessons

I have discovered creating flipped lessons through TED Ed (http://ed.ted.com).  The site allows instructors to use any of the pre-formatted TED Ed Flipped lessons and personalize video lessons  for the instructors classroom and curriculum. Teachers can use any TED (http://www.TED.com/video) or You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/user/SMARTERTEACHER) video to create a flipped lesson.  The format allows the instructor to create 15 multiple choice or short answer questions that can be directly linked to the video.  Also included in the lesson format are options to create discussion questions and additional assignments based upon the topic of the flipped lesson.  

The flipped lesson format of the TED Ed site is a functional means of introducing new topics through multimedia formats.  Creating support lessons for extending the classroom for additional work and/or review of material.  Or to supplement the curriculum with additional topics that cannot be completed within the guidelines of the curriculum.