TED-Ed Club
One of my goals as an educator is to provide students with a platform from which they can share their ideas. That's why I started TED-Ed Club at Wood Oaks Junior High. As a registered Club with TED, I have access to TED's resources, and at the end of our club cycle, TED publishes our Talks on the TED-Ed Student Talk YouTube Channel. That is quite a platform.
TED-Ed Club has a student-identified theme each year. At Wood Oaks, we have done:
TED-Ed Speak Up
TED-Ed Game Changers
TED-Ed Challenge Accepted
The Club meets once a week after school and focuses on helping students find their passion and then their voice. Students interact with brainstorming exercises, learn how to conduct research, organize their ideas, practice performance techniques through acting games, and peer-edit each other's talks.
Mid-way through the year, we do a "Tiny-Ted" event in the library to give the kids a chance to either workshop their topic or deliver a portion of their talk for a live audience.
Then, in May, we host a formal TED-Ed Night at school that is open to the community. We record those talks and sent them to TED to be published.
We have had several of our Wood Oaks talks selected as TED-ED's featured talks on YouTube.
In 2020, we concluded the TED-Ed cycle online, and students participated in a virtual TED-Ed Night.
This is one of our Talks from TED-Ed Speak Up. Evan talks about how rollercoasters, and the program Coster Kids, helped him learn to manage his anxiety and ADHD.