Amplify Student Voice: Be a Facilitator of a TED-Ed Club at Your School Author: Mara Pacheco Becker, MSc Multidisciplinary Studies English as an Additional Teacher, Pan American School of Porto Alegre -Brazil mbecker@panamerican.com.br Twitter: @marapach
When I learned about TED-Ed Club, I got really interested in getting to know more about it. My connection with TED was through volunteer work as a translator and an organizer of the first TEDxYouth event at Pan American School of Porto Alegre. In addition, TED platform has great videos that can be used in the classroom. Therefore, I decided to apply to be a TED-Ed Club facilitator. After being accepted, TED-Ed Club at PAS POA as offered was an elective for MS/HS students. TED-Ed Club program goal is to help students “in discovering, exploring and presenting their big ideas in the form of short, TED-style talks”. A TED-Ed Club @PAS POA was officially launched. TED-Ed Club offers a very complete pack of resources for the facilitators to use in class. The resources help facilitators to guide students in the whole idea of discovering their passion, developing ideas that are “worth sharing”, and creating a presentation like a TED – style talk. The resources are very useful because they help the facilitators to design the whole process, step by step. During that quarter, students discussed what they considered their passions that could be shared with the school community. We decided to have our videos shared with parents, teachers, and other students on the school’s International Day. In order to get ready for that, students explored the resources offered by TED-Ed Club and learned “how to frame their idea and present it in a TED-style talk”. After having the videos ready, they were uploaded on the TED-Ed Youtube channel. A great advantage in using the resources from TED-Ed Club is that the whole process of framing the ideas and presenting them in a TED-Style talk are ready to be used. There are 13 lessons that can be taught in one or two 50- minute class. For instance, in meeting 11, students presented their talks in front of the club, received feedback, and, in the next meeting, worked on editing their video. The topics chosen by my students were varied: music, stress, family, sports, etc. It was a great opportunity for students to get to know more about what interest them and also for students to get to know each other better. In addition in preparing presentations, we had some guest speakers in our class. The guest speakers were people from our community who came to share with students their passions and their presentations. Moreover, as a class, we took part in a TED -Ed Club Connect Week, when we connected with other TED-Ed Clubs from all over the world. This was one the students’ favorite activities. We were able to connect with TED-Ed clubs from Spain, USA, India, and Turkey. It was very enriching experience for everyone who took part in it. The experience of having the TED-Ed Club at our school was very motivating. After the quarter finished, some students who were National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) members accepted the challenge of organizing the second TEDxYouth@PASPOA event at our school. It was another rewarding experience because students could use the presentation skills they learned in TED-Club to help speakers frame their ideas. This year, we are going for the third TEDxYouth event at our school. This school year, I am not a TED-ED Club facilitator. However, my enthusiasm about it was so great that TED-Ed Club invited me to be part of the TED-ED Club Council. My mission is to spread what TED-Ed Clubs are and invite more schools and teachers to have a club at their schools. If you are interested to get to know more about it, please visit the link below for more information or send me an email. I will be happy to help you.
TED-ED Clubs Resources