Now We’re Talking

By Jamie Guillaume

Recently I attended a High Ability Conference in Indianapolis and like always, all of the ideas presented were not only good for High Ability kids, but for all kids!  Prior to this presentation, I was aware of TED talks; I have the app on my iPad, I have listened to a few, but I really did not know a fantastic way to use them in the classroom…. until now! 

TED Talks are video recorded, entertaining speeches on various topics.  In fact the topics are endless!  One idea to use them in the classroom is to first start by searching a talk based on your subject area or topic.  The TED site also lets you search by length of time.  I do recommend fully previewing the talk before using it in your classroom, because there are some talks that may not be appropriate for all ages.  After you find a talk to use, under the video you will see, “transcript.”  This pull down menu allows you to select a language and you can copy and paste the text of the talk into a Word or a Google Doc and print the transcript!

This gives students an entertaining and informative piece of text to annotate! Elementary teachers could use this as their read aloud and upper elementary and Jr.-Sr. high teachers could watch the clip and then for homework students could annotate the text of the talk.  To make this more rigorous, after the students have had time with the text, the teacher could facilitate a Socratic seminar. 

If you are not familiar with Socratic seminars, the students are arranged in a circle, they number the paragraphs of the text and the teacher poses a deep-thought question.  The students then discuss the question and reference the text to support their ideas.  The numbered paragraphs allow the student responding to let the other students know where they are referencing in the text to support their response. 

I recommend the following link to view a TED Talk titled, The Key to Success? Grit (It’s only 6 minutes): http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit.html
Not only will you love the context of the talk but it will allow you to see a performed talk and while you are viewing the talk, be sure to click on the transcript pull down menu to also see the text that corresponds with the talk.