03 February 2012

TED Conversations in the classroom

Can students learn better by sharing what they know? TED Fellow Nina Tandon believes in the power of sharing ideas and using TED Talks in her classroom. In addition to that, she is now using the TED Conversation platform in the Bioelectricity course that she’s currently teaching at Cooper Union in New York City. After hosting her own conversation on TED Conversations, Nina was inspired to use the platform in her classroom and let students take the role of sharing knowledge and leading discussions with the global community.

Here, Nina Tandon shares her motivation on using TED Conversations in her class:

“I’ve been hosting a class blog each year for the past four years as a way for students to share amongst each other, but this year I wanted to extend our reach into the global community, to have the students engage in “external participation.” I’m hoping that the students will learn by teaching, and will appreciate the unexpected lateral connections that may develop by engaging with the diverse TED community in the context of their developing classroom expertise! It’s an experiment, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how this experience contributes not only to the students’ growth, but hopefully to the TED community as well. Thank you so much to the TED Team for collaborating with us in this exciting endeavor!”

Each week throughout the semester, students will be starting new conversations. You can track them by searching the following tags: TEDinClass and Bioelectricity. Each conversation will be open for 1 week, until the next students starts a new one.

One of the students Samantha Massengill kicks off the conversation series with this question: How immune should science be from the political environment of its time?

And Ariel Habshush suggests an idea: Our bodies are amazing nano/micro electrical factories! and hopes to share his knowledge on this topic throughout the conversation.

You can access all these classroom conversations here as they are added, every week until mid-April. Students will be sharing what they’ve learned during the course on TED Conversations. Come to learn, participate and share, at ted.com/conversations/topics/TEDinClass.

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