TED-Ed Invitation! The Lesson of My Life!

I am amazed!  I can't believe it!  Someone nominated me to do a TED-Ed Lesson and my nomination was chosen!

I was nominated to do a lesson on the "Reasons for the Seasons".  I am so excited that I can't even finish this post.

TED-Ed Invitation! The Lesson of My Life!

This is AMAZING! My 7th grade students loved this TED talk...

I recommend showing this TED talk to all of your middle school students.  Amy Cuddy discusses how to change your life by changing the position of your body for 2 minutes!  My seventh graders absolutely loved this video:  they had a quiz in French class right after their science class, so we spent the final three minutes of our class in a POWER POSE to lower cortisol levels and elevate testosterone!

Photo from Amy Cuddy's TED Talk showing an example of the POWER POSE that we used in class.

I also liked this video because it tells the story of how personal experience shaped Dr. Cuddy's research and the problem that she investigated.  For those teachers who are focusing on teaching the scientific method, she clearly shows a slide that is her Problem Statement and discusses her hypothesis, as well as details on her experimental methods.  She also displays graphs of her experimental measurements (hormone levels).

This is AMAZING! My 7th grade students loved this TED talk...

Boy oh, boy! Cellular biology and immunology have come a long way since I was in college!

The last time I took a college course in cellular biology or immunology it was about 1994.  Since I am a science teacher, my professional journal-reading tends to concentrate on methodology research in science education, for example: Science Scope, Teachers College Record, or the Journal of Science Education and Technology.

Because of that, I live for "current events" projects or assignments in my classes.  It gives me and my students an opportunity to dive into what fascinates us about science at the cutting edge.  One of my tools for current events is my TED-talk-Tuesdays! I choose a few TED talks from TED.com and show them to my classes after previewing them (always preview your TED talks! you want to be prepared for jokes by the presenter or images--diagrams of human anatomy and such--that the kids may not be expecting).

My mind was blown today, though! The talk we watched today was by David Bolinsky, medical director of BioVisions biological animations studio at Harvard University.  It is amazing to me how much MORE we know now about the molecular mechanisms inside the cell than we did when I was in college!  I feel like I need to go back to school just to catch up!

After watching the talk, I searched around the internet for the full version of the amazing 3-dimensional animated, narrated and annotated video and found it here:

The Inner Life of a Cell - Harvard University

More science games & videos on Cell Structures at NeoK12.com  

I found it helpful to also view the same process in an animation format that was less visually complicated.  For a traditional flash animation of the same process (shown in 2D) with labels and explanations, click this link: http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/flash/extravasation.swf

Boy oh, boy! Cellular biology and immunology have come a long way since I was in college!

TED Talk Tuesdays: The Science Of Happiness and Living Extraordinary Lives

Last year a friend gave me a book called Flourish by Martin E. P. Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. I didn't read it.  Until this summer.  I highly recommend this book to educators, business people, members of the military or people who love someone.  Click here for an extremely biased review of the book.

As a scientist, the ideas in this book appeal to me because the findings about improving well-being and happiness and the techniques that Dr. Seligman presents and teaches in his book are research-based.  Life is short.  If I don't have to figure stuff out by trial-and-error, if I can just try something new that is proven to work--great!    I'm a working mother of two. It saves me time and improves my satisfaction with my life.  I definitely have had a few, "if I only knew this when I was younger.." moments while reading this book.

As a teacher of adolescents, this book and the UPenn Positive Psychology Center website gives me concrete, ready-to-use tools (like this complete 7-day curriculum on teaching positive psychology to adolescents) that I can use with  my students to help them learn to take an active role in improving their relationships with each other, their satisfaction with school and life and improving their outlook on life in a cognitively lasting way.

Today was TED Talk Tuesdays in my classroom.  We watch TED talks for science and technology current events and to observe effective presentation styles.  Here is the talk we watched today.  Shawn Achor is a psychology researcher and professor at Harvard University and CEO of GoodThink, Inc.  His positive psychology class at Harvard in 2006 was the most popular psychology class in Harvard's history. He also happens to be a very effective--and funny--presenter.  He presents many of the ideas that Seligman discusses in his book.  Watch out!  He only has 12 minutes and he talks really fast!  Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesdays: The Science Of Happiness and Living Extraordinary Lives

TED-Ed Cricket Beat Box. TED Talk Tuesdays just got a boost.

I do this thing in my science class called "TED Talk Tuesdays" where we watch TED talks that I've previewed or that students have recommended.  Then, we talk about them.  It's way more fun than science current events from the newspaper.

The newest one I've seen is from the new-ish? TED-Ed series.  Science teachers, take note!

TED-Ed Cricket Beat Box. TED Talk Tuesdays just got a boost.