There were a couple of points this semester when I could hardly talk and needed to fill a few extra minutes of class time to give my voice a little rest. I have heard about TED in the past, but hadn't really thought about how I could use it in the classroom. Well, I tried it and it worked very, very well. I showed Conrad Wolfram's talk "Teaching Kids Real Math with Computers" and then had students write a reaction to what they saw. I haven't finished reading all the student papers yet, but I can tell that I have opened the eyes of many of my students to see math in a new and positive way. And it's been a few weeks since I've shown the TED talk in class and I still have students talking about the video and how they see the points in the video as being a positive thing for the future of math education. I'm truly amazed by the response from my students.
Using TED in the Classroom
On But that's not where it stopped for me. Now I want to watch more TED talks so that I can find more relevant TED talks to share with my students. Then it came to my attention that one of my favorite mathematicians, Arthur Benjamin, has given a few TED talks. I first heard Benjamin earlier this year when I ordered his course "The Joy of Mathematics" from The Great Courses. He is a delight to watch on the screen and truly does make math come alive. I am looking forward to sharing his TED talks with my students in future semesters.
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