TED-Ed Phnom Penh

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The effect of laughter on someone who’s sad. The danger and excitement of dirt biking. The reason human beings need so much sleep. The thought of infinity.

These are just a few of the topics that students are exploring through TED-Ed Clubs. This new program, announced today by our educational initiative TED-Ed, is a way to celebrate the ideas of students around the globe. Through TED-Ed Clubs, students — with the help of an adult facilitator — identify and research the ideas that matter to them most. And while TED-Ed Clubs offer students the opportunity to connect with others who, like them, are unabashedly curious about the world, TED-Ed Clubs are also about presentation literacy. TED-Ed Clubs offer students a hands-on opportunity to work on the storytelling and communication skills that will be vital, no matter what career path they end up strolling down.

TED-Ed Clubs are for students ages 8 to 18, and can contain up to 50 members. An educator — who gets materials and a hands-on orientation from the TED-Ed staff — leads the club through a series of 13 meetings, designed to get students to permanently wear their thinking caps. For the first three meetings, students watch TED Talks, discuss them and begin to think: what idea most captures my imagination? From there, students learn how to frame their idea and present it in a TED-style talk. In meeting 11, students give their talks in front of the club and, in the next meeting, work on editing their video. As a final step, these talks are uploaded to the TED-Ed YouTube channel — some may even be featured on the TED-Ed website.

Educators were thrilled to see students get so into the program. Marc Siegel, a chemistry teacher in New Jersey, shared on his blog, “The most fascinating aspect of the club was the type of student who came to the meetings. Almost all of the students are those that you might classify as ‘wallflowers,’ excellent students who would prefer to sit quietly in class and complete their work rather than answer questions or have attention drawn to them. However, pull all of these students out of the classroom, give then a non-school related topic to discuss that actually interests them, and suddenly they won’t be quiet. Our meetings ran overtime every time because the discussions were so interesting.”

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