TED-Ed Brings the Periodic Table to Life

Working with Dmitri Mendeleev's brilliant periodic table of elements, first published in 1864, has become a groan-inducing task for many students today. The organization of elements into a succinct and useful table was ground-breaking, and even more impressive was Mendeleev 's foresight: He left blank spaces on the table where he imagined elements would go when they were eventually discovered (and he was right!). However, the fascinating history of the table is often lost on frustrated students who find studying it boring and memorizing the properties of all those elements next to impossible.

Rather than memorizing, we suggest that students endeavor to understand the properties of the elements instead. And thanks to a partnership between TED-Ed and Periodic Videos, it's easy to do just that.

Periodic Videos is a series made by a team from the University of Nottingham. It is led by the star of the videos, an eccentric, bespectacled professor with a huge mane of white hair named Dr. Martyn Poliakoff. Actually, as of December 2014, he is Sir Martyn Poliakoff, having been knighted for his contributions to the field of inorganic chemistry. In collaboration with TED-Ed, Periodic Videos has made a short video lesson for each element in the periodic table). Some, like the video for krypton, are just over a minute long.

                                       

Others, like the video for scandium, take more than seven minutes. The lessons intersperse informational tidbits shared by Sir Poliakoff with experiments by his team that illustrate the elements' properties, bringing the periodic table to life. High school and college students and even chemistry-minded, precocious middle school students will enjoy this fascinating and helpful resource.

We would be remiss not to spread the word about the Periodic Videos YouTube channel  as well. If hydrogen bubbles that burst into fireballs or videos with titles like "Chicken in Acid Conclusion" (in which Sir Poliakoff discusses the results of an experiment in which chicken legs were dipped in hydrochloric and sulfuric acid) don't pique your interest, we're not sure what will.

    

Finding Logic in the English Language

Many people will tell you that English is a crazy language. Because it is derived from so many disparate languages—English is based mostly on a West Germanic language but peppered with influences from Greek, Latin, and other European languages—there are plenty of exceptions to English spelling patterns, grammar, and punctuation usage. Sympathetically agreeing with a child that English spelling doesn't make sense or that rules governing comma use are simply crazy may seem like a kind gesture. After all, the rules can seem endless and complicated, and we don't want to make kids feel bad about their errors.

But simply falling back on the excuse that English is just wacky and devoid of logic is not only damaging to kids' motivation to improve, it's untrue. English does contain exceptions, but there are actually plenty of rules that govern correct usage. These rules are not only fascinating to learn about, they're tremendously helpful.

For example, the /ər/ sound at the end of words that define a person's job can be spelled in two ways: "-er" (painter) and "-or" (senator). Though the two suffixes are pronounced the same way, they're spelled differently and many people will tell you that the only way to know which one to use is to memorize the word in question. Not so, according to Solving Language Difficulties, a fascinating and useful book of exercises by Amey Steere, Caroline Peck, and Linda Kahn. Although there are a few exceptions, spelling of the /ər/ sound corresponds with the level of education needed for the job. An "-or" spelling is generally used for someone whose job requires a great deal of education (doctor, editor, governor) while the "-er" is used for someone who doesn't need as much training (barber, farmer, waiter).

Want more? TED-Ed is an outstanding source of interesting educational videos. A great one to get you started is a fun, story-like video that anthropomorphizes the comma, lending logic to rules about when commas are called for and when they're unnecessary. 

                                       

Another video we love provides a brief, fascinating explanation of how English spelling that seems completely illogical, like the "tw" in the word "two" is actually reasonable and meaningful.

                                        

Learning these rules is empowering for kids. After all, nothing is more frustrating than being told that the guidelines don't make sense but you have to learn them anyway. And young people generally enjoy discovering explanations for concepts that were previously shrouded in mystery. Solving Language Difficulties and TED-Ed are just the beginning. But be warned: start digging and you may become hooked.

Software for the Classroom: Review of Animation-ish

Ages: Kindergarten through grade twelve 

Content Areas: Cross Curricular

Cost: Varies depending on the license purchased. More pricing information can be found on their website. Of note, a 15 day free trial is also available.

Technical Requirements: Animation-ish can be run on Windows, Mac, and Drawing Tablets

Description: One of my personal all-time favorite children’s authors has launched an award-winning software program titled Animation-ish. Peter H. Reynolds is the bestselling author and illustrator behind the incredible titles Ish, The Dot and The North Star. Mr. Reynold has moved beyond books and into the digital space with the launch of Animation-ish, which is described as “an easy-to-use animation software program that inspires creativity and enables children to show what they know.” Students can use this program as an alternative to writing a story (allowing a teacher to asses ability regardless of writing or graphomotor challenges), to create a presentation (which could be of benefit for students with language difficulties) or to animate a project. 

Not only will your students be able to bolster their digital literacy skills by learning how to independently create their own animations, but they can use it a medium to demonstrate their knowledge across curricular areas. As such, this would be an invaluable tool for teachers trying to embody the "multiple means of expression" aspect of Universal Design for Learning or differentiated instruction. Furthermore, embedded into the software program are a number of curricular based activities that they have aligned to the national educational standards. 

Technology has always been a professional interest of mine and, as a teacher, I would attempt a video or animation project with my class each year. However, so many of the video creation tools available are really designed for professionals, which can be a barrier to implementation in the classroom. What Animation-ish does is provide a child-friendly, simple way to have your students demonstrate their learning via video creation. This will serve as a highly motivating way for learners to showcase what they know, especially when compared to traditional assessment measures such as tests, papers or physical projects.

If you are curious about what this software can do, or apprehensive about the tech skills you must possess to integrate this modality into your classroom,  the team behind Animation-ish has published an exceptional Quick Start guide. Furthermore, professional development is a critical aspect of learning a new tool and a variety of lessons on how to use the different features of the program have made available on the Animation-ish website in order to help you. Beyond this resource, Mr. Reynold also offers a variety of tools for creating a creative classroom, which you may want to explore.  Most are literacy based and infuse elements of high quality art.

Different Ways to Think About and Apply to College

High school students, especially seniors, can't help but think about college. So much of their high school career -- coursework, extracurricular activities, grades, and standardized exams -- have been undertaken with thoughts of how these will translate into college acceptances by the second semester of senior year. Many students have spent time in recent months visiting campuses and deciding where they want to submit applications this fall.

Before you or your senior decides where to apply and, ultimately, where to enroll, we'd like to make a suggestion that may help inform your decision process.

Take the time to read or re-read the book Colleges That Change Lives: 
40 Schools That Will Change the

Way You Think About Colleges, by Loren Pope. Originally written in 1996, with a current 2013-14 edition updated by Hilary Masell Oswald, this book is a breath of fresh air in the world of competitive admissions, large schools, and ivy envy that permeates many students' college search. The narrative descriptions of these almost universally small colleges focus on the quality of teaching, the engagement of students with their professors, curriculum, and classmates, and the impact that this kind of personalized instruction has on alumni long after graduation.Most of the schools in this book accept a large percentage of applicants -- and a large number are SAT/ACT optional and take a goodly number of "B" students. But the education they provide is rigorous and meaningful, with many having a required core curriculum that gives students a deep understanding of their world and its unifying themes. Most have significant study abroad components, and it is clear that the authors believe this gives their students a significant advantage after graduation. 

Just a few examples of the different programs described in the book are:

• Emory and Henry College in Virginia, where, as the book notes, they do "a very good job supporting students who haven't hit their stride yet" with strong academic support services.
• Cornell College in Iowa (which the authors stress was the first Cornell, founded some dozen years before the ivy league Cornell), whose 1200 students study under a Block Plan, where they take one course at a time in an academic year of eight blocks of three and a half weeks each.
• Goucher College, in Maryland, where the 1500 students are required to spend at least one term abroad -- even if just the three-week January term or a summer. The book notes that around 30 percent of the students go abroad twice. One aspect of Goucher that is newer than even the most up-to-date revision of this book is that students can apply in one of several ways, including via video. The video application, only available for students who are applying via the non-binding, early action application, asks students to submit a short video about themselves and their goals. It is not the only way to apply to Goucher, but it may be just the way for some students to best demonstrate what makes them a desirable candidate. Take a look for yourself and see what you think. We hope this becomes a common way for other schools to learn about their applicants. 

Great Sources for Frontloading Videos – Part 2

Our regular readers will remember last Monday's post on this topic in which we introduced MinutePhysics and MinuteEarth as sources for frontloading videos for middle and high school students. As we explained in the previous post, frontloading is an effective instructional technique in which students are given a brief overview of a topic before learning it more thoroughly. Frontloading gives students an idea of what to expect, helps them to focus on the salient information more readily, and aids in memory.

Here are two more sources for great videos, all available free! Handwritten Tutorials will be useful to students of high-level biology and anatomy, while CrashCourse offers a broader range of courses on science, literature, and history.

Handwritten Tutorials  – high school, college, and nursing/medical school

Martin Wardle, the brainy artist behind Handwritten Tutorials, follows three guidelines as he conceives and draws up his lectures: they should be under ten minutes long, free, and enjoyable to watch. Martin has uploaded more than 75 videos in which he quickly draws all of the most important aspects of topics like anatomy, biochemistry, neuroscience, and more, narrating all the while. The explanations are easy to understand and the helpful sketches make things crystal clear. Want to take a closer look, make your own notes, or spend a bit more time studying? Students can even download the completed drawing as a PDF from the Handwritten Tutorials homepage.

CrashCourse – high school and college

Teenagers who are fans of author John Green’s quirky humor will love this channel just as much as they love his popular novels, which we have recently reviewed in our Recommended Reads series. Brothers John and Hank Green take on the task of explaining U.S. and world history, chemistry and biology, literature, ecology, and psychology on this channel, which has dedicated playlists for each topic. The videos tend to be longer, between ten to twelve minutes, because they cover more ground than the Minute videos described above. The Greens’ fast-paced delivery, visuals (comprised of diagrams, photos, maps, and animations), and joke-a-second, cerebral humor will pique adolescents’ interest in the topic before they get into the nitty-gritty of learning it in detail. There are over 100 videos to choose from.

We hope that you’re as impressed by these videos as we are! We think any of them would make a wonderful starting point for more in-depth learning.

Great Sources for Frontloading Videos – Part 1

One of our favorite strategies here at the Yellin Center is frontloading. Frontloading is a great way to boost comprehension in almost all learners, and especially in students who struggle with attention and comprehension. The principle is simple: A preview of a concept, in which a learner is exposed to some of the most important ideas, tends to help students understand and absorb the information when they’re presented with more thorough instruction later. For example, if a student reads a short summary of a science chapter before reading the chapter itself, she tends to understand the complicated ideas in the chapter more easily. She knows, for example, which information is most important. She also has a sense of where the chapter is taking her as she reads and so can more easily build a schema in her mind.

Frontloading can take many forms, but one of our favorite ways to frontload is to take advantage of the treasure trove of information available on the internet. Videos are a great way to frontload for lots of reasons: they’re visual, engaging, move fairly quickly, and hold students’ attention. We want to share some great sources for frontloading videos, all of which are available, for free, on dedicated YouTube channels. Not only are the videos below great sources for information about physics and earth science, they’re all humorous and are characterized by quick but precise explanations and explanatory visuals, too. Students who spend a few minutes watching a video preview before they attempt to read a textbook chapter or attend the next day’s lecture on the same topic will more readily understand and remember the relevant information.

MinutePhysics – middle and high school

As the name suggests, this channel hosts a series of videos that explain topics important in physics, such as gravity, wave/particle duality, the mechanics of the sun, and even Schrodinger’s cat. At the time of this writing, there were 123 videos available, though new ones are added all the time. Most videos are between one and two minutes long.

MinuteEarth – middle and high school

Just like MinutePhysics, this channel is a gold mine for students learning earth science and geology. Viewers can learn about the properties of sand, how trees survive winter, where Earth’s water came from, and other topics, all in less than three minutes per video. So far the channel has 33 videos, but their collection is growing.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post in which we’ll share other favorite video sources!

Get the Math Makes Algebra Relevant

Math, particularly algebra, can sometimes seem irrelevant to frustrated middle and high school students. It’s hard to see how solving for a variable or graphing a line could ever be useful. They’d much rather flip through a fashion magazine, shoot hoops, or listen to music. Thanks to Get the Math, however, algebra students can see real-life examples of how the math they’re learning is indispensable to those very industries and try their hand at solving the kinds of problems professionals face every day.


Get the Math, funded by WNET, plays host to a series of videos to set up real world math challenges. Algebra students can watch teams of teenagers travel to restaurants, music studios, video game designing companies, gyms, and other interesting workplaces where they meet young, dynamic professionals. After explaining their jobs, the pros present teams with practical challenges they’ll need algebra to solve. For example, fashion designer Chloe Dao wants a shirt to retail for less than $35, but it currently costs more than $40. So she presents the teams with the list of material and production costs, provides the mark-up, and sets them loose to change the design so the shirt will be more affordable. Video game designer Julia Detar of Arkadium challenges the teams to save a spaceship from colliding with an asteroid in a game she’s designing. The asteroid is traveling on a coordinate grid along a linear path. The teams are given only a few points and must figure out the asteroid’s trajectory, then plot a course to guide the spaceship to safety.

The introductory video ends once the problem has been presented, allowing viewers to tackle the problem themselves. The Challenge link provides access to screens that review the information in the problem, and they can enter and check their answers, too.

Once they’ve got it (or once they’re stumped), the final video in the series captures the team working in partner pairs. They discuss how they will solve the problem and critical information appears in captions at the bottom of the screen to make it easier to follow. Once the teams are happy with their answers, they present their solutions to the featured professional for feedback and reflect on the experience. Most of the time, both partner pairs will arrive at different correct solutions, highlighting the important lesson that real world math isn’t black and white. In redesigning the shirt, for example, one team opted to forgo the beading to bring down the cost due to a bad experience she’d had with beaded clothing. The other team chose to replace one type of fabric with a more durable and cheaper variety, hoping to both reduce the price and make the shirt less fragile.

Telling kids they’ll need math one day is nothing new. But hearing that message from a professional in a field of interest can be more powerful than hearing it from a parent or a teacher. We like the sense of empowerment students will feel when they realize that they’re learning the kind of skills that will make them valuable additions to the workplace. We hope to see this promising interactive site expand!

Poetry Comes to Life with Poetry Alive!

We've come to the end of our celebration of National Poetry Month and hope you have enjoyed our focus on all aspects of poetry. Today, we look at an organization that "returns to the bardic tradition of long ago..."

There’s nothing quite like seeing a talented performer breathe life into a wonderful piece of literature. Poetry Alive!, a poetry performance group, gives schools the opportunity to bring that experience to their students. The organization, which was founded nearly thirty years ago, sends two-person teams of performers around the country and the world to perform poems for children and teenagers. There are specific programs tailored to students in elementary, middle, and high school, which include poems to suit the different cognitive skills and tastes of each age group. Poetry Alive! makes kids think, but it also makes them laugh, gasp, chime in, and move around. Audience participation is a hallmark of the program, and students often have the opportunity to call out parts of the poems or take the stage to act out poems alongside the performers. The energy and passion Poetry Alive! lends to the genre is electric, and students leave performances nearly crackling with enthusiasm.

Schools must book Poetry Alive! to give students a chance to see the performances; information can be found on various links from their home page. Visitors can also access videos of poem performances and learn more general information about the organization.

Even students who have never gotten to see Poetry Alive! in person can submit their original poetry for consideration in the regular Poem of the Month contest. And Poetry Alive!’s Poetry Research Page  contains a wealth of kid-friendly information on poets and poems. Also worth a visit is the Poetry For Fun page, which will direct youngsters to fun destinations on the web where they can write magnetic poetry online, access poet Kenn Nesbitt’s lessons on writing funny poems, and more.

Watch Now: Dr. Yellin Dyslexia Webinar from Learning Ally

A recording of Dr. Yellin’s webinar from earlier this week for national nonprofit Learning Ally, Dyslexia: Diagnosis, Planning and Support for Struggling Readers, is now available for viewing online. The one-hour program was seen live coast-to-coast by hundreds of parents, students, and educators, and is featured on the Learning Ally website, where it will remain available for future viewing. Learning Ally provides accessible media such as audiobooks to students with learning disabilities and visual impairments. 

In the program, Dr. Yellin provides a detailed explanation of what is meant when we talk about "dyslexia"; an in-depth look at the many types of subtle learning variations that may be at play when a student is struggling with reading, spelling, or other challenges; and insight into why understanding each learner's individual strengths as well as weaknesses should be an essential component of educational planning. He also answers many questions from viewers.

“When parents, teachers and practitioners understand how developing appropriate strategies and interventions can improve children's reading skills and boost self-esteem, and when they have a deeper understanding of the root causes of a student's reading symptoms,” notes Dr. Yellin, “they can help to grow resilient, improved learners with a rekindled love of reading.”

Watch the video below:


Dyslexia: Diagnosis, Planning & Support for Struggling Readers from Learning Ally on Vimeo.

Thanks to all of the great people at Learning Ally for making this webinar possible.

Schoolhouse Rock! Turns Forty

“It’s great to learn, 'cause knowledge is power!”

Sound familiar? That’s a line from the introductory song to Schoolhouse Rock!, an educational cartoon series beloved by millions of students. Believe it or not, this year Schoolhouse Rock! celebrates its fortieth anniversary!

The sixty Schoolhouse Rock! videos cover topics as varied as math, grammar, science, American history, economics, and geology. In approximately three minutes, each pairs informative lyrics with a catchy beat to help students with tasks like differentiating between parts of speech, reciting the multiples of three, or understanding how a bill becomes a law. Despite their age, the videos are still used in some classrooms. Teachers find that students enjoy the fun, goofy videos, and they’re often able to recall important information more easily when it comes in the form of song lyrics.

Yes, Schoolhouse Rock! is dated, but that’s part of its charm. So invite your kids along for the ride as you unpack your adjectives, visit Conjunction Junction, and bring Interplanet Janet (from the days when Pluto was still a planet!), Mr. Morton, and Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla to your celebration of this rockin’ anniversary!

Image via Wikipedia

Flocabulary: A Novel Way to Learn New Concepts

Fact: Studying vocabulary flashcards is not as much fun as listening to music.

Why fight it? Trade in your vocabulary drills, math lessons, and science cramming for fun rap videos by Flocabulary. Available at their website or on YouTube, Flocabulary videos are catchy rap tracks that teach a variety of important concepts in a format that is palatable and memorable. For example, here is a sample of some lyrics from “Carlito,” a vocabulary-based track about the importance of standing your ground.  In the song, man named Carlito takes his dog for a walk and encounters “an evil, malevolent old man” who wants to steal the dog:

“The man looked ready to punch, he was truculent,
Pugnacious, ready to fight, belligerent.”

(Don’t worry, the story has a happy, and non-violent, ending.) This is what’s fantastic about Flocabulary – can you think of a catchier, clearer way to teach three SAT words in a single sentence?  Listening to this song a few times will cement forty words likely to be found on the SAT into a student’s mind. As a bonus, students can follow the lyrics as they listen on the Flocabulary website and click on words they may not understand completely to get the definition in a handy pop-up window. 

Flocabulary makes videos for students as young as kindergarten and covers topics found in some of the most advanced high school physics and literature classes. All of the lyrics are free and so are some of the videos, but for access to all of them users must pay a small subscription fee. Visit the Flocabulary website to see how these infectious beats can help your youngster master math facts, geometric formulas, Shakespeare, story elements, civics, globalization, and more!    

Watch a sample video below.

New Video Clips of Dr. Yellin

We're excited to share some new footage of Dr. Yellin speaking on a range of topics from a recent lecture. Stay tuned to this blog and to The Yellin Center's new YouTube channel for much more video to come in the future.