TECHNOLOGY

tips
Rachael Lehner

Creating Mathematical Lessons

Using TED-Ed

T
ED-Ed is a free web-based video
service tied to the well-known
TED Talks. TED-Ed allows
instructors to use videos on the web-
site for students to view as homework
assignments. It also has options for
educators to build lessons around
videos and include their own questions,
resources, notes, and discussion board
posts. Because the lessons have four
sectionsWatch, Think, Dig Deeper,
and Discussstudents are given mul-
tiple opportunities to interact with the
content and to reflect on their under-
standing. In the Discuss section, for
example, students are able to respond to
a question posted on a discussion board.
TED-Ed gives educators the freedom to
create personal lessons that can be used
for homework, extension assignments,
Edited by Heather Lynn Johnson
make-up quiz assignments, or project-
based instruction.
To demonstrate how TED-Ed can
be used to facilitate a lesson about the
Pythagorean theorem, I will include the
selection of the video, creation of the les-
son, implementation of the lesson, and
final analysis of student results that are
generated from TED-Ed.
USING TED-ED
First, open the link to TED-Eds home
page: https://ed.ted.com/. To see differ-
ent mathematics-focused lessons, click
the Lessons tab, then look for Mathemat-
ics in the menu on the left side of the
Lessons page. Five different subsections
appear when you click on Mathematics:
Algebra, Data Analysis & Probability,
Geometry, Measurement, and Numbers
& Operation. If you click on one of these
subsections, various premade lessons
and videos about different topics will be
viewable. With these premade lessons,
educators can quickly offer extension
assignments, and teachers can give curi-
ous students something to further their
interest.
CREATING A TED-ED LESSON
To create an original lesson, users can
follow the link https://ed.ted.com
/videos, or click Create a Lesson at the
top of any page (see fig. 1). Users can
then select a YouTube video for their
lesson, either through a keyword search
or by inserting the URL to a video.
Figure 2 shows a lesson page after the
URL for a Pythagorean theorem video
has been entered.
After a video has been selected, users
will move on to the Lesson Editor part
of the site. Here, users can change the
lesson settings, including title, text, and

Technology Tips offers a forum for innova-

tive uses of technology in the teaching
and learning of mathematics; it appears
in every issue of Mathematics Teacher.
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more information, visit http://www.nctm
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Department editors
Heather Lynn Johnson, heather.johnson
@ucdenver.edu, University of Colorado Den-
ver; Steve Phelps, sphelps@madeiracity
schools.org, Madeira High School, Cincin-
nati, Ohio; and Robert Lochel, rlochel@
verizon.net, Hatboro-Horsham High School,
Horsham, Pennsylvania
Fig. 1 The opening page allows users to create a lesson with TED-Ed.

466 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 110, No. 6 February 2017

Copyright 2017 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org.
All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM.
questions asked. Users can also preview
their lesson, list it to the public, and
allow customization by others. The
TED-Ed site has a community section
for sharing ideas, as well as newly cre-
ated lessons.
After creating the introduction to
the video, educators may enter mul-
tiple choice questions or open-answer
questions (see fig. 3). For mathematics
especially, open-answer questions can
provide insight into what the students
are thinking and understanding. By
having students type out their answers
with an expected use of mathemati- Fig. 2 A lesson about the Pythagorean theorem in TED-Ed begins with watching a video.
cal vocabulary, educators are building
and strengthening the foundations
for the clear communication of ideas,
which can help students in classroom
discussions.
With the Discuss option (see fig. 4),
educators can choose to include new
discussions, bring up old discussions,
or create a draft of a discussion to be
saved for later. Students need to set up
an account with TED-Ed to participate
in discussions. Teachers can track stu- Fig. 3 For the Think section of the lesson, users can create questions in multiple-choice or
dents progress and hold them account- open-answer formats.
able for their responses. For this lesson,
students are asked to discuss the real-
world use of the Pythagorean theorem.
A quick homework assignment might
direct students to post on the discus-
sion board, as well as respond to oth-
ers posts. A discussion board could be
shared in class the next day or used as
a warm up or introduction to the lesson
for the day. It also could be used as a
wrap-up for the day or as a closure activ-
ity for a lesson. Fig. 4 Students can post original or responsive comments on the discussion board.

SHARING A LESSON
WITH TED-ED
After the lesson is created, educators can
share their lesson by posting it to Face-
book, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+. Figure 7 shows a report of one students
TED-Ed also generates a link for the les-
son, which can be posted to teacher web-
sites and blogs. Finally, an email can be
sent from TED-Ed to students with a cus-
tomized message. For this Pythagorean
theorem lesson, the link http://ed.ted.
com/on/0NvyEZ7e can be accessed by
any educator with a TED-Ed account.
This lesson can be edited by other users
and saved to their own accounts for
future references. See figure 5.
STUDENT RESPONSES IN TED-ED
The top toolbar (see fig. 6) displays
an option to look at student responses,
by clicking Review Student Work.
work.
The Multiple Choice box shows the
completion and accuracy of the stu-
dents responses, as well as the number
of attempts. The right side presents the
students Open Answer and Discussion
progress, and a click of the Review but-
ton under Student Responses allows
the teacher to read each response. The
site also allows all student responses
to be downloaded in a CSV file, which
in turn can be imported into a table or
spreadsheet. Thus, users can share the
responses with colleagues, or save the
responses for analysis.
TED-ED LESSON RESOURCES
After a lesson has been posted, educa-
tors can check under the Notifications
tab to see student responses, teacher
responses, and discussion posts. Educa-
tors can also go to the Community tab to
find other lessons and discussion posts
about ideas for lessons. TED-Ed has a
variety of resources for educators. For
example, in the Series tab, users will
find videos grouped by topic, similar to

Vol. 110, No. 6 February 2017 | MATHEMATICS TEACHER 467


Fig. 5 A shared lesson can be retrieved, edited, and saved by other users.
Fig. 6 Toolbar options guide users to appropriate actions.
Fig. 7 A report of a students work appears on the dashboard.
a TV season. A nice set to use in classes
to build interest and motivation in math
classrooms is the Math in Real Life
series, located at https://ed.ted.com/
series/?series=math-in-real-life.
The site navigation may get a little
tedious, since there is not a clear back
button when you wish to return to pages
visited previously. Users can find navi-
gation options listed clearly by clicking
a profile image. Also, the FAQ section
located underneath the profile image can
help answer questions about the func-
tionality of the site.
468 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 110, No. 6 February 2017
CLASSROOM TIPS FOR
USING TED-ED
A variety of uses might be of interest to
teachers and students:
Lessons can be homework assign-
ments, project assignments, assess-
ments, or extensions.
Students can create their own TED-
Ed Lesson with videos from cell-
phones or tablets.
Creations could be songs, skits, stop
animation cartoons, movie trailers.
TED-Ed lessons could be shared among
students and saved for later years.
Professional learning can be shared
through lessons to staff.
Districts can create and share lessons
among different schools.
TED-Ed can be used as a different
presentation outlet from Power-
Point, Google Slides, Prezi, etc.
Although this service is strictly video
based, there are millions of videos tied
to YouTube from which to choose. Edu-
cators can use TED-Ed for homework
assignments, make-up work, extension
lessons, or prediscussion assignments.
TED-Ed is an excellent skeleton for
a flipped classroom. Teachers can create
their own YouTube videos, generate a
lesson around them through TED-Ed,
and expect students to work on the les-
son at home. After a lesson, students
could work on individual or group prac-
tice in class to ensure understanding.
The original TED-Ed lesson will always
be available for students to revisit and
develop their understanding.
Overall, the engagement that results
from the use of this tool is impressive.
By providing for a different outlet for
learning, TED-Ed allows teachers and
students to focus on the critical thinking
skills and communication skills that are
needed to generate mathematical under-
standing. TED-Ed is a free, easy tool
that is visually appealing for both stu-
dents and teachers to learn mathematics
and should be used more often in math
classrooms across the country.
RACHAEL LEHNER,
Rach.Lehner@gmail.com,
teaches Algebra 1 as an on-
level class and as a sheltered
class for ESOL students at Winder-Bar-
row High School in Winder, Georgia. She
is also working on a graduate degree in
Learning, Design, and Technology at the
University of Georgia. Along with her
teaching responsibilities, she enjoys be-
ing an assistant coach for both the soft-
ball and soccer teams. In September 2016
she was named WJBB Radios Teacher of
the Week for Barrow County.
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