Pardes Jewish Day School has incorporated TED-Ed Club into their 21st Century Learning curriculum. A division of TED-Ed Lessons Worth Sharing, the program includes a network of over 3,000 clubs in 115 countries. It enables Pardes students to participate in a global movement that empowers youth to seek their passions and share them with inventiveness and imagination.
In TED-Ed Clubs, students work together to discuss and celebrate creative ideas. Club leaders receive TED-Ed’s flexible public speaking curriculum to guide their school’s club and to help inspire tomorrow’s TED speakers and leaders.
According to their website, TED-Ed clubs are “designed to inspire students to step up and lead the next generation of ideas worth spreading… The program supports students in discovering, exploring and presenting their big ideas in the form of short, TED-style talks.”
Twice a week, seventh-grade students will engage in a series of explorations designed to help them present an amazing club talk on an idea about which they are passionate. Along the way, students will become experts in identifying the elements of a great idea; researching, developing and presenting an idea; creating visuals to tell a compelling story; and using best practices for camera, lighting and sound.
“I want students to be empowered to find their voices and speak up on issues important to them,” says Anna Lock, who teaches seventh-grade humanities at Pardes. She and Lezlie Strolle, the school’s technology integration specialist, have officially teamed up to be the Pardes’ TED-Ed Club leaders.
By the end of the club cycle, each student will have filmed a TED-Ed Club talk, and may be featured on TED-Ed social media outlets, the website ed.ted.com, the TED-Ed Clubs YouTube channel, or possibly on the TED stage!
Pardes is a private, independent school and a 21st Century Learning institution serving students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The school’s academics combine a rigorous secular program featuring innovative practices, design thinking and project-based learning with a Jewish studies program designed to ignite students’ curiosity while finding meaningful ways to bring Judaism into contemporary life. The result is motivated students who, upon graduation, are accepted into Phoenix’s finest high schools.
At Pardes, students are provided the personalized attention they need to develop the skills and knowledge to flourish as mature, well-rounded confident and academically prepared young adults.
