Teaching Channel: Videos to Inspire

Teaching can be a strangely isolated existence, which seems counter-intuitive given the nature of the work. Certainly, you spend your days working with your students, in whatever environment that entails – live, online, virtual, etc.

It is isolated in the sense that aside from your students, you could go awhile without seeing a colleague. Collaboration and communication with your peers comes with a time premium that can be hard to pay.

As lifelong learners, educators’ professional growth is dependent on those opportunities. The sharing of best practices is a foundational pillar of teaching. So how to find the time? How to escape your classroom island?

You have to fight for that time and you have to make the effort. One of the boons of technology is the sharing of ideas. The sheer amount of material that is available for teachers to find online is not only impressive, but an essential resource.

I recently found the Teaching Channel, a site devoted to providing videos modeling best practices.  There are several hundred videos spanning k-12, and covering a wide variety of topic areas. The site is easily searched, and is a breeze to navigate, something that is not true of all education sites.

The videos are high quality, and content rich. Need inspiration? Have an idea for a lesson and not sure how to present the material? Want to understand how to implement an activity? You will find a video here to help.

Throughout my first year teaching, I wished that I could take the time from the day to observe my fellow teachers, but never had the time. Teaching Channel can create that experience for you.

In addition to the videos, Teaching Channel supports a community, which you can join. By registering, you can also have your own workspace, annotate videos and create lesson plans. You can download or embed the videos as well. Teaching Channel also has an interesting blog and newsletter available for subscription.

In conjunction with their site, Teaching Channel is on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – for all your social media needs. Check it out, and let me know what you think.