One of the first resources that comes to my mind that I have used into my college education is crash course. It is a YouTube channel created by two brothers, John and Hank Green. This YouTube channel since 2012 has cultivated a wide range of topics that include but are not limited to: World History, Biology, Ecology, Literature, US History, Economics, Artificial Intelligence, Anatomy, and Engineering. Not only do they have many topics covered in videos, they are organized into playlists of different courses. For example, the biology playlist includes 40 videos ranging from molecular biology, DNA, and the human system. These short videos usually lasting 10-15 minutes are able to give a brief description of a topic, while delivering a clear explanation, and engaging students in an entertaining way. These videos would translate into a classroom, into homework, and into the study habits of many students. Technology in the classroom will only continue to increase; why not give students the tools to study with technology when it has so much to offer? It is much easier to understand how the blood flows through the heart or DNA replicates with moving pictures. Many topics in science are describing the way things work, and that requires movement. It is difficult to understand movement without visualization. When using this resource in the classroom I would show the students the crash course video before the lecture or assigned as homework to watch the night before. Then once students feel like they have at least some content knowledge about said subject, it will be easier to transition into more complex and difficult texts. It is a good preamble to the beginning of a classroom lecture. As a high schooler, I struggled reading from a textbook. These videos became almost an alternative-- but not a replacement-- to comprehending long chapters assigned as reading.
Over the years I have only had one teacher utilize crash course in the classroom. That was 5 years ago, yet here I am continuously using a resource to comprehend complex ideas and refresh on old information I may have forgotten. My favorite quote from a biology crash course video about how helicase breaks the hydrogen bonds between nitrogenous bases during DNA replication is this: “What do helicase and teenage boys have in common? They both want to unzip your jeans/genes.”(9:25 on the video) Something engaging, funny, and a fact I will never forget.
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This is such an interesting site! I find it amazing that this one channel on youtube has so much information about so many different topics. In the classroom growing up, none of my teachers ever really used outside sources besides those that were provided in the lecture. They would always lecture us and give us notes to do and sometimes we would do a group project of some sort. I feel that if my teachers decided to use some sort of website or video or some other kind of resource similar to this, I would have been much more interested in the topics they discussed. I believe as teachers it is our job to make sure our students are attentive and informed when they get older and go into areas they enjoy. It makes our job easier when our students are engaged with the lessons and teachings because when they are engaged, they are wanting to learn more about the information. By allowing our students to go on sites or channels like these and see the many different areas of subjects there are, we are better preparing them for when they have to choose one of those areas for a future job. I think this channel does an amazing job of having such a wide range of different topics for students to learn about.
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