Best YouTube Channels to Follow for Teachers
If you are an educator, you should know that one of the best ways to increase classroom engagement levels and share content knowledge is through the use of media. Gone are the days of traditional mediums like paper and pen! Now, with the power of technology and innovation, we can use creative platforms such as websites or videos. In this article, we will be discussing some of the best YouTube channels to follow for teachers.
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How can you use videos in your classrooms? Consider using them as interactive exercises where you can guide students through questions, reflections, or content knowledge, or use them for recaps at the end of a teaching topic. You can also consider using videos as a way to engage students through incentivised learning, such as a movie day, or as a way to impart general knowledge on days where you do not have to cover syllabus content. When it comes to finding good educational videos, YouTube serves as a handy repository site. From videos that range from entertainment content, to brand marketing videos, to educational ones, we have sourced the web to find the 8 best YouTube channels to follow for teachers. We hope that you can use these channels to improve your classroom engagement and lesson plans, effectively elevating the learning and enjoyment of your students! Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
First up, we have a subject that many students struggle with: Mathematics. It can be difficult to teach mathematics without good visual references. Integral calculus got you feeling down? Stuck with wrong answers in statistical analysis or trigonometric functions? Maybe it’s time to check out Eddie Woo’s YouTube channel.
In his YouTube channel, Eddie covers wide-ranging topics in mathematics with a passionate energy that is bound to enlighten and capture the attention of students. As a mathematics teacher based in Sydney, Australia, and the winner of the 2018 Top 10 Global Teacher Prize, Eddie provides enthusiastic online math lessons that helps students all over the world. The YouTube channel allows students to approach learning at their own pace and also enables teachers to utilise his online classes as a learning resource. As an educator, you could utilise Eddie’s math videos to switch up the way you teach the subject of mathematics! Eddie also has another YouTube channel targeted at teachers – Wootube². In Wootube², he covers teaching skills and frames of thinking that help educators to improve their teaching and classroom management skills. With a broadened sense of concepts like cross disciplinary collaboration, the importance of empathy and adapting your teaching practice, you are bound to become a better educator!
Another YouTube channel specializing in the subject of mathematics, Numberphile explores the multi-faceted ways in which mathematics can be applied to our daily lives. The YouTube channel is produced by video journalist Brady Haran, and supported by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. Numberphile covers a wide range of topics such as Prime numbers, graph theory, the Monty Hall Problem, as well as various patterns and much more. If you are looking for an engaging way to teach mathematics and inspire creative thinking in your students, the videos by Numberphile are sure to help you achieve those goals. Numberphile’s interesting ways of teaching mathematics make it one of the best YouTube channels to follow for teachers. If you find the videos by Brady Haran useful, be sure to check out his other educational channels – Periodic Videos (on chemistry), Sixty Symbols (on physics), Deep Sky Videos (on astronomy), or Computerphile (on computer science).
With videos from Just Keep Thinking, you can take your students out of the physical confines of a classroom into the great wilderness to explore the sciences! We all know that injecting real-life examples into our teaching can increase student engagement and interest, especially for subjects like biology and biodiversity. A YouTube channel created by a Singaporean, Biogirl MJ takes her viewers to places like Coney Island, local parks in Singapore and even Farglory Ocean Park in Taiwan. The content is suitable for both young and old students, as they cover topics that range from the life cycle of a caterpillar, or the biodiversity in grasses, to fish organs and anatomy. Simply select the relevant content to share with your students. For teachers that cover content or the topic of biodiversity, this is one YouTube channel to follow for teachers.
One of the best Youtube channels for education is Crash Course. A source for high quality educational videos, Crashcourse offers topics that range from history to biology, chemistry, literature, physics, philosophy and many more. The animation in CrashCourse is eye-catching and varied and their content is thorough, which serves as a valuable resource for educators to introduce topics to their students and learn more about various fields of study. For the younger students, CrashCourse has another channel that caters to grade school sciences. Crash Course Kids brings the contents of Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Geography, Engineering, and Astronomy to your students.
For those that follow the TED Talks series, TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. The original animated videos create an international platform for teachers to create their own interactive lessons. Do you have an interest in using videos that cover content such as philosophy, science, geography, language or other subjects in your classroom? TED-Ed is the YouTube channel for you.
As the title suggests, this YouTube channel specialises in the topic of Geography. The team aims to cover profiles on every single country in the world, as well as Inter-Governmental Organizations and domestic crises that happen (such as the Rohingya crisis or the Hong Kong protests). Are you interested in sharing more about a specific country to supplement your teaching of history, geography or biology? This channel has just the content you need. As an educator, it can be time-consuming to research and craft teaching material on country profiles for an introductory lesson in different geographical areas. With Geography Now, you can dive into a brief historical overview of various countries and their cultural, social and political background, a splendid resource for geography lessons!
A YouTube Channel for educators who teach young students, LearnEnglish Kids is the British Council’s website for children around the world who are learning English as a second or foreign language. Using engaging activities such as songs, arts and crafts, stories, as well as small activities, educators can impart English skills while making learning fun for the students. Why not try using their videos as part of a lesson plan during English lessons for young students? The jiggly and fun interactive videos are bound to captivate and make your students eager to learn.
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) helps students develop the soft skills that are essential for a child’s personal and social well-being. We recognise the need for learning that extends beyond the tests and exams of academic learning, and the value of helping children learn values and frames of thinking that can help them in life beyond school. In the realm of teaching skills such as attitude checks, respect and mood recognition, Narwhals and Waterfalls serve to provide SEL resources for music teachers, with interactive and sensory learning videos to teach children the critical SEL skills that they can use in life. SEL is also crucial in order for a child to grow, thus Narwhals and Waterfalls is a YouTube channel that teachers would want to follow for its holistic SEL resources.
How can we best utilise these YouTube channels and videos for education in rural or out-of-reach areas where electricity and connectivity are scarce? Through the use of CaseStudy, of course. The handy box contains all you need to make it through rough, rugged, and inconvenient terrain and provide education to disadvantaged areas.
Features of CaseStudy include a waterproof, portable, and shockproof case, with customizable technology and a capability to work completely offline – a huge draw for social groups, volunteers or local educators intending to provide education using electronic devices. When deployed, CaseStudy is meant to operate as a classroom, complementing teachers with audio, visual and information support using portable projectors and speakers, portable chargers, and a Raspberry Pi processing core. The CaseStudy set-up allows for you to pre-download materials safely within an 8GB hard drive. Content for teaching such as PowerPoint slides, videos, PDFs and question banks can be safely stored on a system that does not rely on internet connection. What’s more, CaseStudy also has an option for you to use Wikipedia offline! With the CaseStudy box, you wield the power of having entire databases of information at your fingertips. With the use of our projector, the videos you downloaded for offline usage can be displayed in both day and night-time environments. With just a blank wall or a sheet of canvas and the projector, you have a screen to project your learning material!
The CaseStudy box is also customizable to suit your teaching needs. Talk to us to find out more. Using open-source tools, we have been able to 3D print a portable microscope that can be used to teach the sciences. It can also serve as a water testing kit! With the ever-growing technological advancements and availability of such resources, we can best-fit learning materials to suit your needs and the needs of the community you serve. The Patatas is a social solutions consultancy based in Singapore. We work closely with interested groups for worthy social causes, aiming to make a difference by bringing digital education to underrepresented communities. The Patatas is also a subsidiary of the Singapore-based Potato Productions, an organisation that supports social enterprises.
