BrainPOP Brings Serendipity to Teaching & Learning

As a Teacher, there was nothing more that I loved than when I was teaching a concept to students and something happened in our current events that was exactly what we were learning about. 

•  For example, when I was a 6th grade teacher, and I was teaching about Ancient Egypt, and at that precise time, archeologists discovered an Egyptian tomb with incredible discoveries.  Students were enthralled as I read this article that came out during these lessons.
• Or, when I was teaching about the Solar System and the world’s premier planet hunting team found a planetary system that reminded them of our own solar system!
• Or, when I was teaching Life Science to my class of 5th graders and our pet rat had babies! I can still remember how beyond fascinated and exuberant my students were, and how this tied into our science standard of “animals having structures for respiration, digestion, waste disposal…” and more. Talk about bringing the curriculum alive!

When events like these occurred, I always said that it was serendipitous.  It was like the world aligned and helped me to bring what I was teaching alive; and, as the definition states, this benefitted student learning exponentially.

 The Importance of Relevance and Timeliness

 As Sara Barnard explains in, "Science Shows Making Lessons Relevant Really Matters,

"Students need a personal connection to the material, whether that's through engaging them emotionally or connecting the new information with previously acquired knowledge. Without that, students may not only disengage and quickly forget, but they may also lose the motivation to try."

 Relevance and timeliness, or serendipity as I like to call it, is paramount to student learning. Brett Simpson, in "Relevance: The Intersection of Importance & Timeliness," eloquently describes the importance of these two elements in the following way,

"Relevance is the intersection of importance and timeliness. In order for something to be relevant it must have value at the right moment."

BrainPOP Creates Relevance & Timeliness at Just the Right Moment

As Sara Barnard states, "we know that when we can bring relevancy to students' lives they are more motivated and more interested in what they are learning about."

With BrainPOP there are 1,000s of relevant short animated movies for students with related activities and articles, covering the subjects of science, social studies, english, math, engineering and technology, health, arts and music, and more! These high interest videos and activities are relevant and help students to understand essential grade-level standards.

For example, today is the Fall Solstice. Many students may not have a clear understanding of why the temperature is beginning to cool, the days are starting to get shorter, and the leaves are just beginning to change color or fall off the tree. BrainPOP has several animated videos to clearly describe this utilizing all of the academic vocabulary and sophistication that this topic contains; but makes the complicated comprehensible to all students!

The following are some are some of the relevant topics that teachers can be utilizing to connect with students right now in the Fall:

BrainPOP helps empower kids to shape the world around them and within them

BrainPOP provides teachers with just the right curriculum, at just the right time! Let’s all bring relevancy, timeliness and serendipity to teaching and learning in our schools and classrooms!

*The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities within BrainPOP.