This year my major plan for integrating critical thinking and collaboration included a major classroom change. I was rearranged my classroom into pods and I started presenting my lessons in a flipped form.
The pods and flipped classroom provided an opportunity for critical thinking and collaboration. The students were to watch the videos and write down any questions they had on the material. They then met up as a group to go over the material. I found the students would have impressive conversations on the material. They then also worked in their pods to complete the daily practice. I found it was great for the students to be able to work together through problems and struggles. I was constantly happy to hear the students offer their own explanations to each other.

At TEDYouth 2011, performance artist Carvens Lissaint shows how to use language, metaphor and imagery to express a powerful idea -- as in this spoken word performance, a stirring plea to make college education more accessible. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 5-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Long, fancy words designed to show off your intelligence and vocabulary are all very well, but they aren't always the best words. In this short playful video Terin Izil explains why simple, punchy language is often the clearest way to convey a message. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 2-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

At TED@Cannes, Gary Wolf gives an intro to an intriguing new pastime: using mobile apps and always-on gadgets to track and analyze your body, mood, diet, spending -- just about everything in daily life you can measure -- in gloriously geeky detail. Journalist Gary Wolf spends his days in pursuit of the most fascinating things. As a contributing editor at Wired, he's written about technology, mushroom hunters, venture capitalists. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 5-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

In the first of a new TED-Ed series designed to catalyze curiosity, TED Curator Chris Anderson shares his boyhood obsession with quirky questions that seem to have no answers. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 2-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

One of the most successful business models is the franchise, but it didn't originate with McDonald's. Sir Harold Evans describes the remarkable story of a beauty salon that allowed hundreds of women to own their own businesses. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 5-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Ellen Dunham-Jones fires the starting shot for the next 50 years' big sustainable design project: retrofitting suburbia. To come: Dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 19-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Robert Lang is a pioneer of the newest kind of origami -- using math and engineering principles to fold mind-blowingly intricate designs that are beautiful and, sometimes, very useful. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 16 minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

In 4 minutes, atmospheric chemist Rachel Pike provides a glimpse of the massive scientific effort behind the bold headlines on climate change, with her team -- one of thousands who contributed -- taking a risky flight over the rainforest in pursuit of data on a key molecule. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 4-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Marine biologist Tierney Thys teamed with Christian Sardet (CNRS/Tara Oceans), No錩 Sardet and Sharif Mirshak to use footage from the Plankton Chronicles project to ignite wonder and curiosity about the hidden world of Plankton that underpins our own food chain. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 6-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

From something as small and complex as a chromosome to something as seemingly simple as the weather, sex determination systems vary significantly across the animal kingdom. Biologist and teacher Aaron Reedy shows us the amazing differences between species when it comes to determination of gender. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 6-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices -- and how we feel about the choices we make. At TEDGlobal, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions. Sheena Iyengar studies how people choose (and what makes us think we're good at it). A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 24-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Storyteller and educator Awele Makeba combines performing arts and history to tell a powerful story from the American civil rights movement. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 9-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Legendary ocean researcher Sylvia Earle shares astonishing images of the ocean -- and shocking stats about its rapid decline -- as she makes her TED Prize wish: that we will join her in protecting the vital blue heart of the planet. Sylvia Earle has been at the frontier of deep ocean exploration for four decades. She's led more than 50 undersea expeditions, and she's been an equally tireless advocate for our oceans and the creatures who live in them. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 18-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Different species often depend on one another. David Gonzales describes the remarkable relationship of the Clark's nutcracker and the whitebark pine, to illustrate the interdependency known as symbiosis. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 2-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

The world turns on symmetry -- from the spin of subatomic particles to the dizzying beauty of an arabesque. But there's more to it than meets the eye. Here, Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy offers a glimpse of the invisible numbers that marry all symmetrical objects. Oxford's newest science ambassador Marcus du Sautoy is also author of The Times' Sexy Maths column. He'll take you footballing with prime numbers, whopping symmetry groups, higher dimensions and other brow-furrowers. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 18-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 22-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Stand by for an animated exploration of the famous Fermi Paradox. Given the vast number of planets in the universe, many much older than Earth, why haven't we yet seen obvious signs of alien life? The potential answers to this question are numerous and intriguing, alarming and hopeful. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 6-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Since 1845, Americans have been voting on Tuesdays -- but why? In this humorous talk, Jacob Soboroff shares the history of Election Day and shows how voting on a Tuesday affects voter turnout. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 3-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

India is fast becoming a superpower, says Shashi Tharoor -- not just through trade and politics, but through "soft" power, its ability to share its culture with the world through food, music, technology, Bollywood. He argues that in the long run it's not the size of the army that matters as much as a country's ability to influence the world's hearts and minds. After a long career at the UN, and a parallel life as a novelist, Shashi Tharoor became a member of India's Parliament. He spent 10 months as India's Minister for External Affairs, building connections between India and the world. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 18-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.