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K12 Movie Guides

FREE TED Talk Critical Thinking Full Curriculum Educator Planning Guide

FREE TED Talk Critical Thinking Full Curriculum Educator Planning Guide

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Classroom Use at a Glance

Free educator planning guide previewing the 9-week TED Talk Critical Thinking curriculum: 35 video lessons, four units, weekly/unit/final assessment system, capstone, flexible pacing, differentiation, and implementation guidance. Planning guide only; lesson files are not included.

Resource type
Educator Planning Guide
Grade band
Grades 9–12
Rating
Not Rated
Time required
Planning Preview
Prep level
No-Prep
Subject
ELA Social Studies
Classroom use
Curriculum Planning Scope and Sequence Preview Assessment Planning Free Preview Department Planning
Includes
Educator Planning Guide Course Map Pacing Guide Assessment Overview Unit Overview Implementation Notes
Tech format
Google Docs Microsoft Word/DOCX Google Classroom Ready

FREE planning preview for the complete TED Talk Critical Thinking curriculum.

Planning guide only. This free product includes the final Educator Planning Guide. It does not include the 35 lesson files, student worksheets, quizzes, weekly assessments, unit assessments, capstone, cumulative Final, or Student Syllabus.

Use the guide to preview the 9-week pacing, four concept-centered units, assessment rhythm, flexible/compressed pacing options, differentiation, sensitive-topic guidance, standards summary, and digital/print implementation before deciding which product fits your classroom.

Try a real lesson free: Does Time Exist? - FREE TED Talk Critical Thinking lesson

Paid Unit Options

Complete 9-week curriculum: TED Talk Critical Thinking Complete Full Curriculum | 9 Weeks

Videos in the Complete Course

Each title below links to the public YouTube video so you can see exactly what the curriculum uses.

Unit 1 - Meaning

  1. Does time exist? - Andrew Zimmerman Jones
  2. Is AI the most important technology of the century?
  3. Is life meaningless? And other absurd questions - Nina Medvinskaya
  4. Plato’s best (and worst) ideas - Wisecrack
  5. The 4 greatest threats to the survival of humanity
  6. The Boltzmann brain paradox - Fabio Pacucci
  7. The philosophy of Stoicism - Massimo Pigliucci
  8. Why do we love? A philosophical inquiry - Skye C. Cleary
  9. You'll travel 1 trillion kilometers through space - Fabio Pacucci and Lindsay DeMarchi
  10. Zen kōans: Unsolvable enigmas designed to break your brain - Puqun Li

Unit 2 - Truth

  1. Ethical dilemma: Who should you believe? - Alex Worsnip
  2. How can you change someone's mind? (hint: facts aren't always enough) - Hugo Mercier
  3. Does math have a major flaw? - Jacqueline Doan and Alex Kazachek
  4. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave - Alex Gendler
  5. The Turing test: Can a computer pass for a human? - Alex Gendler
  6. What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion - Conor Neill
  7. Can robots be creative? - Gil Weinberg
  8. Scientists still don't know the answer to this infamous question - Charles Wallace & Dan Kwartler

Unit 3 - Identity

  1. A brief history of melancholy - Courtney Stephens
  2. Are you a body with a mind or a mind with a body? - Maryam Alimardani
  3. How close are we to uploading our minds? - Michael S.A. Graziano
  4. How do you know you exist? - James Zucker
  5. Mary’s Room: A philosophical thought experiment - Eleanor Nelsen
  6. What is imposter syndrome and how can you combat it? - Elizabeth Cox
  7. What is love? - Brad Troeger
  8. What is “normal” and what is “different”? - Yana Buhrer Tavanier
  9. Who am I? A philosophical inquiry - Amy Adkins

Unit 4 - Ethics

  1. Ethical dilemma: What makes life worth living? - Douglas MacLean
  2. How to know if you're selfish (and whether or not that's bad) - Mark Hopwood
  3. How to prevent political corruption - Stephanie Honchell Smith
  4. Is inequality inevitable?
  5. Picture a perfect society. What does it look like? - Joseph Lacey
  6. When should you break a promise? - Sarah Stroud and Michael Vazquez
  7. Would you opt for a life with no pain? - Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald
  8. Would you sacrifice one person to save five? - Eleanor Nelsen

New Optional Video Companion (used with YouTube)

The free Classroom Video Guide Companion Chrome extension can automatically pause YouTube at question timestamps and display prompts during viewing. It can make whole-class, small-group, and independent video lessons easier to facilitate. The curriculum works normally without the extension.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are lesson files included?
No. This free listing is the Educator Planning Guide only.

Are the TED videos included?
No. The planning guide and curriculum identify public video links; video files are not redistributed.

Independent resource notice: TED/TED-Ed videos are not included. This is an independent educator-created companion curriculum and is not affiliated with or endorsed by TED.

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