TED Talk Critical Thinking Full Curriculum | 9 Weeks

Teach a complete 9-week high-school critical-thinking sequence with 35 TED/TED-Ed video lessons, four concept-centered units, cumulative assessments, and a case-based capstone.

FREE CURRICULUM SNEAK PEEK: Download the free Full Curriculum Educator Planning Guide.

Try an actual lesson free: Does Time Exist? - FREE sample lesson.

Thinking Critically is designed for Grades 9-12. Short public videos become complete 50-minute lessons that ask students to match claims to evidence, preserve uncertainty, identify assumptions, separate persuasion from truth, distinguish descriptive evidence from value judgments, and revise conclusions when evidence changes.

What's Included

• 35 individual TED/TED-Ed video lesson sets
• 8 weekly assessment sets (W01-W08)
• 4 cumulative unit assessment sets (U01-U04)
• 1 case-based Week 9 Capstone Synthesis Lesson
• 1 cumulative Final Assessment bank
• Educator Planning Guide
• Student Syllabus
• Teacher Guides, digital/print student materials, Self-Graded Quizzes, and MC Quiz Print ecosystem where appropriate

Course Structure

• Unit 1 - Meaning: Weeks 1-2
• Unit 2 - Truth: Weeks 3-4
• Unit 3 - Identity: Weeks 5-6
• Unit 4 - Ethics: Weeks 7-8
• Week 9: targeted review, case-based capstone synthesis, and cumulative Final

All 35 Videos - Exact Titles and YouTube Links

Each title links directly to the public YouTube video so you can review exactly what is included in the course.

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

Assessment System

Weekly and unit assessments are bank-based so teachers can select items for a class period, retesting, review, differentiation, or multi-day use. The cumulative Final is also a teacher-selectable bank. Week 9 adds a case-based synthesis lesson that integrates Meaning, Truth, Identity, and Ethics without requiring a new video.

Flexible Classroom Use

Use the default 9-week sequence, compress to approximately 6 weeks, run an intensive 4-week version, or spread one or two lessons per week across a semester. The planning guide explains the tradeoffs and suggested assessment rhythm.

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.

Prefer a 2-Week Unit?

• TED Talk Critical Thinking Unit 1 - Meaning | 2-Week Curriculum
• TED Talk Critical Thinking Unit 2 - Truth | 2-Week Curriculum
• TED Talk Critical Thinking Unit 3 - Identity | 2-Week Curriculum
• TED Talk Critical Thinking Unit 4 - Ethics | 2-Week Curriculum

Frequently Asked Questions

Are the TED videos included?
No. Video files are not included; exact public YouTube links are provided.

Can I assign every assessment item?
You can, but the banks are intentionally larger than a typical one-period test so you can select the items that fit your students and calendar.

Is the capstone another video lesson?
No. It is a case-based cumulative synthesis activity with four changed-cue cases and no new TED video.

Can the curriculum be shortened?
Yes. The Educator Planning Guide includes 6-week, 4-week, block-schedule, summer, credit-recovery, and semester-supplement options.

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.