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Homes in Washington, D.C.

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Three TED talks to help you think differently about education

Growing up in a home with two educators as parents, I’ve always appreciated the importance of education, but I’ve also seen how so many decisions that affect education are politically driven — by politicians, by teachers’ unions and by parents’ groups — rather than being driven by new ideas and sound data. Here are three talks from the TED conference that share a few innovative approaches to education:

Andreas Schleicher: Use data to build better schools

How can we measure what makes a school system work? Andreas Schleicher walks through the PISA test, a global measurement that ranks countries against one another — then uses that same data to help schools improve. Watch to learn the single factor that makes some systems outperform others.

Watch Andreas Schleicher: Use data to build better schools on TED.

Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created Khan Academy, and he calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Watch Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education on TED.

Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between three troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools’ dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. He challenges the way we’re educating our children and champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

Watch Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms on TED.

By no means do I have all the answers when it comes to our current education system, but I know we all have a role in trying to make it better. What are some other resources that you’ve seen that have changed the way you view education?