Best Practices for Using Unpacked for Educators Content

While you may already know how to navigate our site (if not click here), there is so much more available beyond videos, podcasts and articles. Searching for ways to best utilize all the content and resources you know and love? Look no further than this guide to utilizing everything Unpacked for Educators has to offer. 

Use Unpacked for Educators Content Responsibly:

Don’t let a video, podcast or article be the entire lesson. Ensure your students gain a full understanding of the topics by providing a beginning, middle and end to the lesson. 

1. Context:
   Show excerpts of videos by starting and stopping at different points to explain and ask questions. It may help to also provide accompanying primary or secondary sources or contrasting videos that create a full picture for your students. 
2. Understanding:
   Rewatch key parts of videos that you want to highlight and use Edpuzzle, Google Forms, or Kahoots to insert questions into videos. 
3. Reflection: 
   Ask students to reflect on what they learned by responding to prompts or reflection questions. This can be done through Padlet or Mentimeter. You can also have students choose quotes from the video to share or model showing empathy for opinions with which they disagree.
4. Flip the Classroom:
   Have students prepare the source (video, podcast, article) beforehand.
5. Connect the Dots: 
   Connect this lesson to other areas of student learning such as current events in Israel or co-curricular programming about Israel. 

Making Use of Educational Resources:

Each of the videos, podcasts and articles on our site comes with a plethora of thoughtful, rich, and helpful educational resources for you to use in your classroom. 

1. Kahoots: Use Kahoots to check for understanding, discussion questions, personal reflection questions, experiential learning activities, and further learning resources. You can use these to advance your own, or your students’, knowledge of a topic. You may not need to use all the resources, but selectively choosing student questions or activities can be helpful for each of your classes. 
2. Further Resources: The articles linked in further resources can serve as background information for preparing lessons or for students working on a project or presentation. 
3. Student Prompts: The student prompts included in each article can help educators frame thoughtful discussions around every topic. 
4. Podcasts: Listening to the linked podcasts can be used as a way to prepare for your classes. Excerpts can be used by assigning them to students to listen to and reflect on in writing or in a group discussion.