Katharyn HavensFounder, Kairos Rise · Educational Innovator

Let the 13 yr olds teach the class

Name: Let the 13 yr olds teach the class
Uploaded: 2025-06-15T09:49:54+00:00
Duration: 1 min 34 s
Channel: Katharyn Havens
Description: In this video, Katharyn Havens introduces the "Teach Back Quest," a term‑long project for her 13‑year‑old students. The assignment guides students…

15 Jun 2025 · 2 min

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1:34

In this video, Katharyn Havens introduces the "Teach Back Quest," a term‑long project for her 13‑year‑old students. The assignment guides students through a series of steps: selecting a topic they already know or want to learn about, conducting research, creating mind maps, gathering video and website resources, and ultimately preparing a 5‑minute on‑camera teaching monologue for peers. Havens outlines a dedicated week of instruction focused on presence, communication, and video speaking skills. She emphasizes that the framework provides structure while allowing students to choose topics aligned with their interests, thereby fostering autonomy, executive functioning, and communication competence. The video is the first of a two‑part series; a follow‑up will showcase student work and outcomes.

Chapters

Here's a thing you could try. I'm calling it the Teach Back Quest. So this term, my students are each doing something called Teach Back. They are meant to walk through a series of steps to figure out something that they either already know about or want to know about. They research it. They need to show me their mind map and the videos and the websites they've looked at. To do their research with the goal of teaching us something at the end of the term. We'll also be videoing it, and so they'll have to also practice how to speak on video. So one of the lessons I'll do for a whole week will be working on presence, communication, and how to be a better speaker for myself and for them. But at the end of the term, which is now about 4 weeks away, They will be doing a 5-minute speech, monologue, teaching session so that they can teach something to kids their age. So hopefully this video is one of two, and in part 2 I will come back and show you what they've done and how letting kids choose their own project and giving them basically just a framework but letting them really follow their own interests allows them to take more autonomy, they're learning executive functioning, and I think it's going to turn out really well. So try it out, teach back quest. See you in the next one.