Watch, Learn, Interact: Tch Video Lounge is Open!

We're lucky to live in a time when we can access amazing content anytime, anywhere.

With the click of a button, you can binge watch episodes of your favorite show or even Teaching Channel videos all night long. But with so many options available at any hour of the day, rarely are any of us are watching the same thing at the same time, which means we probably aren't talking with each other about what we're seeing. I personally have been waiting a long time for my friends to watch The Wire so that I can discuss it with them, but they're too busy watching Scandal, which I've never seen! And the same can hold true for Teaching Channel videos. Your colleague may be watching and adapting our ever popular My Favorite No, while you've been watching and trying out strategies from a growth mindset video.

While all of this watching is great, we're missing out on the now old-fashioned water cooler talks when colleagues shared connections, ideas, and questions around content, whether it be video or what just happened in the classroom. Here at Teaching Channel, we're bringing back the water cooler!

Welcome to Tch Video Lounge, a place where you can watch, learn, and talk about Teaching Channel content together.

Each month, the lounge will feature videos from the Teaching Channel library with an added interactive element so that you can discuss what you notice with each other. You can enter the lounge from any place and at any time to share your thoughts and learn from our community of 800,000+ educators.

In this month's lounge, we're featuring two videos for your water cooler conversation.

Connecting the Dots: Join Tch Laureate Kristin Gray and her colleagues in their professional learning experience -- a math Learning Lab -- where together they explore how they can best elicit, represent, and clarify student thinking during a number talk. What can you learn from joining this conversation?

Leading with Learning Objectives: Come inside Nicole Gavin’s elementary classroom and watch how she begins her lessons with learning objectives. What do you notice and wonder? How does this inspire you to try something new?

We know it can sometimes feel safer to watch and think alone, but we hope you'll find Tch Video Lounge to be…

• Fun! Watch Kristin Gray's Tch Video Lounge trailer and see how much fun learning together can be!

• Chatty! The lounge is a place where educators can talk shop. Because each video has a place to answer prompts and share ideas publicly, we can all learn from each other.

• Community Driven. We want to hear what's on your mind, so at the end of each lounge video, there's a place to suggest topics. And many of the lounge videos will be created by the filmed teachers themselves, such as Kristin Gray's Connecting the Dots.

• Comfortable (jammies recommended). There are no right or wrong answers in the lounge. The idea is, as we get better at noticing, reflecting on practices, and sharing our wonders, we'll become better observers of our own practices. And, we may even get more comfortable with opening up our own doors.

When we watch and talk as a community, we simply learn more. So come to Tch Video Lounge to watch, learn, and interact. And, if you like what you see, take a moment to spread the word. Go on twitter and use the hashtag #TchVideoLounge to share what you did in the lounge. Get your colleagues to join you!

Gretchen Vierstra taught middle school for ten years in the San Francisco Bay Area. During her 15+ years in education, she's also been a department chair, new teacher coach, curriculum developer, and policy analyst. She is an Education Content Manager at Teaching Channel. Follow Gretchen on Twitter: @gretchenvee.