Keep students entertained and engaged with these websites and online resources that connect learning to popular culture. From memes to movies we’ve got you covered.
From dance crazes like the ‘Floss’ to films, songs and toys, there are a wide range of cultural experiences and interests students have that often seem disconnected from their classroom learning. Simple tweaks to subject content can make a significant difference in how students relate to a subject and get them emotionally invested in pushing forward to develop new skills.
Making Curriculum Pop describes itself as “a resource sharing community for educators interested in better practices and teaching with pop culture”. It is a sharing hub with more than 7,000 members and groups that cover a wide range of interests and teaching ranges. The owner of the page, Ryan Goble, states that the site was set up because “it is hard for individual teachers to catch every cool website, video clip, song, study guide or comic but collectively MC POP is a forum where we can all share resources to reinvent our core curriculum and the larger dialogue on public education. So if you use popular and common cultures to reflect, refract, refocus and reinvent your core curriculum MC POP is the place for you.” Users can set up their own page and from there can connect to other teachers and any of the 87 listed groups. Group categories include subjects or levels as well as special interest topics like ‘Identity: Gender, Race, Sex, SES and Power’, ‘Graphic Novels and Comics’, ‘Adolescent Films’, ‘Making Music Pop’, etc. Members post all sorts of resources, including lesson plans, videos and articles, along with discussion threads and suggestions for primary sources. There is a ‘Week in Review’ section where top articles, links and threads are compiled, highlighting the main interests of the week. Members can post links to articles, videos and other web content and they can contribute to discussion threads and curate their own 'playlists’ or write messages/content that would be of use for other teachers. For teachers interested in further pursuing the pop culture angle, the owners of the site have also published a book engaging with related teaching theory called Making Curriculum Pop: Developing Literacies that was published in 2015 by Free Spirit Pub.