BrainPOP in the University Classroom

We’re often asked, “Can BrainPOP be used with older students?” Professor of Biology at Middle Tennessee State University, Cindi Smith-Walters PhD, proves that the answer is YES! Check out some of the reflections her college students submitted on their use of BrainPOP. Not only have they had the opportunity to utilize BrainPOP in their pre-service teacher courses, but they’ve tapped into the videos for their own education, as well!

I use BrainPOP probably twice a day, if not more. As a student I find that the video’s hold quality information that is both easy to understand and entertaining. Dr. C’s course is on teaching life science and I use BrainPOP to reinforce her lectures, to elaborate information and use the quizzes to study for my exams. Recently, I have dabbled in BrainPOP’s other content areas and am eager to use this site with my future students. BrainPOP is well organized, incredibly relevant and engaging. Just yesterday, when browsing through the site I discovered BrainPOP’s excellent lesson plans. I am an advocate for the flipped classroom and have used this model, incorporating the content on BrainPOP into my own lesson plans. I will subscribe to BrainPOP without a doubt when I begin my career. BrainPOP cuts out the middleman search engine, has everything I’ve looked for thus far and has a keen awareness of its audience. Thank you for providing an outstanding hub of valuable and well presented information for future teachers like me and my soon to be students!

-Shiloh Siegle

I have used BrainPOP frequently throughout my studies at Middle Tennessee State University.  It has been a great website for not only my own learning,  but also for my lessons that I have had to teach, along with presentations in the classroom setting.  It is a wonderful tool to help you and your students learn about basic and more complex concepts throughout the curriculum.  Taking the quizzes makes learning fun and allows for anticipation at the end when you are able to see your scores.  It has been really helpful to be able to take the quizzes, print them out or even email them with results to instructors or whomever you like.

BrainPOP has also been a great resource for introducing technology in the classroom and having students familiarize themselves with certain computer functions.   It allows them to learn and have fun at the same time with certain games and activities that are available to them.  As a future educator, BrainPOP has been an extremely helpful website.  I am able to browse lesson plans and activities to provide me with ideas for future lessons while learning a little bit more myself.

-Melanie Stewart

BrainPOP has been one of the most helpful tools that I have had access to as a preservice teacher. I learned about it in my Biology class, however, I’ve found it useful for my other classes, as well. I’ve used it to present a lesson plan on verb and direct objects in my English class, on another lesson plan in my health class, and shockingly enough, I’ve used it to help myself learn some concepts that I  needed some clarification on. The subject matter available on BrainPOP is endless. I have yet to search for a topic and not find it.

BrainPOP is such a great tool to incorporate into teaching. It is easy to understand and actually entertaining to watch, unlike some powerpoint presentations or other media options available for teaching. It takes concepts that might otherwise be somewhat difficult to learn and uses real life examples that students can relate to. It also gives enough examples to provide even further clarification on the subjects.

BrainPOP has been a great discovery for me and for my future students. I hope to use this in my classroom as much as possible to help lay the ground work for new topics, clearly and as black and white as possible.

-Blair Peek

I was first introduced to BrainPOP by my Life Science teacher, Mrs. Smith-Walters. It was a great tool to use as a study aid over the topics that we were learning in class. I liked to refer to the fun videos to use as a study tool for lessons and exams. I enjoy the videos and the information so much, that I will be using these in my classroom whenever I am teaching. I also have a younger sister who is in high school that loves the videos, as well, and uses them to relate to her lessons in school. Science isn’t for everyone, but whenever you have something like BrainPOP that is catchy to the eye, it makes students WANT to learn!

-Ashley Moore

Be sure to stop by the blog tomorrow where we’ll share some more of Cindi’s students’ reflections!