Genius Hour An Introduction and Overview

Intro Video

The Purpose To promote, support and model creative, innovative thinking and inventiveness To allow students an opportunity to discover/investigate one of their passions and reflect on/share their learning with others Provide students and teachers an opportunity to develop skill sets that are valuable in any learning situation (research, experimentation, collaboration, creativity, problem solving and critical thinking) To provide an opportunity for classes to share their 20% Projects with others

One Teacher’s Reasoning “My purpose was to enable my 11th grade students to start taking control of their own learning. They’ve been told what to do (for the most part) in school and in their own life for the better part of 16 years. This project made them make all the choices and have OWNERSHIP in their learning.” I want you all to have the opportunity to learn and think about something that is important to YOU

The Purpose (in a nutshell) To get to think on your own about something that interests you.

Start thinking Come up with a goal or objective for your project Could be informational. (Learn about Chinese culture) Could be achievement based (Donate x amount of food to a local shelter) Ask yourself: What do I want to learn? What do I want to change?

A few guidelines Question – it can’t be one that can quickly be answered by a Google search It has to have “legs” which means Research, Experiment, Effort Research – you must need to do research in order to find your solution Shared – share your ideas with others Does NOT have to have an ELA emphasis

Can’t think of an idea… Questions to consider: What do you like to spend your time doing outside of school? Have you ever wanted to learn about something but never had the time or opportunity? Is there anything you want to improve in your life? Do you currently use a product you know could be better? How could you improve it?

Participate Make Mistakes Fail….change something...fail AGAIN Start Over Persevere

Failure is an option “The biggest success stories are built on a foundation of multiple failures.” Leslie age 16-Former genius hour participant

But what are the details??? What work do we have to do? What is the timeline? How am I graded? How will this all work?

I’ll be honest… This is new for me so things may change along the way. I don’t have everything for this mapped out. I have to see what you all NEED as we go. I need your help. Let me know where you’re getting stuck or confused so I can make changes. This project is fluid, meaning as of right now, this moment, nothing is set in stone.

Fridays We Work Every Friday is dedicated to Genius Hour Most Fridays I will have a goal, blog post, or work time for you to complete I will also give you tips and examples for completing different portions of this project Basically, Friday is work time on Genius Hour for the next month Then, starting in February, you will get two weeks of focused time specifically on Genius Hour

You Need a Mentor What is a mentor? Someone who helps you and guides you You will need to choose/find a mentor. I cannot be a mentor for all the projects because I am not an expert on all topics. Your mentor should be a person you can go to when you have questions about your topic or area of interest. This is like having an expert in the field. They should be knowledgeable about your topic.

Blogging Reflect your progress on your blog. I will give you blog details next week. Sometimes I will have specific questions for you to answer Sometimes it might just be a general reflection on how your work is going. Successes Struggles Where you need help What ideas/information you have discovered

Annotated Bibliography This project needs to have some research involved. What is a bibliography Sources that helped you with your project. What does annotated mean? Summarize each source and how it was useful to you.

Final project This will most likely be a formal speech/presentation Share what you did your project on Show the process you went through including the successes as well as the struggles.

Ideas to address in final project What were the successes of your project? Were there any hurdles you had to overcome? Was there a point where you had to stop and readjust the project on a grand scale? What were the weaknesses of your project? What was the most important thing you learned throughout your project?

Grading There will be check points along the way Blog posts Final project/presentation

CHOOSE TO MATTER Make a difference in this world Have fun. Find your passion. Explore it. Enjoy learning what you want. o o