Are you
always looking for a way to motivate and engage your students? I don’t know
about everyone else but once I thought I found the perfect inspirational
speech, reward system or negotiation tactic it quickly seemed to have a shelf
life and fizzled away. Back to the drawing board I was. We all want to our
students to love learning and to want to learn without the need for the speech,
reward or negotiating. Well, what if we
looked at motivation and engagement on a larger scale? Think back to that one student (every year I
felt like I had at least one) that is an expert in something... for me it was
Evan, a dinosaur expert. He knew EVERYTHING about dinosaurs. I had my very own
personal first grade Paleontologist. Perfect. Clearly, he was not discovering
his love for Paleontology in my classroom. We had a fully packed schedule that
did not offer time for Evan to further his career. I mention this because Evan is so interested
in dinosaurs that he went home and read ; and before he could read words, he
was reading pictures and watching videos on dinosaurs; and playing with
dinosaur toys; and the best part … he was teaching anyone that would listen
about dinosaurs. Evan was a genius when it came to dinosaurs. Evan’s genius did
not develop after one project or reading one book. What if we handed students the time to
discover the genius inside of them? What if we gave students the opportunity to
teach us something? What if we gave students the chance to engage in learning
in a way that interested them? Enter in Genius Hour.
What is Genius Hour you ask?
Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the
classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set
period of time during school. In a
nutshell, it is letting students follow their passion using inquiry to read, work
on new designs or master new skills.
“Genius Hour
is a precious time. It is when students are allowed to develop their own inquiry question about whatever it is
that they want to explore, learn, or create. I want students to be engaged in their learning. This does not mean that we'll be
playing games, laughing and joking the entire class period. This means that I
want students to be invested in what they're learning. I want them to
"own" the learning. “(Joy Kirr - 7th grade teacher)
From what I have researched:
· * This idea stems
from : businesses like 3M and Google
o
3M started it
in the 1950's with their 15% Project. The result?
Post-its and
masking tape. Google is credited for making the 20% Project what it is
today. Google asks its employees to spend 20% of their time at Google to
work on a pet project...a project that their job description doesn't cover. As a
result of the 20% Project at Google, we now have Gmail, AdSense, Google News,
and my favorite, the Google Teacher Academy. Using 20 Time in the
workplace allows innovative ideas and projects to flourish and/or fail without
the bureaucracy of committees and budgets.
· * Genius Hour is
NOT everyday
· * Teachers incorporate
this concept in many different ways in ALL grade levels
If you want to look further into Genius Hour start here:
I have also started a “Genius Hour”
board on my Pinterest account. http://www.pinterest.com/OAteachcoach/
Instructionaly Yours,
Michele
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