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Genius Hour and Why I Think it's Worth the Time

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Genius Hour and Why I Think it's Worth the Time

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https://youtu.be/sMDEszWU25U

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Genius Hour and Why I Think it's Worth the Time

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https://www.20timeineducation.com/

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The History of 20-Time:

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.

What Are the Options?

20% Project: A lot of time has been spent with both success and failures to mold the 20% Project template series above. If you'd like a structured template for instituting 20-Time in your classroom, the 20% Project is for you. Check out the 20% Project writeup, the 20% Project Template Series, and the 20% Project Community. For an indepth guide on integrating 20-Time in your class- Kevin Brookhouser's 20Time Project is a must read.

Genius Hour: For those not ready for a commitment (teachers or students) try Genius Hour. Students search a different topic each week with a few informal presentations at the end of the hour.

Need One More Reason?

How about 10 Reasons? Check out AJ Juliani's post "10 Reasons to Try 20% Time in the Classroom."

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20-Time In Education Inspire. Create. Innovate.

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Inspire Drive, Creativity in the Classroom with 20-Time.

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You can reach me anytime at 0303267h@gnspes.ca

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How Mershelle Smith's Students Succeeded with Genius Hour

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How Mershelle Smith's Students Succeeded with Genius Hour

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https://www.edutopia.org/article/genius-hour-elementary-school

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A teacher shares what she did and what she learned when she implemented Genius Hour in her fifth-grade class.

We've all heard legends of Google employees being able to spend 20 percent of their workweek exploring topics of their choosing. Some of our favorite apps were born in this innovative venture.

Educators know a good idea when we see one (even if Google eventually ended the program). We want that vibrant creativity pulsing through our classrooms. We can visualize the end, filled with projects in which our students have connected with experts, filled journals with intelligent thinking, and explored with curiosity. How do we get from this euphoric idea to a classroom reality?

My first year of Genius Hour in my fifth-grade classroom was a huge success. I gave students one hour each week to study any subject of their choosing. They chose subjects I could not have predicted: the architecture of the Czech Republic, blade forging, gender issues in the media. They used a plethora of technology and three-dimensional models. Working alongside my students, my topic was "How to Implement Genius Hour in the Classroom." Our year was successful but also flawed, with room for improvement and refinement.

I am definitely the big-idea, hippie-style teacher, so I developed a scaffolded, organized system that helped my students yet still encouraged the creative process. We began with four weeks of exploring ideas, spent three weeks narrowing topics, and then worked most of the year learning and creating, until the last four weeks, when we polished and presented our learning.

Time

While time is difficult for teachers to give up, this is key for creativity and quality. There was the time I saw Zech playing games and wanted to redirect his attention. Instead I said, "So, what are you working on?" He proceeded to explain the type of computer coding language he was researching and how it compared to another language. His project was to compare coding languages to find the easiest for kids to use in designing video games. Even though it was part of his research, I would continue to worry when I saw him playing games.

Time is essential for creativity; however, deadlines are also a reality. To help my students take on such a large project, I set up mini-project deadlines. Every five weeks, students needed to turn in a mini-project. Every project was different, with its own possibilities, so each student chose their own mini-project: PowerPoint, 3D model, background research, QR codes, creating a logo or a video, etc. Learning how to chunk a large project is a powerful skill. I kept a "status of the class" chart in my notebook to help me track their progress.

Reflection

Teachers know the value of reflection, but getting students engaged in authentic reflection is an art. Students kept a spiral notebook for journaling. The notebook housed their brainstorming, thinking about their project, vocabulary, research notes, data, interview notes, and works cited. In reality, not all students had awesome notebooks. This is one area I will focus on this year. I will structure time to reflect.

List your mini-project ideas.

What are your Genius Hour challenges?

How are you using outside sources to add depth to your project?

What technology will you use to showcase your project?

How do you organize your vocabulary?

Our reflection also took place online. I posted questions or thinking prompts periodically:

Collaboration

Genius Hour was a socially academic part of our classroom. As the facilitator, I organized partner and group chats. Walking into this activity, you would hear 11-year-olds intelligently discussing their status, struggles, and possibilities.

Some students were more adept in some areas. One student, Aiden, was brilliant with big ideas but couldn't complete any work. Aspen, on the other hand, could run a small company. I paired them up and called Aspen a "consultant." It wasn't long before Aiden had his project moving along.

As we moved into the polishing stage, students worked together and swapped expertise. Skills like lettering titles, turning a video link into a QR code, and using keyboard shortcuts in typing were swapped throughout the classroom. This workshop environment happened authentically, but this year I will organize it by having a skill-sharing poster where students can log skills they have.

Sharing

From the first day's introduction of Genius Hour, my students knew that the final product would be shared with the world. We knew that would look different for every student. Some might start a blog, some would visit a classroom, and others would submit ideas to publications. I hosted an evening when students could showcase their projects for their peers and families. Sharing gave their year's worth of work meaning.

Genius Hour could be adapted to any grade level or student type. This year I plan on expanding it to my special education class. The vibrant creativity pulls students into the learning process and makes school a place they want to be-and that's not exclusive to one age or type of student.

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A teacher shares what she did and what she learned when she implemented Genius Hour in her fifth-grade class.

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How Genius Hour Can Build Student Agency

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How Genius Hour Can Build Student Agency

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https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-student-agency-genius-hour

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Building Student Agency With Genius Hour

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The popular model of self-guided learning can be used to engage upper elementary students in conducting and presenting research—and learning to use new technology.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COF-bqZuE-I

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You Get to Have Your Own Genius Hour (A Video for Students)

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https://educationrickshaw.com/2021/01/01/why-the-genius-hour-fad-died/

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When I first started teaching 9 years ago, there was a palpable buzz in the air around a pedagogical approach called "Genius Hour," also known as "20 Percent Time." This is where students choose a project that excites them, such as crocheting or building a rocket, and work on that project, unguided, every week during special lesson blocks reserved for this purpose. It was apparently based on Google's business model of granting employees large blocks of time during the work week to pursue their own projects, although it's not clear whether it was an actual corporate policy (D'Onfro, 2015) or nothing more than an illusion conjured up by Google executives to differentiate itself from its competitors. Regardless of Genius Hour's origins, in just about every school I've worked at there has been some attempt to adopt the Genius Hour approach, either as a school-wide program or by individual teachers. Some of the proposed reasons for implementing Genius Hour in schools are that it, supposedly, "offers students opportunities for deeper learning" and "grants students the freedom to explore, create, and possibly change the world" (Ginsberg & Coke 2019, p.17).

While I have no official data to support this, I sense that Genius Hour has been slowly becoming unfashionable in schools. I first became aware of this last year, when I found myself asking teachers about their schools' Genius Hour schemes during a workshop I led in Beijing. To my surprise, several teachers commented that they used to have Genius Hour as a school-wide initiative, but that it had either been scaled down significantly, or was eliminated altogether.

In another case in point, a former colleague told me about an interesting exchange he had at a job fair with a principal of a prestigious school. During an interview, the principal asked him what he thought about the Genius Hour "fad." My friend responded with something along the lines of, "Making Genius Hour work is technically possible for a strong teacher, I feel, but I worry about the classes who don't have one, especially classrooms with a high number of challenging students; Are the students just messing around, learning nothing, the whole Genius Hour time?"

The principal responded, "Thank you for answering honestly. Yeah, we actually ditched the Genius Hour gimmick last year for the very same reasons. My daughter, who goes to this school, would come home with popsicle stick projects that she'd spent months completing during Genius Hour, but which were the quality of projects she routinely makes at home in under 15 minutes when she's with a parent."

I think there are a number of reasons, in addition to those that these examples illustrate, for why the Genius Hour fad "died," or at least has begun to show signs of its impending death. The first comes from some of my own research into learner-controlled instruction. While there are some examples of instances when offering learner control leads to more learning than when instruction is under the control of a teacher or a computer (e.g. allowing learners to pause and rewind a video allows them to review information that would otherwise be transient), by and large offering learners the ability to choose and determine their own learning path leads to disappointing results (For reviews, see Carolan et al., 2014; Karich et al., 2014). Schools may be dropping Genius Hour because they're finding that passing the locus of instructional control onto the learner is ineffective.

The inability of researchers to find evidence that offering learner control improves learning begins to make sense when you reference the literature on student perceptions about their own abilities, and beliefs about what constitutes effective learning, study, and teaching. Students are often unaware of gaps that exist in their knowledge and skills (Kruger & Dunning, 1999) and tend to be overconfident to the point of undermining their own achievement (Dunlosky & Rawson, 2012). Students also tend to be very poor judges of what will help them learn, opting for reviewing material in massed fashion, rather than self-quizzing in spaced and interleaved schedules (Bjork et al., 2013), and preferring learning objects with flashy, decorative graphics that actually detract from learning (Mayer et al., 2020). While listening to an expert, watching an instructional video, or studying an example are all sensible ways to efficiently learn something new, research shows that students often opt to solve problems without guidance when given the choice (Foster et al., 2018). In a Genius Hour environment, we leave students at the mercy of their own overconfidence, unawareness, and immaturity to determine what path feels right to them, and what feels right is often a deficient form of instruction.

It can be argued, as I will here, that the Genius Hour fad will continue to fall out of favor because, at its heart, it is based on faulty assumptions about how learning and cognition work. Cognitive science tells us that all learners are endowed with a working memory that is extremely limited in capacity and duration, and a long term memory with unlimited storage space. When information from the environment enters through a student's eyes and ears, it is processed in working memory, but if there is too much information, the burden on working memory becomes too great and learning is impeded. This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as cognitive overload, is especially likely to happen when novices, i.e. students who lack a significant knowledge base about the topic at hand, are meant to process unfamiliar information. In fact, studies on cognitive load during problem solving have shown that it's possible for students to arrive at the correct solution when overloaded, mostly through random processes akin to trial and error, but not end up learning the procedures they used to solve the problem (Sweller, 1988). If we are to take cognitive science research seriously, we should follow the consensus that students need ample guidance during initial instruction, and for guidance to be slowly faded to allow for students, now armed with foundational knowledge, to produce products of their own at the end of the unit. This is what most teachers have been doing for all the years prior to the Genius Hour movement, and it runs in stark contrast to the pedagogy of Genius Hour, which requires teachers to match complete novices to passions that they haven't studied before and to leave them on their own to discover new information through trial and error.

There are other reasons why I'm happy the Genius Hour fad seems to be dying, such as the undue burden it places on teachers, who, sensing students aren't learning anything on their own, are forced to create 28 individualized lesson plans after school and over their weekends. And then there are the negative student behaviors that Genius Hour's loose, unsupervised format generates; a time when bullies are granted opportunities to harass and abuse our most susceptible learners behind teachers' backs. And lastly there is the equity lens that I will always carry with me as a political progressive, which tells me that inequality in this world will only be further exacerbated unless we erect strong supports for our most vulnerable populations, supports that are missing entirely, by design, from Genius Hour. Instead of going into these and more reasons here, I thought I would end with a letter that I sent to my principal a few years back expressing my concerns about the Genius Hour scheme that my school chose to adopt ( Note: I've highly edited the content, masking all identities and fabricating elements of the stories while keeping the substance. Any similarities to real people is entirely coincidental). If the arguments in this blog post do not serve to put the final nail in the coffin for Genius Hour, maybe a letter from a teacher, who tried his hardest to make Genius Hour work, will?

Dear Mrs. Burns,

Thank you for asking to hear my thoughts about Genius Hour a few weeks back. As you know, Genius Hour occupies the vast majority of 5th graders' school day for two days of our bi-weekly schedule. This is an incredibly generous investment of time dedicated to independent work on projects, but I have my concerns about it.

Above is a picture of a student's entire body of work after a semester of engaging in Genius Hour time (to be fair, he also created an incomplete PowerPoint to accompany it). Two of these bead projects were made on the last day of Genius Hour after the student's mentor teacher reprimanded him for a semester of wasted time, and the third one on the right someone found behind a bookshelf while sweeping up. The student still denies that this third bead project is his. Besides students like this getting lost in the shuffle in a model like Genius Hour, I have found that students are very unproductive. What is particularly disturbing to me is that this student has consistently demonstrated the capacity to produce quality work during regular lessons when given the appropriate level of guidance.

While I feel embarrassed about how this one student spent his time during Genius Hour, it is not an isolated incident. Let's take the case of another 5th grade student who chose for his Genius Hour project to make a city out of LEGO. Before he began the project his knowledge about city systems was very rudimentary; he had a basic understanding of roads and houses. What's interesting is that, at about the same time, Grade 2 teachers at this school happened to be teaching a newly designed unit about city systems during their regular whole-class social studies lessons. Over the course of an expertly crafted unit, Grade 2 students received carefully sequenced and scaffolded lessons about sustainable development goals, sanitation, industrial and business zones, electrical grids and sewage systems. The Grade 2 students did not know about these things before the unit started, but afterwards I can assure you they did. At the end of the unit, the students collaboratively designed and built a city system where they skillfully applied the knowledge they had acquired over the preceding five weeks. The comparison of what a student can learn when teachers design a well-structured unit, and what our Grade 5 student ended up experiencing during Genius Hour, reveals which of the two instructional approaches is preferable; Our Grade 5 student spent hours and hours making extremely basic houses and roads out of LEGO, adding little knowledge to his pre-existing schema, while the 2nd grade students actually learned about city systems and can now think about them and talk about them in more sophisticated ways than most 5 th graders can.

But what about the students who ended up making really cool products? Surely this is reason enough to declare Genius Hour a success? Well, not so fast. Let's take the case of one of my students this semester who was widely praised for making a pretty slick looking cardboard robot, complete with electrical circuits. The thing is, the final product that you saw was the result of teacher instruction on how to use circuits; Unguided, this student would have drawn a face on a cardboard rectangular prism and hot glued spare electronic parts inside it. Unfortunately, in a model like Genius Hour, there is little time and room for teachers to provide opportunities for students to receive this kind of one-on-one instruction, what with all of the other 27 students who need help finding materials, remaining on task, managing their behavior, and staying safe. This is why whole class units work; When everyone is inquiring into electricity, then everyone can actually learn about electricity and then apply that shared knowledge to achieving something of significance. In the case of this Genius Hour student and his cardboard robot, whenever instruction was withheld from him, his knowledge of electrical circuits did not increase, and his product did not improve. The resulting cardboard robot that you saw is essentially the same thing that he made together with his teacher on the first day of Genius Hour, and he certainly learned less during Genius Hour about electrical circuits or robotics than he would have had he been exposed to powerful knowledge and conceptual understandings in a rich and appropriately guided unit on electrical circuits or robotics.

But what about motivation? Aren't students more motivated than they would be during a typical unit as a result of having chosen their topics? Don't students love Genius Hour? While I'm quite sure many of our students would report that Genius Hour is super fun, it seems obvious that there is not always a 1:1 correlation between how powerful an experience is and how fun students would rate it. Actually, I would argue that many students are less motivated during Genius Hour because they can only work with what they already know rather than using new knowledge that they've gained from well-designed instruction to see significant improvement in their skills, understandings, and attitudes as learners. As Austin's Butterfly neatly demonstrates, students experience true motivation after weeks of feedback, critique, revision, and focused learning activities culminate in the achievement of something of consequence; when hard-earned foundational knowledge of a domain meets persistence and effort to create something beyond what could have been achieved if students had been left to determine the boundaries of their comfort zones. After three years of observing students create shallow, childish products of little consequence during Genius Hour, I can only conclude that it is wrong to assume that the surest path to motivation is to let a student choose a topic and then to withdraw the supports necessary for growth and achievement.

I could go on, perhaps mentioning the children who I routinely find lost on their way to their destinations during Genius Hour transitions, or how our version of Genius Hour necessitates that a large percentage of students are only supervised by teaching assistants, but I see that this email is getting long. Thank you for giving me the chance to share my thoughts. I look forward to discussions around how we can replace Genius Hour time with opportunities for deep and powerful learning.

- Zach Groshell

References

D'Onfro, J. (2015, April 17). The truth about Google's famous '20% time' policy. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/google-20-percent-time-policy-2015-4

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science., 12, 257.

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When I first started teaching 9 years ago, there was a palpable buzz in the air around a pedagogical approach called "Genius Hour," also known as "20 Percent Time." This is where students choose a project that excites them, such as crocheting or building a rocket, and work on that project, unguided, every week during...

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Recognizing the Pitfalls and Fixing Them

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Recognizing the Pitfalls and Fixing Them

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https://spencerauthor.com/the-5-biggest-mistakes-i-made-with-genius-hour-and-how-i-fixed-them/

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This post is inspired by Ross Cooper's latest post on the mistakes he made in doing PBL. It's a great post. In fact, you should stop reading this now and read his post instead. Go check out his book while you're at it.
I love the notion of sharing our mistakes along with what we tried out in order to fix it. It reminds me of America's Test Kitchen, where you get the chance to see all the things they tried before finally creating their successful recipes.

It has me thinking about Genius Hour and student-centered learning. Years ago, my first attempt at 20% Time was so awful that I actually didn't attempt it again for months and I actually had to change the name to Geek Out Projects just so that students wouldn't associate it with the failed attempt earlier that year.

But teaching is an iterative process and over time things improved. So, I thought I would share my screw-ups along with what I did to improve the process.

Here's a little primer on Genius Hour. If you find the video helpful, you might want to subscribe to my channel.
Subscribe to YouTube Channel
Issue #1: I didn't provide enough structure.

I assumed that students would be self-directed and simply get to work on their own passion projects. Instead, they treated it like a study hall period, where the hardest working students finished homework from other classes while other students simply socialized. The classroom became chaotic and noisy and I ended up nagging students with empty phrases like "get to work" or "come on guys, you don't want to lose this 20% time, do you?"
How I Fixed This:
I began providing specific structures for Genius Hour. For example, when I taught middle school, I incorporated design thinking into our first Genius Hour project of the year. I provided project planning documents that served as a loose template to guide their work. We actually had some mini-lessons on different approaches to project management. At first, I worried that this structure would inhibit creative thinking and students would take fewer creative risks. But as I pulled students aside for conferences, I noticed that they actually felt more empowered as a result of the structure.

#2: I didn't provide examples.

Imagine telling someone about football but never showing them an example of a game. "So, the center is at the line of scrimmage and he snaps the ball to the quarterback who may or may not be in the shotgun formation. If it's a Wildcat or Read Option offense, there might be a halfback or fullback on either side." It would be totally confusing if you had never seen the game. This is essentially what I did with Genius Hour. I talked about Google and I shared the concept without ever making it visible for them. My students were confused and I assumed they were being lazy when they weren't getting started.
How I Fixed This:
Initially, I overcorrected on this and gave them a restrictive, formulaic project handout. Later, I began modeling the Genius Hour concept by sharing my own journey. I would tell them what I was working on and what questions were driving my process. I would ask them what kinds of resources I might want to consider. Next, I would show examples from a broad range of topics and skill levels and remind them that these examples should serve as inspiration rather than rigid expectations. It sounds counterintuitive but students actually took greater creative risks after seeing the examples.

#3: I didn't consider alternative grouping.

I remember the first time a group of people asked if they could work together. My response was, "I'd really rather you work independently." In the process, I crushed the opportunity to work collaboratively and work interdependently. I was worried that other students would find it unfair or that individuals would use it as a chance to slack off. But as I watched students creating similar projects, I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if they had worked collaboratively.
How I Fixed This:
This was a simple fix. I told students that they could work with other students. It might mean working permanently with a small group on a project but it might also mean joining another project briefly to add your own opinions, skills, and expertise. I was nervous as groups of friends began converging. But actually, the best projects were the ones where students worked with their closest friends. There's power in the trust and vulnerability of friendships.

#4: I didn't set clear behavioral expectations

I remember hearing people talk about the virtues of noisy, messy environments and I figured that was simply how it had to be. But I thrive in spaces that feel safer and even quieter. I prefer a gentle hum to a loud cacophony. I actually get physically anxious when a class feels out of control. At the same time, I want students to feel the freedom to be themselves.
How I Fixed This:
I began setting expectations on the procedures. For example, students could move from group to group but they couldn't run (we had sharp objects). They could work standing up or sitting down but they had to be sitting down and listening in the rare moments of direct instruction. They could talk to other groups but they couldn't shout across the room. They were welcome to listen to music on their headphones but they had to take the headphones out when they talked to their peers. We put this onto a chart that they could reference at any time. The procedures were nuanced but clear.

It wasn't always perfect. I had moments when the class would get loud and we would do a one-minute silent reset. I had times when I hushed groups that were simply laughing loudly and genuinely having fun with what they were learning. But overall it worked. The class felt alive and energetic but rarely chaotic or crazy.

#5: I didn't allow students to own the academic side of it.

Initially, I tracked the academic progress. I connected their Genius Hour project to the academic standards. I even wrote out individualized learning targets so that I could show my administrators that I hadn't neglected that side of lesson planning. In the end, I graded their projects on a common rubric with broad topics like creativity and critical thinking. It was exhausting to design specific lesson plans for each student.
How I Fixed This:
Over time, I gave students more ownership of the academic elements of Genius Hour. This began with one-on-one student conferences, where we would connect specific academic standards to the skills they would use. For example, students might select certain reading skills from the ELA standards where they still needed some intervention. We also had certain standards that were universal in all projects (from ELA, we had reading, research, presentation standards and we had tons of ISTE standards as well).

It went beyond progress monitoring, though. Students engaged in self-assessment and peer assessment. Sometimes this was a formal structure but often this was an informal part of the process. Here the students owned this assessment process.

It was never perfect. I don't want to pretend to have all the answers in Genius Hour. However, I thought I would share my journey and, who knows, maybe it connects with your own experiences.

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The 5 Biggest Mistakes I Made with Genius Hour (and How I Fixed Them)

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This post is inspired by Ross Cooper's latest post on the mistakes he made in doing PBL. It's a great post. In fact, you should stop reading this now and read his post instead. Go

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Why One Teacher Went from Genius Hour to Wonder Workshop

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Why One Teacher Went from Genius Hour to Wonder Workshop

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http://www.mrswideen.com/2014/06/why-i-abandoned-genius-hour.html

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Genius hour is an amazing concept that children respond to because they get to learn about any topic they choose. I had a few rounds of Gen…

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https://engagetheirminds.com/2016/08/03/5-genius-hour-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them/

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The Genius Hour pages on this site seem to be getting a lot of views lately, which is good to see. As teachers prepare for a new school year, I am hopeful that more Genius Hours will be incorporated into curriculums around the world. Since I have been doing Genius Hour for several years, I thought it might help for those of you who are new to it to learn some of the giant mistakes I've made so you can try to avoid them.
Genius Hour Mistake #1 - Allowing Students to Work on Anything They Want
I have never known what people meant by "deer in the headlights" until the day I announced to my 5th grade class that they would have the opportunity each week to work on a topic they chose. Instead of the expected enthusiasm and "what an awesome teacher you are" smiles, I got a roomful of confused panic. These students had already spent at least 5 years in school being told what to learn every minute of the day. Suddenly being offered unlimited freedom was more debilitating than empowering. I learned that I needed to scaffold the process of choosing topics by guiding them through brainstorming passions, and teaching the students how to select a good research topic that was not too narrow or too wide.
Genius Hour Mistake #2 - Telling Students They Could Choose Any Way to Present their Topic
Don't get me wrong. One of the most wonderful things about Genius Hour is that the final products can be in any format - even a puppet show. However, when I told the students to, "Begin with the End in Mind," I discovered the hard way that most of them only had the end in mind. They couldn't wait to add their creative touch to the presentations, but that meant that there was little substance or learning in the research. Now, I don't even let them decide on a final product until they have shown quality research.
Genius Hour Mistake #3 - Thinking You Can't Teach During Genius Hour
I wanted Genius Hour to be a sacred time of independent learning, and was reluctant to ever do lessons during that time. However, when I noticed that many students were encountering similar challenges (such as searching for reliable information), I began to offer mini-lessons during Genius Hour every once in awhile to help everyone get back on track. They never last more than 10 minutes, but can quickly help to fill in gaps that a large portion of the class may have when it comes to research, copyright reminders, and other general information.
Genius Hour Mistake #4 - Leaving No Time for Reflection
Giving students time for reflection has always been a weakness of mine. We often get caught up in what we are doing and realize it's time to go seconds before class is over. I've been working on that for awhile, and one thing I have learned is how essential reflection is for Genius Hour. It has to be varied, so it doesn't become boring and rote, but it is so valuable to do it. Regular feedback throughout the project from the student, peers, and the teacher will definitely help to make it better. Last year, we did our research in Google Classroom, making it easy for all of us to give each other feedback and improve.
Genius Hour Mistake #5 - No Presentation Rehearsal
When students finish a Genius Hour project, that should mean that they are ready to present. However, if it's left up to them, they will spend very little time practicing, and just inform you that they are done. After the first couple of years of erratic final productions, I came across the, "What Would Steve Do?" slideshow that includes the following image.

I show this to my students every year. We talk about the ratios on the slide and how you should spend just as much time on practicing as you do on each of the other steps. Sometimes, we choose a sample of students from the class and the presenters go to another room to practice in front of them and get feedback. Keep in mind that some of their presentations are game shows and other interactive ideas, so it's not always slideshows. However, students can use slideshows with the simple rule that what they are telling us cannot be text on the slides (another suggestion from, " What Would Steve Do? ")

These are the 5 biggest mistakes that I've made while incorporating Genius Hour in my classroom - but there are many more errors I make each year. Genius Hour/Passion Time/20% Time, or whatever you want to call it, is an inexact, often chaotic process. It's hard to decide when to add your voice to the mix and when to stand back. Sometimes everyone needs you at once, and other times you walk around a surreally silent classroom as each student immerses him or her self in research. I often dread Genius Hour because so much is out of control. I often can't wait for Genius Hour because I learn so much from giving the students control. Genius Hour makes all of us vulnerable and reveals who we really are.

It's terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time.

Terri is a curriculum and tech integration specialist, speaker, and author with a passion for engaging and empowering learners. She delivers engaging professional learning, consultations on a variety of educational needs, and professional articles for various outlets . Find out more about Terri on the About page in the site menu. View all posts by Terri Eichholz

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5 Genius Hour Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

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The Genius Hour pages on this site seem to be getting a lot of views lately, which is good to see. As teachers prepare for a new school year, I am hopeful that more Genius Hours will be incorporated into curriculums around the world. Since I have been doing Genius Hour for several years, I...

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A.J. Juliani's "Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom"

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A.J. Juliani's "Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom"

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https://www.amazon.ca/Inquiry-Innovation-Classroom-Student-Success/dp/0415743168/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=genius+hour&qid=1691846766&sprefix=genius+hour%2Caps%2C235&sr=8-10

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Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom: Using 20% Time, Genius Hour, and PBL to Drive Student Success

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Up to 90% off Textbooks at Amazon Canada. Plus, free two-day shipping for six months when you sign up for Amazon Prime for Students.

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A.J. Juliani Answers 10 Questions about Genius Hour

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A.J. Juliani Answers 10 Questions about Genius Hour

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https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/genius-hour-questions/

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Listen to the interview with A.J. Juliani (transcript):
Sponsored by Kiddom

We hear all the time about how we need to give students more choice. About how we should be helping them discover their passions, how we need more student-directed, inquiry-based learning in the classroom. But all of that can feel like a load of abstract, pie-in-the-sky hooey without practical instructions for how to actually do it. We need a structure, a format, a plan for delivering this kind of experience.

Good news: That plan is here, and it's called Genius Hour. More and more teachers are implementing this brilliant learning practice in their own classrooms. Chances are, you already have a pretty good idea of what Genius Hour is. You might even have it on your list of things to try "some day." If that day hasn't come yet, it's probably because you have some unanswered questions.

So to help you out, I invited my friend A.J. Juliani to answer the 10 most frequently asked questions about Genius Hour. A.J. is the Director of Technology and Innovation for Centennial School District in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He did his first Genius Hour project back when he was an 11th grade English teacher, and since then has supported many other teachers as they implement Genius Hour in their own classrooms.

Now A.J. has created a full online course, the 1-Day Genius Hour Course, where he walks teachers step-by-step through the implementation process. (Learn more about the course at the end of this post!) The teachers who are already enrolled are seeing incredible results with their students, so I wanted to share some of A.J.'s wisdom with you and maybe get you one step closer to trying Genius Hour in your own classroom. To learn more about the course, scroll to the bottom of this post. In the meantime, there's plenty here to keep you busy!

1. What is Genius Hour? Is it different from 20 percent time?

Genius Hour is a teaching practice that has absolutely exploded in popularity over the last couple of years. It's where the teacher sets aside a certain amount of time every week or every day-maybe one class period per week or one hour per day in an all-day classroom setting-for students to learn about whatever they want. "There are lots of terms for it," Juliani says. "Genius Hour and 20 percent time are probably the terms people are using right now the most for this kind of inquiry-based learning, but that's really what both are at their heart."

2. Is Genius Hour just "do whatever you want," or is there a way to structure it?

If teachers want a Genius Hour project to be successful, they definitely need to structure it. "Even though students get to choose, and they have the freedom of choice," Juliani says, "the project is very, very much structured and put together. And I think it has to be in order for students to actually have the ability to get to the final end result." In our interview, he outlined how the basic structure works:

Step 1: Planning
First, Juliani says, teachers need to decide how much time they are going to set aside, and when that's going to happen. "Whatever works in your classroom, in your school, with your curriculum, I think dictates how much time."

Step 2: Topic Selection
After introducing the project to students, they choose what they are going to learn and what product they are going to create at the end to demonstrate their learning.

Step 3: The Pitch
Next comes the "Shark Tank" phase. Juliani explains how this works: "Each student either puts together four slides, and it's 30 seconds to a minute long, and basically what they tell their peers in the class is (1) What they're going to make, what they're going to learn. (2) Why they're going to learn it. Why they want to learn it. Why they want to make what they're going to make. (3) How they're going to go about doing it, kind of a brief schedule of how they're going to get there. And (4) What would be a success in their mind?"

Step 4: Research, Learning, and Documentation
Now students start learning the thing they said they were going to learn. "Kids might go to the library and research some things, or they may pull out technology and research," Juliani explains. "The teacher really facilitates where they're going to research and kind of get information. They could be watching videos. They could be talking to people who are experts. They could be reading books or articles. So research doesn't have to be typing something into a database. There's lots of different ways students can research the world."

At the same time, students are also sharing their progress along the way. "You want to have them documenting in their journal, sharing on a blog, doing videos and sharing them on YouTube, doing a podcast," says Juliani, "because they want to share out what they're doing with the world. You don't want to keep this hidden. You want to actually put it out there." Doing this builds classroom community and helps students learn from each other.

Step 5: Making
"You don't want to spend too much time in the research phase, because you really want to get into the making, creating, designing phase and start building your project into a reality," Juliani says. "For many students, this is where they get a little bit fearful, right? They're scared that they're going to fail. They're scared it's not going to turn out well. And so what I suggest is you put up what we call 'epic failure' boards. As the teacher, you share out when you fail, and you get kids, every time they come in the class for Genius Hour, putting up on there, 'Hey, here's how I failed on my project this week.' And you're celebrating those failures as steps toward success."

Step 6: Presentations
After the students have made their final products, they present them to their peers. The presentation can take a lot of different forms, Juliani says. "I've seen classrooms do TED-style talks where they live stream students doing three- to five-minute presentations and classrooms do gallery walk museum, wax museum, inviting parents in, community members, and putting it out there."

Step 7: Reflection
"After the presentation," Juliani says, "you have to take time to show the world what you made, what you did, and also reflect. What went well? What did you learn? What do you want to keep on learning? How's this going to keep growing?"

3. How do I grade Genius Hour work?

Those in the Genius Hour community handle this one differently, and whether or not this kind of project should be graded at all is still up for debate, but Juliani recommends that teachers grade students' work during the whole process, rather than the final product. To do this, he uses something called a GRIT rubric. "It's an acronym, and it stands for guts, resiliency, integrity, tenacity. It allows you to grade the process of students each and every time they come in or overall on, basically, are they having guts in the process? Are they actually taking on a challenge? Are they having integrity? Are they not cutting corners? Are they following through? Are they having the tenacity to go after something big? And are they having the resiliency if things don't go well to bounce back?"

4 & 5. How do I find time for Genius Hour in an already packed schedule? Can Genius Hour meet my required standards?

For some teachers, Juliani says, a Genius Hour project is a natural fit with existing coursework. This would be the case in an all-day elementary classroom or in any English language arts class, regardless of the grade level, because nonfiction reading and writing are being emphasized so much these days in many standards. In other classes, teachers may need to get more creative. "There was one elementary school that really couldn't fit it into their typical elementary school day, until the librarian said, 'Hey, I'm going to do it during my library block.' Library connected to research, connected to reading, and it fit right in there. I had a middle school science teacher tied it to the lab work that they do, where they research something and they create something in kind of the STEM subjects, and so they connected it there. So I think it's first just finding those pieces in your curriculum that overlap with inquiry and kind of seeing where it could fit in there. It's going to be different for everyone."

Teachers may also use Genius Hour as a special project during times when it's harder to get much academic work done. "A lot of folks have chosen to do Genius Hour projects in their class right around the time of state testing. It's a way for students to learn and have fun and actually be thoroughly engaged in school during that window of time that traditionally is just not that fun for kids."

As for standards, "This project hits so many of the common core and other types of standards," says Juliani. "Everything from standards that connect to reading and researching, standards that connect to analyzing and applying. Standards that connect to writing and presenting, creating and evaluating. And then you have standards for mathematical practice, ones like construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Another standard for model of mathematics. So you're hitting a lot of them in a Genius Hour project."

6. What if students want to study something weird or inappropriate?

Juliani believes we shouldn't reject a topic right off the bat if it's something unusual or completely unfamiliar to us; we might just need to learn more about it or send students to someone who shares their interest. "If you get a topic like that, and you're kind of really uneasy about it and not really sure, talk to some other teachers, talk to some professionals and see." But if it's inappropriate, he says, reinforce the idea that although they have free choice, the choice has to be something appropriate for a school assignment. "Just say, 'Hey, this is still school. It's got to be appropriate.'"

7. What if students just slack off instead of working?

When students don't take to Genius Hour right away, Juliani advises us to proceed slowly. "Just focus on the kid, because if they're not invested in this, there's probably some other things going on. So it's about coming alongside of them as a guide and a real teacher and building that relationship first, then those other pieces start to fall into place as you kind of work with them."

He recommends three strategies for helping students who get stuck or seem uninterested in the project:

First, talk with the student about life, not the project. "I think often we want to kind of just jump ahead and kind of force them down a path, but Genius Hour is as much about students finding what they're passionate about as it is about them kind of finding themselves. So I would talk with a student about life. 'Hey, what's going on at home? How are things going?' Talk to them about their interests. Come to find out what they're interested in."

If that doesn't get the student back on track with a topic they're truly invested in, the next step would be to ask them for help. "If they're not going to be able to work on a project, I wouldn't just let them sit there. I'd say, 'Hey. If you're not going to work on a project, let's go help somebody else. Let's see what John's doing over here or see what Susie's doing over here, and let's go.' And that lets them know in just a nice and friendly way that, 'Hey, I'm not giving you an F for this project, but you're going to do something. You're either going to do what you want to do, or you're going to help somebody else.'"

Finally, "I'd help them find a new purpose. Sometimes they get stuck on the passion part. They get stuck on 'I'm not really that interested in something.' And so now I'd start the opposite way, which is, 'Let's find a purpose. What have you ever wanted to make? What have you wanted to build?' 'What job do you want when you're older?'

8. How do I convince parents, my administrator, or my colleagues that Genius Hour is worth trying?

"When you start this, Juliani says, "tell your colleagues what you're doing. Invite them in your classroom. Show them other Genius Hour presentations and let them see what the end result of this is. With parents, send a letter home.Tell them what's going on in your class. Invite them into the classroom. Share your student blogs, give regular updates to your parents, to your colleagues, to your administrator, and then finally invite them into the presentations as well. Whatever type of presentation you're doing, invite them in, bring them together, share it out with people, be as transparent as possible."

9. Will this work with younger students?

"In K-2, it works really well," Juliani says. "Now, the researching might look different. Maybe they're not reading to research. Maybe they're watching some presentations, they're watching videos, they're looking around the world, right? Their purposes may differ too. They may not want to build a video game or clone carnivorous plants. But their purposes may differ as well. T he end products are going to look different. The presentations are going to look different. But the learning is going to be just as powerful in kindergarten, first and second grade."

10. How do I get started?

"Start with just a day or two," Julani says, "Start with an hour where students are just kind of going through this process really quickly. Like, what do you want to learn? Take a whole period just to learn something and tell everybody at the end of the period what you learned, why you wanted to learn it. Just kind of get that inquiry going in the classroom. It doesn't have to be a full eight-week unit or anything like that. Start small, and bring inquiry and choice into your classroom. It doesn't have to be a big, long project." From there, teachers can learn more from the growing community of teachers online who have run successful Genius Hour programs in their own classrooms.

The 1-Day Genius Hour Course

This course equips you with everything you need to run a successful Genius Hour program in your classroom: step-by-step instructions, printable and digital downloads to help you get organized, plus membership in a private Facebook community of experienced Genius Hour practitioners who can answer your questions every step of the way.
Get a closer look at the course
* I am an affiliate for the 1-Day Genius Hour Course. That means if you enroll after visiting the course through my link, I will get a small commission for referring you.

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Your Top 10 Genius Hour Questions Answered

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We hear the charge for more student-directed, inquiry-based learning, but it can seem like a load of pie-in-the-sky hooey without instructions for how to do it.

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Genius Hour Success Stories Across Grade Levels

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Genius Hour Success Stories Across Grade Levels

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https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/09/living/genius-hour-education-schools/index.html

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‘Genius hour’: What kids can learn from failure | CNN

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Some schools are building in time for students to work on passion projects – an idea inspired by Google’s 20% time.

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How One Student Built a Boat - And Learned Something Unexpected

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How One Student Built a Boat - And Learned Something Unexpected

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https://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2015/09/something-tangible-20time-edchat.html

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As teachers, we can sometimes spend a whole year working with students and see growth in their reading, writing, or other skills. We can see that they wrote a better paper or that they were able to solve more difficult math problems. At the end of the day though, those papers are thrown out or tucked away somewhere and forgotten. The teacher is not always left with something tangible after the students leave their classroom.

Last school year, a student, Jacob, chose to build a boat for his 20 Time project. He was going to work with his grandfather and built a boat in his basement. I told him I would take a ride in that boat when he was ready to launch. As the year moved forward, I was able to see updates on his boat building and read about all of the things he learned from his grandfather during this time. When it came time to share what he learned during 20 Time, he did not talk much about boat making. He talked about the value of spending time with his grandfather and all of the things he learned in their time together. He encouraged others to spend more time with their older relatives because they have so much to offer. It was a beautiful speech and I really felt like Jacob walked away with something he would never forget.

Fast forward to the start of September and I received an email from Jacob telling me he was finally ready to launch the boat and he wanted to know if I was still on board with taking it for a test spin. I was so happy that he remembered that I offered to take a ride when he was done and gleefully arranged a launch date with him. I showed up at the park and walked toward the beach and this was what I saw.

I was blown away by the work he put in over the course of a year. The pictures do not do this boat justice. It was beautiful. For some reason, it made me think of The Great Gatsby and the type of boats people would have used to move between West and East Egg. It was a stunning creation that would be worthy of any sailor.

The seats doubled as storage areas and he built an anchor mount so he could anchor offshore and fish or just relax. The paint job was spectacular and the interior and exterior was as smooth as can be. You could see the detail and the time it took to make this boat just right. It was clearly a labor of love. I couldn't wait to go for a quick ride around the shore.

It was a wonderfully smooth and dry ride around the beach area of the park. We talked about the project and the school year. It was very relaxing boat trip after a long day of school.

After returning to shore the parents thanked me for giving Jacob the opportunity to do the project and create something amazing. I told them I just got out of the way and let my kids create. This was all Jacob and his passion to do something different. I felt so honored to be one of the first people on the boat and to be able to share in this really cool experience. The boat is something tangible that Jacob will have for years to come that will remind him of the fact that anything is possible.

For me, the boat will be a symbol of why 20 Time is so important for our students. Jacob built a boat, strengthened his relationship with his grandfather, and learned about himself over the past year in a way that a Common Core aligned exam could never measure.

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An EdTech Blog that focuses on integrating tech into the classroom. I provide professional development for schools. Makerspaces are a part of my work.

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What is Genius Hour and How Can I Try it in My Classroom?

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What is Genius Hour and How Can I Try it in My Classroom?

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Whether you're new to teaching or a seasoned veteran looking to keep up with the trends, you've probably heard the buzz about Genius Hour. Maybe you're thinking about giving it a try but aren't sure where to begin. WeAreTeachers has your back! Here are the basics to get you started.

What is Genius Hour?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjAFjpIlwRz/?tagged=geniushour

Simply put, Genius Hour is inquiry-based, student-directed learning. Sometimes called Passion Pursuit, it gives students an opportunity to look at the big wide world around them and explore their own unique interests in a loosely structured, but supported, way. Terry Heick, founder and director of TeachThought , sings the praises of Genius Hour and describes it as a time when "students are in control; choosing what they study, how they study it, and what they produce or create as a result. As a learning model, it promotes inquiry, research, creativity, and self-directed learning."

How do I fit Genius Hour into my curriculum?

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With all the demands on the precious little time we have with our students, you may be thinking, "Well, who's got time for that?" We're not talking about a huge investment of time or energy. Genius Hour simply allows teachers to provide students a choice in what they learn and how they learn it during a set period of time within a school day or week. Some teachers allot one class period or one hour per week. Others aim for the 80/20 rule, in which 80 percent of the time is traditional standards-based teaching and learning and 20 percent is student directed.

What are the benefits of Genius Hour?

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Not only does Genius Hour create a pathway for intrinsic motivation, it encourages creativity. Generating questions and diving deeply into topics they are passionate about sets students up to be curious lifelong learners. In addition, the workshop style of Genius Hour builds students' social skills and confidence. It encourages collaboration as students draw on their personal strengths and swap expertise, acting as "consultants" for one another.

What is my role during Genius Hour?

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In addition to creating the framework and setting the ground rules for Genius Hour in your classroom, your role is to help your students focus and problem solve. You learn alongside them as you coach them, conference with them, and help them reflect as they go through the process.

How do I keep Genius Hour from turning into a free-for-all?

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There are a few basic guidelines for implementing a productive Genius Hour. Veteran teacher Jennifer Gonzalez, in her blog Cult of Pedagogy , suggests breaking the process down into steps. From planning and topic selection to research, presentation, and reflection, giving your students a basic framework for their work makes Genius Hour a manageable project.

Here is a sample pathway:

1. Pick a topic.

Brainstorming ideas and narrowing down options can sometimes be the trickiest part of the process for students. Guide them to choose a topic that they are truly passionate about and is just the right size.

2. Develop a driving question.

Once your students pick a topic, they will need a driving question to guide their research. This is the what, why, and how that allows them to go deeper into their subject. If the question they are asking can be answered with a simple Google search, it is not specific enough. A great place to start for guiding students through the inquiry process is this infographic from TeachThought.

3. Do the research.

There are many ways for students to dig up information on their chosen topic. In addition to reading books and articles, students can access websites, watch videos, and connect with experts in the community. Have your students use note catchers, write in their journals, or blog to stay organized and be accountable for their research. However, don't get bogged down on this step. Teacher AJ Juliani cautions, " You don't want to spend too much time in the research phase, because you really want to get into the making, creating, [and] designing phase and start building your project into a reality."

4. Bring it all together.

Creating something original is the core purpose of Genius Hour. Whether students publish, design, act, make, or do, there should always be a tangible takeaway from the process. How your students choose to present what they have learned is limited only by their imagination. Some ideas? Create a blog, shoot a video, write and perform a play, or paint a mural. Put on a puppet show, set up a gallery walk or wax museum. Make it a big deal by inviting families and community members to presentation day.

After the presentation, bring the process full circle and "cement the learning" by asking your students to reflect. What went well? What did you learn? What would you do differently? Where do you want to go from here?

Learn More about Genius Hour.

Watch:

Have you tried Genius Hour in your classroom? We'd love to hear about it in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

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What Is Genius Hour And How Can I Try It in My Classroom?

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Whether you're new to teaching or a seasoned veteran trying to keep up with the trends, you may be wondering, what is genius hour? We spell out the details for you here.

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An Explanation and Six Genius Hour Examples

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An Explanation and Six Genius Hour Examples

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https://atutor.ca/what-is-genius-hour/#:~:text=Genius%20Hour%20is%20student%2Ddirected,learn%20a%20new%20skill%20set.

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Genius Hour is student-directed learning and not teacher-led. Students direct their own learning for just an hour a day. This is the time when teachers allow their students to process, create, develop, and learn a new skill set.

Genius Hour allows every student to explore their own ideas and encourages creativity. The goal is to engage students through problem-solving and critical thinking. This inquiry-based learning experience is geared specifically towards students exploring their interests.

The Genius Hour Process

There isn't a right or wrong way to conduct Genius Hour in the classroom. However, you want to make sure that whatever you do, the structure of your Genius Hour will best fit your classroom.

Genius Hour occurs on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in my classroom. I like to do this three times a week because my classroom schedule allows for more time on these days.

Start Genius Hour

While Genius Hour is just like it sounds, one hour, you want to make sure the way you begin is uniform each time. Also, even though your Genius Hour is meant to be self-directed, you can provide a series of activities under a particular umbrella. For example, if one day is a board game day, I will place students into groups and allow them to choose which learning game they want to play for that hour.

When I introduce Genius Hour, my introductions are not longer than five to seven minutes. Typically, my process includes one student who will set the timer for me, one student to be the group leader (if it is a group play), and one student to get any materials (if necessary). Having a few reliable students in this process is also great for creating appropriate grade-level responsibility.

Lastly, when I start Genius Hour, I like for there to be a particular set of skills we are using each day. For example, one day will be problem-solving skills and the following creative thinking skills. Either way, we always start our Genius Hour in the same way.

Six Types of Genius Hour Projects

While there are many different resources and ideas available in the world of education that you can use on any given week for your Genius Hour, I chose these Genius Hour projects because they take minimal preparation for maximum output.

1. STEM Related Activities

STEM-related activities are a great way to incorporate all kinds of interests within your classroom. Whatever STEM activity you choose, make sure that you can complete it within the set time.

Make Slime

Teaching how to make slime is a ton of fun. I don't know any child that doesn't enjoy creating this fun and gooey, scientific mess.

DIY Popsicle Catapult

What provides mechanical inspiration more than creating a popsicle catapult?

The Cotton Ball Launcher

Along the same course as the catapult, you can have so much fun with the cotton ball launcher project. Have your students do a contest at the end of the Genius Hour to see who can launch their cotton balls the furthest.

Paper Rockets

Are you noticing a theme with launching things? Students will love to spend time on their rockets. When completed, have your students create videos of their launch!

2. Passion Projects

In passion projects, students choose something they are passionate about, have a research phase, and then present the final product to the class and whatever method they believe is best.

The concept of passion projects is something I started doing with my students years ago. I found that this great way of allowing students to conduct research and present something they love was fun for them, but it was also fun for me too!

Every student presented their projects to the classroom and had fun doing so! Students were allowed to present their final product in any way they wanted: Apple Movie, PowerPoint presentation and lesson, and live student engagement. I had students doing projects on everything from how to bake a three-tiered cake to putting a car engine back together.

3. LEGO Play

Playing with Legos is one of the best student-directed learning experiences you can offer within your classroom. Kids worldwide create and love learning with all types of Lego products. In this case, just a simple box of Legos will do! You can even have your students write down their idea and then spend time making them come to life.

4. Mentally Stimulating Board Games

Games such as Chess, Checkers, Dominoes, Scrabble, and so on are excellent Genius Hour activities! One hour of these mentally stimulating games will have your class begging for more. This particular activity is both an extrinsic and intrinsic motivation tool. My students love to challenge their teachers to a chess or dominoes match. Sometimes, in those difficult times of the year, an extra offering of the Genius Hour goes a long way in pushing kids to get their other classwork done!

5. Trivia Time!

Trivia is such a fun way to engage your students! Students can easily use technology programs such as Kahoot or Quizziz to create a trivia game based on their own passions. But don't just do one trivia for everyone; instead, let your students create their trivia to share with the class. Teachers, feel free to participate in this student-led teaching!

With my students, this trivia game becomes somewhat of a pet project they do during Genius Hour. This may not be something they finish all in one sitting. Have your students start creating their project trivia on something they love, then allow them the time to research and create great questions.

6. Community Engagement

With Genius Hour, you want your students to be interested in whatever ideas they are exploring. However, sometimes it is perfectly acceptable to provide the umbrella under which they will explore. Have part of your Genius Hour include some involvement with community members. People in the community can provide genuine material that will help spark an idea in students and teachers alike. If the point of Genius Hour is to discover something new, why not build new relationships?

Implementing Genius Hour

First of all, when I told my students that they could do a project or activity about anything that they wanted for one whole hour, I had to repeat myself because they didn't believe me. My first Genius Hour was a total success! Some people who teach older students might think that this is more for younger students, but it isn't. High school-age students like to explore and question just as much as the younger ones do.

My students worked for the entire hour, feeling like they were getting the freedom of free time. I felt as though I were the proud mother who had successfully hidden vegetables in their toddler's dinner. There are very few students who get the chance and opportunity to explore their own unique interests, and this hour allows them to do just that.

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What Is Genius Hour - 6 Project Examples - A Tutor

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Some might think that Genius House is for younger students, but it isn't. High school-age students like to explore and question just as much as the younger ones do.

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https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/articles/50-ideas-for-genius-hour/

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50 Ideas for Genius Hour : Fizzics Education

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We love genius hour! These 50 genius hour ideas are perfect for kickstarting student-led projects in all manner of fields.

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https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies/illustrations/genius-hour

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Context

The Teacher's Voice

In my classroom, an hour a week is set aside as "Genius Hour". This is a time when students can pursue their own interests by working on projects of their own choosing.

I found that initially the students did quite safe, school-like projects but I decided to "trust the process" and persevere. Some students are now in their second year with me and have started to find interests and passions to pursue.

Illustration

Student Work Sample

Teacher Reflection

This student is pursuing her interest in painting. She has been painting towers. The first attempt was a three-story tower but the student was not happy with the result. While she was on a family vacation in Italy she saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. When she returned, she worked out a way to enlarge her sketch and paint it.

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In my classroom, an hour a week is set aside as "Genius Hour". This is a time when students can pursue their own interests by working on projects of their own choosing. I found that initially the students did quite safe, school-like projects but I decided to "trust the process" and persevere.

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Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi's "The Genius Hour Guidebook"

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Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi's "The Genius Hour Guidebook"

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https://www.amazon.ca/Genius-Hour-Guidebook-Fostering-Classroom/dp/0367225786/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=genius+hour&qid=1691846766&sprefix=genius+hour%2Caps%2C235&sr=8-4

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The Genius Hour Guidebook: Fostering Passion, Wonder, and Inquiry in the Classroom

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The Genius Hour Guidebook: Fostering Passion, Wonder, and Inquiry in the Classroom: Krebs, Denise, Zvi, Gallit: 9780367225780: Books - Amazon.ca

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Free Genius Hour Notebook from TeachersPayTeacher

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Free Genius Hour Notebook from TeachersPayTeacher

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https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Genius-Hour-Interactive-Notebook-1977092?st=cd328c54feccb096f224a1f882962a84

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This interactive notebook is to help get you and your students started with Genius Hour in your classroom. There is a suggested teacher roll-out guide with activities and links to videos to go along with the student notebook pages. In the notebook, students can:

- develop their passions

- decide their driving questions

- brainstorm their products

- record their research

- reflect on their learning

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What TEACHERS are saying about this product:
♥ "I'm new to Genius Hour and this comprehensive guide not only helps prepare the teacher but provides graphic organizers for students to begin their thinking process."

♥ "This will be my first year teaching and of course my first year doing Genius Hour. I was so excited to do this with my kids, but terrified that it would be a flop. Your document is perfect for me since it lays out everything that my kids and I need for Genius Hour. Thank you SO MUCH! :)"

♥ "Wonderful packet! I was looking for a way to streamline this in my class and this was just what I needed!"

♥ "This is a fabulous free resource, and I can't wait to incorporate it into my classroom next school year! I love that there are a variety of items included for brainstorming and developing ideas, as well as video links for me to show my students as part of the introduction to Genius Hour! This definitely seems like it will be perfect for my middle school students!"

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This interactive notebook is to help get you and your students started with Genius Hour in your classroom. There is a suggested teacher roll-out guide with activities and links to videos to go along with the student notebook pages. In the notebook, students can: - develop their passions - decide t...

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https://www.edutopia.org/blog/genius-hour-essentials-personalized-education-nichole-carter

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Gallit Zvi and Denise Krebs Talk About How to Bring Genius Hour to Your Classroom

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Gallit Zvi and Denise Krebs Talk About How to Bring Genius Hour to Your Classroom

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https://www.middleweb.com/32159/make-this-the-year-you-launch-genius-hour/

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By Gallit Zvi and Denise Krebs
Have you heard of Genius Hour? It's inquiry-based and passion-based learning all rolled into one and students love it! We are firm believers in this kind of student-centered classroom experience.

If you haven't given this learning idea a shot in your class yet, we think you should consider making this the year you launch Genius Hour.

The Genius Hour movement was born on Twitter and we continue to host a #geniushour twitter chat each month. During our August chat we discussed how one might launch Genius Hour in this new school year. We heard some great tips from Genius Hour experts in the field, and we'd like to share their wealth of experience with you here.

Preparing for a Genius Hour launch

First we asked these teachers, some of whom have several years experience in Genius Hour, questions about what happens in their classrooms before they launch Genius Hour. They talked about how they would plan for Genius Hour, as well as when (and for how long) they'd prepare their students by introducing the concept.

Justin Greene and Carli Padgett each said their students will have conversations about their passions, likes and dislikes, and what they are wondering about. Likewise Amanda Dickey plans to have whole class and individual brainstorming about student passions.

Laurie Davies, Jennifer Abbey and Cristal Edwards suggested community building is key. We totally agree. In fact, both of us always spend the first couple of months of the school year building a trusting, safe community and getting to know our students before launching Genius Hour.

We love the use of a Wonder Wall in the classroom. It is great for students to know that their wonders and questions are important and worth recording. It is also really handy for those times when kids ask great questions during a lesson but you just don't have the time to fully explore it. Instead of letting the question slip away, you can ask the student to put it on a wonder wall for exploration later on!

Getting the admin support you need

The next question we asked the group was how do you plan to get support from administration? Did they think this was something they ought to do or something that perhaps wasn't necessary?

Many agreed that it was a good idea to keep administration in the loop about what was going on in their classrooms. Carol McLaughlin said "I think it's a good idea to share what you're doing w/ admin. Invite them into the process. Let your kids share with them." We love the idea of inviting administration into the class to be a part of the Genius Hour process. Students love sharing their project ideas with them! In the past, we have had admin come in and work with students on their projects-giving encouragement, asking questions, etc. It is really magical! Most of the chat participants chimed in and agreed that their admin loved Genius Hour too!

Angela Rutschke echoed this sentiment, adding that her admin was really impressed with the inquiry skills her students were learning!

Similarly, Cheryl Hopkins shared how her administration was always on board for innovative learning experiences like Genius Hour, but she also suggested bringing reasons to support your ideas. We think this is a great tip. Think about your 'why' for wanting to do Genius Hour in your room with your students and then mention those reasons to your admin when you tell them about launching Genius Hour. Then ask them to come in and join the fun!

Lindsey Matthews agrees. She advised folks to, "Plead your case and invite your admin in. The benefits are undeniable. He/she will be hooked!" So how do you plead your case? Go back to that 'why' question. Why do you want to do Genius Hour? Some of our major reasons for why Genius Hour is important are:

Renee White added that she shared the huge number of standards that Genius Hour hits. This is another great thing to spend some time looking into and adding to your list of reasons for Genius Hour.

Brainstorming Genius Hour project ideas

So after you've started your year off right - building community, working on inquiry and questioning skills, inviting administration in so that they can participate in Genius Hour too - the next step is to actually launch Genius Hour in your classroom. Which begs the question: how do you brainstorm potential Genius Hour project ideas with your class?

Renee White, as 1st grade teacher, talked about how she teaches questioning strategies first and then meets with students one-on-one or in small groups to brainstorm ideas.

Cheryl Hopkins and Lindsey Matthews both shared how their students enjoy being inspired by other Genius Hour kids in their school and around the world, so they take some time during the initial launch to check out other students' blogs. Great idea!

Nancy Erickson reminded us that a good brainstorm means all ideas go up: the good, the bad, the ugly and the outrageous are all fair game for a brainstorming board. We couldn't agree more. It is all fair game in the initial brainstorm, and then we help students narrow it down to something that really is important to them. The next step is to help them design an inquiry question that will be focused enough for them to pursue.

Although many do this brainstrom on the chalkboard or with sticky notes on a bulletin board, Lindsey Matthews reminded us that a brainstorm can also be done digitally. She creates a padlet wall for them to post their ideas.

To help focus this brainstorm, Angela Rutschke recommends the following questions:

What breaks your heart?

What can make a difference?

What's a problem you can solve?

What do you want to know more about/why?

We love these questions and have used similar ones when we have tried to encourage our students to try new projects that are more passion-based (instead of only focusing on pure inquiry-type projects). Shifting from what do you love to what breaks your heart about what you love can help students who know that they love horses, for example, but cannot think of a great project question to go with it.

More tips for new Genius Hour teachers

We ended the chat (as we often do) by asking our experienced Genius Hour teachers if they had any tips to share with newbies. Here is what they had to say:

Joanna Mackey reminded everyone that Wonderopolis has great questions to help inspire students and is a good place to start. We agree, especially with younger students.

Amanda Dickey and Renee White wisely suggested you let go of control. Even though it can be stressful and everything may not always go as planned, you will see what great things the students do. Ms. Chouinard-Jahant said, "Plan well, but be open for a little chaos. Trust students. They really embrace Genius Hour and love the opportunity for choice." We think you will find, as Cristal Edwards did, that "students can and will surpass expectations."

Cheryl Hopkins suggests having patience and being willing to admit you don't know. You will learn from and with the students. We agree! The "teacher as lifelong learner" will contribute to success in Genius Hour.

Wendy Heffler gives the advice for teachers to be a facilitator during Genius Hour.

Haage says, "Don't give up. It may be hard for students to grasp the concept, but keep at it." Yes, indeed. If students don't get it at first, please keep trying. They need more help and practice in this way of learning, which unfortunately is so foreign for too many of our students.

Angela Rutschke had lots of suggestions in one short tweet:

Be brave

Jump in

Get a buddy

Good driving questions are the engine

Check in often with groups

Try a short project for the first Genius Hour

Jennifer Abbey tells new Genius Hour teachers to go for it, as there is nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Two practical bits of advice from Leah Chancellor:

Check in with students regularly

Help them keep organized

Finally, we loved this inspirational advice Lindsey Matthews gave:
Here are some more resources shared during the chat:
We want to add one more thought

Enthusiasm is probably one of the best ways to get our students on board. Obviously students will love the autonomy, purpose, and other wonderful parts of Genius Hour, but in our experience students are most responsive to teacher enthusiasm.

Why not do a little Genius Hour project of your own and share it with your class? Show them your excitement for this, and we think it will be contagious. If you are pumped about it, they will likely feed off your energy. So have fun and share with your students.

We hope some of these tips will help you launch a successful Genius Hour in your classroom this year!
► You can participate in the #geniushour chat on Twitter the 1st Thursday of each month at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern. All you need is a Twitter account. For more participation options, try a tool like Tweetchat. If you need more help, here's an educator-friendly guide.
Feature illustration: Lesley Buckner

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Teachers Gallit Zvi and Denise Krebs are the authors of The Genius Hour Guidebook, brought to you by MiddleWeb and Routledge Eye on Education. Receive a 20% discount at the publisher's website by using this code at checkout: MWEB1. Find lots more articles and free resources at the GHG book website.

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Make This the Year You Launch Genius Hour

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For teachers who've thought about launching a Genius Hour program, Gallit Zvi and Denise Krebs have organized a wealth of tips and resources to get you started.

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Andi McNair's "Genius Hour in the Classroom" Resource Book

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Andi McNair's "Genius Hour in the Classroom" Resource Book

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https://www.amazon.ca/Ready-Use-Resources-Genius-Classroom/dp/1618219014/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=genius+hour&qid=1691846171&sprefix=genius+hour%2Caps%2C235&sr=8-2

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Ready-to-Use Resources for Genius Hour in the Classroom: Taking Passion Projects to the Next Level

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Ready-to-Use Resources for Genius Hour in the Classroom: Taking Passion Projects to the Next Level : McNair, Andi: Amazon.ca: Books

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A Compendium of Resources Curated by Joy Kirr

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A Compendium of Resources Curated by Joy Kirr

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https://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=829279

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Great Genius Hour and 20% Time resources including grade level success stories, why you would want to do Genius hour, how 20% time works, how to get started, how to work through issues, and how to communicate with parents about the projects.

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https://www.edutopia.org/blog/genius-hour-into-genius-year-jennifer-berstein

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Tips and Tricks from a Genius Hour Teacher

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Tips and Tricks from a Genius Hour Teacher

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https://www.edutopia.org/groups/personalized-learning/802456

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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A Starter Guide for Students and Parents

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A Starter Guide for Students and Parents

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https://www.geneva304.org/Downloads/Genius%20Hour2.pdf

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4 Things to Remember as You Integrate Genius Hour in Your Classroom

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4 Things to Remember as You Integrate Genius Hour in Your Classroom

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https://www.eschoolnews.com/featured/2016/12/22/7-successful-genius-hour/

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[Editor's note: This story, originally published on January 26th of this year, was our #7 most popular story of the year. The countdown continues tomorrow with #6, so be sure to check back!]
What are you passionate about? What do you want to do more than anything in the world? Well I hope you said what you are doing right now. This is not always the case. Some people hate what they are doing. They may hate it because it pays too little, but being a teacher doesn't make me very wealthy and I love what I'm doing. More importantly, people may hate their job because they would rather be doing something else. This is where I think we can do better in education.

As educators, we can help our students find and explore their passions. Once they discover what they're truly passionate about, the learning and engagement will never stop. The best way for students to explore their passions is through Genius Hour.

Genius Hour isn't new concept. Many teachers and businesses have been doing this for a while. Companies like HP and Google started "20 Time" so their staff could pursue passions projects and make their organizations stronger. Similarly, teachers have allowed students to read any book and present a book report in any format for a while now, giving them a chance to indulge their interests while learning. Of course, the true concept of Genius Hour is more open than a book report. It recognizes the need for students to have the freedom to explore their passions and not be restricted.

However, even with all this freedom, we still need some rules. The way I see it, the four rules to Genius Hour are: propose, research, create, and present. As long as your students are following this basic structure, they should have a successful Genius Hour experience. Here some tips for making those rules work in your classroom.

Let students explore their passions -First things first: make sure kids have enough time to explore what makes them passionate in the first place. After all, they need to know what their interests are in order to be able to explore them in depth. I use Thrively as a starter. The kids use the site to take an assessment that will show them their strengths. They can then use this strength assessment to watch videos, choose a Genius Hour project, or look at events happening around them. Letting students explore their passions is an essential part of Genius Hour. Another way to help students explore themselves is to create a Wonder wall or a Problem-Solvers Wall. This is simply a space for students to put sticky notes with questions or problems the want to solve. These walls aren't just impactful for the students. The teachers can learn a lot about their students by looking at their "wonders" and "problems". Once the students have asked those questions and explored themselves they can now decide what they want their focus to be. I also use a worksheet so students can get their ideas out about who they are and what their interests are. The next step is for each student to make a Project Proposal.

(Next page: 3 more tips for a Genius Hour)

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#7: The 4 essentials of a successful Genius Hour

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Genius Hour projects may be open ended, but there are still some ground rules. Here are some tips for making Genius Hour work in your school