#GeniusHour, Curiosity Time, & Passion Projects

Passion driven learning is essential today. And it cannot just be the teacher’s passion. Students are at the heart of the classroom and in building a community in your classroom all member’s voices and interests must be taken into consideration. Passion driven learning includes student’s passion and interests. Genius Hour and passion projects are one introductory step in helping to cultivate a classroom where passion, curiosity, and creativity are at the front and center.

I was first introduced to Genius hour more than 8 years ago through the buzz that other teachers shared on social media and at edtech conferences. While offering genius hour and curiosity time for my students, I have seen my approach to active and student centered learning evolve in many ways. The end result has always been the same, for my students to know: “You matter, you have influence, you are a genius, you have a contribution to make” (Angela Maier, Classroom Habitudes)

Genius Hour Menu

If we look to the corporate world, Google recognized that workers were more intrinsically motivated and creative when they had more autonomy (freedom). Employees were allowed 20% of their work time to pursue “side-projects” that interested them but were not specifically part of their job description. So, if this works in the business world, why not try it in the classroom?

Would students be more intrinsically motivated to learn?

Would students be able to unleash their creativity and inherent drive to learn, solve problems, and create?

Genius hour and passion projects are all about igniting innovation in the classroom Genius hour allows students to take the reins of their own learning and explore the topics and subjects that are of interest to them. Teachers need to go beyond teaching a subject that they only know because of a test or just to pass the class. School shouldn’t only be about passing a test, but rather creating a culture of learning where students are engaged, making connections, and helping to solve problems that will make the world a better place.

How does one start or kick off genius hour? How does one sustain genius hour throughout the quarter or semester or even the entire school year? These are two questions that I hear often.

First, it is important to introduce survey your students about their own passions, interests, likes. Having students complete student questionnaires & interest surveys are great places to record preliminary project seed ideas. Additionally, I show videos to inspire students about young adult entrepreneurs and social activities. I also read aloud picture books that inspire creativity and growth mindset. Titles include:

The Most Magnificent Idea by Ashley Spires (2014)

What Do You Do With An Idea by Kobi Yamada (2014)

It’s Never Too Late by Dallas Clayton (2014)

The North Star by Peter Reynolds (2009)

I have also curated genius hour resources on these past blog posts.

Through the genius hour models and mentors and completing questionnaires and surveys students might begin to choose a project they want to dedicate some time to. Students then begin researching, creating, and collecting information and inspiration for their own curiosity project. On the Genius Hour menu posted above, you will notice that each project is 10 weeks long and students try a different passion project every quarter. Some students use the same topic in all four projects where as other students like these opportunities to switch things up every few weeks. After four-five weeks of researching and curating, students begin reflecting and thinking how they might share their learning with others. Sharing is an important part of the genius hour process.

Showcasing Passion Projects is an important part of the process, students are going to present their research and findings to a wider and authentic audience. I have had students create blogs about their process and complete an Elevator Pitch. Students have showcased their work in a gallery or expo to the larger school community. Students can create a TED Talk or Masterclass about their project.

After students go through the genius hour or passion project cycle, reflection is a major piece. Reflection can be in the form of a Google Form or Flipgrid video reflection. You might want to have students reflect weekly rather than wait to the very end of the project to divulge their process and final product.

Looking for even more resources, check out these links:

• @ajjuliani and http://thelaunchcycle.com/ Genius Hour Master Course
• Inspiring blog post from @jmattmiller. 
• Awesome HyperDoc questions from @beardsleyteach
• Genius Hour   and 20Time.org website
• Genius Hour Live Binder curated by @joykirr

Mash Up March: Genius, Google Stop Motion Animations, & Screencasts

Kukimbia means running in Swahili. Kukimbia is also the name of a documentary directed by Spencer MacDonald and Eva Verbeek showcasing the dedication and culture of three Kenyan runners:

Paul Koech
Specialty: 3000 meters steeplechase
2004 Olympic bronze medalist
Three-time winner IAAF Diamond League
Personal Best of 7:54.31 minutes – third fastest of all-time

Micah Chemos
Specialty: 3000 meters steeplechase
2013 World Championships gold medalist
Four-time winner IAAF Diamond League

Leonard Komon
Specialty: long-distance road race
10K & 15K World Record Holder
Fastest half marathon debut ever

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/173574639″>KUKIMBIA: A Journey Through Kenyan Running Culture</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/ambedo”>Ambedo</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

What’s Your Vision? In the future what do you want to be? These two questions are asked of the runners presented in the documentary, and are also questions posed to viewers. The documentary showcases perseverance and dedication. It juxtaposes the landscape of Africa, animals in the wild, starry night skies, and lush greenery against the villages, people, and daily life for the runners. The colors throughout the films, the types of shots, transitions, symbolic pictures against the voice overs and music help to convey ideas about what makes the Kenyan running culture an international success.

This documentary gave me the idea to have my own students choose a visionary they are inspired by: Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Coco Chanel, J.K. Rowling, Martin Luther King, Jr., Walt Disney, Taylor Swift, Malala, Gandhi, Shawn White. Once students choose a person they deem a genius and visionary, they will research to find out more about them, their education, their inspiration, telling quotes, and accomplishments.

Based on the information gathered on the biography note-taking organizer, students create a Google stop motion animation movie showcasing this person, this genius. To make animated movies in Google Slides, students make multiple slides and incorporate .gifs on the slides.

The following directions to making a Google Slides stop motion animation are from Eric Curts, Google Innovator and author of the blog Control Alt Achieve.

1. Create your Google Slideshow as normal.
2. Insert images, shapes, text, and other items as needed.
3. To save time, make copies of slides and make small changes to the items on each slide to simulate movement.
4. To make certain slides last longer, make multiple copies of the slide.
5. When done, use “Publish to the web” option to get playable link for your slideshow.
6. Adjust the “Publish to the web” link to shorten the time between the slides to make them appear animated (from 3000 to 2000 or 1000 – depending on which speed which works best).
7. Share the link with others to view!

After students create their biographical Google Slides stop motion animation, students write a script to add a voice over describing the key quotes and accounts of this visionary. Using a screencasting tool like Screencast-O-Matic, students can blend their stop motion animation with their voice overs and musical interludes. Once the videos are completed post online to share with others.

Based on your content area, grade level, or unit of study, this activity can be adapted and revised to best meet student needs. This is a great activity to use as an introduction to Genius Hour and Passion Projects. Or can be completed for a biography projects for history, science, mathematics, or side quest about great writers. Teachers can create a checklist of items students should include in their video including a key quote, symbolic images, and music to convey the theme. Viewing Kukimbia with students can lead to a discussion how filmmakers use specific craft moves to support their purpose and message before identifying the project requirements.

 

 

Recording Genius: Using Notebooks & Journals with Genius Hour

The great inventors like Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Da Vinci, and artists, musicians, and writers maintain journals and notebooks to record their thinking, ideas, and experiments. In fact, Benjamin Franklin once said, ““If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things down worth reading or do things worth reading.”

To catalogue students’ genius hour experiences over the course of the school year and semester, students created a Genius Journal recounting their investigation, planning, action, and reflections.

Genius journal could be as creative and artistic as a student chooses with a minimum of five entries that address the following:

Investigating

 

 

Define your genius hour goal based on personal interests

Explain why this project is important to you and something you are passionate about

Identify prior learning and subject specific knowledge relevant to the project.

Demonstrate the research you conducted to collect information, ideas, and knowledge

Planning

Articulate the guiding question for your project

Describe the steps you took to put the project in action

Describe the process and development of the genius project

Demonstrate how you managed your time and resources to bring your project to fruition

Describe where you might have had to change, revise, and revamp your project and why

Learning from the Experts

Interview a person you feel is a genius or can help you with your project, what insight do

they offer regarding carrying out your passions and project

Curate information about your project. What others are doing and have done

Who are the people in this field of study that have insight to share, what keywords have they presented

Taking Action

Demonstrate service and or product as a result of the project

Demonstrate your thinking skills and new understanding as a result of the project

Demonstrate communication and social skills

Reflecting

Evaluate the quality of your service or product

Reflect on how completing the project has extended your knowledge and understanding

Reflect on your own development of life skills and how you benefited from completing

this project

Reflect on whether you will continue your work on your genius project; why or why not

 

The journals would be evaluated on the criteria below:

Criteria

Quantity of Entries

Quality of Journal Entries

Original Illustrations, Diagrams, & Photos

Reflection

Grammar, spelling, mechanics, & punctuation

These reflections and entries would also work well as blog posts for Genius Blogs.

10 Project Ideas to Highlight Genius Hour & Passion Projects

There are many ways that students can present their Genius Project Learning. I am a teacher who tends to shy away from traditional Powerpoint presentations and often give students a choice of different projects and products to share their learning. Below are some of the recent project choices.

Sketch Note It – Show us visually what you did for your genius hour project in a visually appealing way.   Your sketchnote should be in-depth and visually appealing.

Teach Us – Be the teacher and present a mini-lesson with active engagement for students to try something out and learn about your project. To help you plan for this presentation, think how your best teachers present information and help you to learn best. Your mini-lesson should be between 10-15 minutes and encompass a hook, minilesson, active engagement, and end with some closure/reflection.

Turn It Into a Breakout EDU – Complete a Breakout EDU Game Design Template Worksheet to combine your Genius topic and gaming. You can use as many or few of the Breakout EDU components to challenge your classmates and help them think deeply about your genius hour project.

RadioLab Style Podcast – RadioLab is a show on NPR that presents topics through engaging conversations, media clips, and investigative journalism. Create your own RadioLab style podcast and share the audio file to publish a collection of Genius Hour podcasts online.

Video TED Talk – TED is a group devoted to spreading ideas. Their national conferences and regional TEDx events are famous for offering short, powerful talks and posting them online. Present your own TED style talk about your genius hour topic.  Video it, and share it with your teacher to post on our Genius Hour YouTube channel. The TED Talk should be informative, engaging, and inspiring. 

Feature Article – Write a feature article for our school newspaper and school website with the intention of getting it published. Share your genius process and final product with the world.

Whiteboard Animation Video– Tell your story and genius process through a whiteboard animation video. 

Prezi Screencast– Create a prezi presentation and then screencast an audio presentation talking through the major points of your Genius Hour project. Use free screencasting sites like Screencast-o-Matic and Screenr.

Blog About It  – Create a blog that details your weekly process and progress with your passion project. Add videos, links, and photos to help your followers understand your genius quest.

Genius Hour Fair – Design a visual presentation of your genius project to share with the entire school and community – Yes, school administrators and parents are invited. Design a display board or go digital by setting up laptop, include QR codes with links to resources and additional information. Be sure to include pictures of your week work and successes and bullet point the lessons you learned throughout the project.

Exit Reflection  – This can be completed as an independent reflection assignment or as a final blog reflection. Students reflection on their learning and what they gleaned from the entire Genius Hour process. Students might address the following questions:

1. What did you take away from your genius hour experiences?
2. What were the positive experiences and the challenges you faced?
3. Why did you work on this project, what is the personal connection or cause that led you to this passion?
4. What are you going to do as a result of your research and project? Will you continue to work on it after you leave our class?
5. Why should genius hour be offered to all students at our school? Explain your response.

 

Genius Inspiration for Middle School Students

Genius Hour happens every Friday in my classroom and this year I have required my students to choose a new Genius Hour or Passion Project every ten weeks. Genius Hour allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. The genius project is self selected, as long as it taps into one of the menu choices below.

Make the World/Community a Better Place – A genius solves a problem in a way no one else could.  A genius looks at a problem with fresh eyes.  A genius is ready make a unique impact on the world; solve a problem in a new way. For this genius project choose a problem and find a solution that will benefit others on a community or global scale.

The UnGoogleable – A genius begins with a question that hasn’t been answered anywhere, ever. A question that takes time to answer. It has an UnGoogleAble answer. This genius hour project requires students to research something that goes beyond facts and summary but requires analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  Students will look at multiple theories and present their findings.

Learn/Master – A genius seeks to gain knowledge about something that interests them. It takes 10,000 hours to get to mastery. For this genius project students will spend their hours practicing and mastering a personal passion of theirs.

Create/Innovate – A genius gives the world something it didn’t know was missing.  For this genius project you will create or make something. You can build, design, or create something from scratch.

Always looking to inspire my students and to show them Genius projects presented by other teens, I have collected a few videos and websites that highlight the amazing potential of teenagers. Below are TEN that I have shared with my students this year to wow them and show them that teens can make a difference, start a business, master a skill, and empower others.

Mr. Cory’s Cookies – For those who love baking and want to take it to the next level.

10, 000 hours equals mastery is showcased in this YouTube video:

Shelterpups.com – She wanted the perfect stuffed dog that looked like her own mixed breed. So, she created her own and started a business at the same time.

York School Student Projects all focus on helping others and the community.

Jack Andraka is a High School Student and Cancer Researcher. His memoir Breakthrough is a great read for middle and high school students.

Malala’s memoir  I Am Malala is one book that my students read as a part of a unit on social justice and courage. The Malala Fund helps young people understand that one person can make a difference.

Thomas Suarez designed his first app at 12 years old.

So you want to be a filmmaker. Zachary Maxwell shares insight in this TEDx Talk.

 

Seventeen year old Patricia Manubay is making learning exciting with “Dream Boxes” by helping young people get the school supplies they need.

Teen singer, songwriter, and superstar, Shawn Mendes.

 

Genius Ideas, Projects, and Outcomes

This year I gave my students a menu of Genius Project possibilities. I didn’t tell them what their project had to be about, rather I categorized four types of genius hour projects (see below). This allows for students to “try out” different kinds of projects throughout the school year as they tap into their passions and curiosity. The projects were diverse, engaging, and student driven.

Here is a few of the inspiring genius projects students completed this first quarter of school.

Help Make the World/Community A Better Place – For this genius project choose a problem and find a solution that will benefit others on a community or global scale.

Helena devoted each Friday in designing a website to help Hurricane Matthew survivors in Haiti. Her website listed and linked websites with information about their missions and goals, and also allowed users to make a donation which would help the citizens of Haiti. She wrote blog posts about the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, updates, and shared pictures. From this experience, she learned how to make a website, became informed about the impoverished island of Haiti, and how to problem solve when it comes to technology.

The UnGoogleable – This genius hour project requires students to research something that goes beyond facts and summary but requires analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  Students will look at multiple theories and present their findings.

Create/Innovate – For this genius project you will create or make something. You can build, design, or create something from scratch.

Learn/Master – For this genius project students will spend their hours practicing and mastering a personal passion of theirs.

Google Inspiration and Innovation: CT GAFE Summit Take Aways

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Connecticut Google Apps for Educators Summit. This two day event was filled with so many amazing workshops and opportunities to learn the ins and outs of the ever evolving Google Suite for Education. The Summit was presented by EdTech Teams and included awesome presenters Chris Craft, Kern Kelley, Jeffery Heil, and others who are all Google for Education Certified Innovators.

There were so many great presentations addressing STEM, Makerspace, BreadoutEDU, as well as learning more about different Google Apps. Of all the awesome workshops that I attended, here are a few key ideas that anyone can utilize in their classroom.

Google Geekiness – Chris Craft and Kern Kelley both led workshops that gave me new ways to utilize the Google Suite with my students and parents.

Say you have a big summative assessment coming up and it has many parts to it. A teacher can add a step by step list of tasks in Google Sheets and then schedule automatic email notifications to any recipient before the task is due. This is great for IEP and 504 students who need larger tasks broken down into smaller and simpler steps. Plus, the email reminders help students stay on task.
Kern Kelley taught me how to make animated movies in Google Slides. By making multiple slides and incorporating .gifs on the slides, students can make short animated videos to convey a science concept, illustrate how they solved a math equation, or even recreate a scene from a book read for school. You can see what I created in less than an hour.

Kelley has written a book, The Google Apps Guidebook (2012)  with his students that details dozens of lesson ideas using Google Apps in the classroom. In the book, he describes the steps to creating animation in Google Slides.

Active Viewing – Showing a video in class or for homework should not be a passive task. With Extensions like EdPuzzle and PearDeck, watching videos and presentations can be interactive and hands on.  Both these applications allow students to embed reflection questions and have students give feedback in written, oral, and video form.

Re-imagine the Rubric – Jeffery Heil addressed the limits of rubrics in conjunction with a Growth Mindset philosophy. Rubrics should not be a menu, but more of a checklist that only includes mastery criteria. He described how he uses badges to help more students meet mastery. Feedback is key and students need to be able to show evidence of their learning throughout, eliminating the one and done assessment mentality. Focus should be on learning, not a grade.

Work Smarter, Not Harder with Google Forms – Well, I have completely rewritten the lessons that I was going to teach to my students this week and put everything onto different Google Forms to collect their responses and show evidence of their learning after attending Jeffery Heil’s Game of Forms session. Now that one can embed images and videos in Google Forms, there is so much that teachers can do to go paperless and create interactive lessons. Google Forms can be used for submitting assignments, pre assessments, exit tickets, and even a Choose Your Own Adventure activity. Flubaroo and Doctopus are two add ons with forms that can grade and manage the flow of student work.

Students Innovators – I just finished reading Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World by Tony Wagner. This book looks at the characteristics of student innovators and how their parents and teachers helped to cultivate creativity and innovation. Wagner cites three key ingredients: play, passion, and purpose. Genius Hour and Passion Projects in school are not a new idea. True inquiry is based on personal passion. Today, school is not about knowledge pursuit or memorizing facts. In fact, students can learn what ever they want on the internet. YouTube is a teacher. Learning in the classroom should be about play, purpose, tinkering, and failure as a good thing. Having students learn something they are passionate and then reflect on their learning is eye opening and often inspiring.

I have shared my ever evolving experience with Passion Projects and Genius Hour in my own classroom. To read more about my own experiences with Genius Hour these past four years click here and here and here. 

This year I have created a choice menu for students to help them with their passion projects and I am creating a more Choose Your Own Adventure approach with my students to help them pursue their passions.

 

 

 

Mise en place & School

Wikipedia defines Mise en place as (French pronunciation: [mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) “a French culinary phrase which means “putting in place” or “everything in its place.” It refers to the set up required before cooking, and is often used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients (e.g., cuts of meat,sauces, par cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables, and other components) that a cook will require for the menu items that are expected to be prepared during a shift.

September is my time to put everything in place for my students to understand the requirements and routines of the classroom. I use the first month of school to set up our interactive notebooks, build classroom community and trust, introduce weekly Genius Hour and establish the gaming elements of my English classroom.

I have created a gamified Genius Hour activity to kick off the Classcraft teams, build team work, and begin thinking about possible genius projects. Add a little XP – experience points to all the tasks and the challenge begins. I am planning out how to gamify all of my Genius Hour time for my students with various tasks to help them play, tinker, research, and create.

I will have to share the results in a later post.

Genius Hour Project Round Up

This spring I decided to dedicate my Friday classes to a passion project of my students’ choosing. Throughout Twitter and the Blogosphere I stumbled across articles and posts relating to bringing creativity and student ownership back into the classroom. I felt a passion project was something I wanted to commit to with my students the remainder of the school year.

After extensive research and a few twitter chats, I introduced to my students the idea of a passion project and Genius Hour. I told my students would be able to work on a research project of their own choosing weekly. The passion project could be about anything they were interested in, as long as it was researchable. I wasn’t concerned about the final product (although many of my students were), they could present their research any way wanted: video, prezi, photos, taste-test, even show their work on the document camera.

I compiled a playlist on Youtube with all sorts of videos about genius hour or some other person’s passion project turned awesome/change the world idea like Caine’s Arcade or Jack Andraka to inspire and ignite in my own students the possibility of turning an idea into something bigger. Each Genius Hour session I would begin with one of the videos.

The projects my students created were awesome. There were a handful of students who were interested in food and baking and the days they presented it was a buffet of creative cupcakes and traditional dishes. There were projects about sports, fashion, and photography. 

http://animoto.com/play/VZDryiLzcv2q5U7Mh0uauA

Here are a few of the amazing movies that my students presented that captured all of our attention.

The Pressure to Succeed in School

Stop Motion Animation

 

How to Solve a Rubics Cube