Implementing Genius Hour in my classroom (EDUC6103-96 Assignment #4 by J. Carroll)
Implementing Genius Hour in my classroom
To introduce my project, I'm using the format provided by Juliani (2015):
What: Provide students with 20% time to explore their passions and, as the teacher, use theories and strategies from course readings & outside resources to coach students from the side.
Why: To see the ideas discussed in this class come to life in the classroom, to compare what this looks like at different grade levels, to build better relationships with students, to be inspired by students' ideas, to learn alongside them, to have students develop 21st century learning competencies and to generate material to include in the final project for this course.
How: Follow the step-by-step process provided by Krebs and Zvi (2016)... inspire, brainstorm, model & scaffold, create an inquiry question. Set expectations and norms as we go, learning and reflecting along the way.
Implementing my proposal:
It was a bit daunting to start in early March with less than four months left in the school year. However, I sustained a concussion in early February just ten days into the new semester and missed some time, so I had to wait until I was physically able to take on the project.
It was also somewhat stressful to know that no other teachers in my department were doing something like this and, in our school, we are expected to have common assessments in shared courses, so I knew I'd be risking "falling behind" where others teachers are in the curriculum or dealing with concerns that students were missing out on important content. But I went ahead anyway - I am somewhat known for "plunging in", as Wille Marr (2009) stated.
😍Inspire - I decided to share my Deep Learning Food Project with my students to serve as inspiration. It was good example of a genius hour-type project: it was an individual passion, it required connecting with community mentors, it showed my love of learning, it included reflections and it explained how I met my own criteria for success (Wettrick, 2014). They were impressed - and horrified - at how much work I had put into it and I realized that this had the unintended consequence of intimidating some students. Then again, others were actually motivated to create something similar. It did generate a lot of discussion about how different projects would look for the diverse group of students in our class and that we would support each other no matter the topic, format and breadth of each project. The goal became to challenge ourselves.
I even brought my bucket of worm in to show them how my vermicompost system is progressing. Reactions were varied, but all students could see that I was actually passionate about my project, and this was purposeful; "a teacher's passion is just as critical as student passion" (Maiers & Sandvold, p. 10). The students liked that I shared my own creation because it helped them see me as a fellow learner who had to course-correct and learn through failed attempts. I also wanted to share this particular project because it had themes of sustainability (growing my own food, re-purposing items for garden use, maximizing land use with minimal footprint) and was secretly hoping that might inspire students to lean toward similar themes.
🧠Brainstorm - This was really fun! It was wonderful to see what student groups came up with to the initial questions I posed. I wasn't really prepared for their brutal honesty and had to guard against getting defensive, but I realize that when you ask difficult questions, you're going to get difficult answers.
The questions I asked students to discuss included:
What is the purpose of school?
What should you learn in high school?
If you could take any (fictitious) course in high school, what would it be? Who would teach it? Why?
What key skills and attitudes are necessary for a happy life? A successful life?
How can these skills and attitudes be taught in high school?
How could skills and attitudes be evaluated?
If you could learn about any topic you wanted in school, what would it be? Why?
Some of their work is shown below:
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| Students on a "Wonder"Walk". (Used with permission). |
Here's our wall and some of the "I wonder...?" questions:
"I wonder how many people cannot get help with their mental health because of a lack of money or resources?"
"I wonder when we'll be able to travel at light speed?"
"I wonder how ancient Egyptian civilizations were able to make and use technology to built such cool structures?"
"I wonder if aliens are real?"
"I wonder what dogs think?"
"I wonder why trades are looked down upon"?
"I wonder what real-world, present-day problems students aren't told about because of our age and because we "aren't mature enough"?"
📝Writing inquiry questions: After working on a few examples with the whole class, students worked in pairs or small groups to take their basic "I wonder...?" questions and turn them into inquiry questions. This was a challenge for them. We had practiced using terms and phrases like "how", "in what ways", "why" and "in terms of" in order to provided specific detail, yet invite open-ended exploration with the possibility of many perspectives. It was during this phase that I really noticed how exhausting a genius hour project is for the teacher; a genius hour type project "demands more of the teacher's classroom time" (Wettrick, p. 30). It was difficult to get from group to group and provide helpful feedback without actually writing the questions for them. I was grateful to have a student teacher who was circulating the classroom as well.
Here are a few inquiry questions generated:
"How do I go about applying to university in terms of looking at job opportunities, determining the required high school courses, comparing programs and deciding on a school that suits my needs?"
"How and why is Canada helping (or not) with the war in Ukraine?"
"How does male birth control work, how expensive, accessible and effective is it, and what are the possible side effects of taking it?"
"How much does having a child cost, considering diapers, food, clothes, school and extracurricular activities?"
"How can I make a video game?"
Where are we now?
My classes are in different phases of the project at different grade levels. My grade 9 Science class has written their inquiry questions and started initial research to familiarize themselves with vocabulary, resources, and potential community partners. Grade 11 Biology is still writing inquiry questions. I abandoned the project in the early stages with grade 12 Biology because so many students were concerned with the time we would lose covering content that they might need to know going into first year university 🤦. I'll discuss this more in "What I would do differently". For my own well-being, I decided to choose my battles and focus on the grade 9s and 11s.
My plan is to use Fridays (or the final day of the week) from now until the end of the year as project time, with the flexibility of rearranging should the need arise.
What I learned:
1. Genius hour keeps students engaged. Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed this as much if my student teacher hadn't pointed it out. Maybe I fool myself on a daily basis about how much students participate my lessons, but having someone else who was present in the room say "I've never seen the grade 9s so on-task before!" was an eye-opener. When students are learning about or discussing what interests them, they want to be actively involved.
Maiers and Sandvold (2013) indicated that students "are falling [through the cracks] because we have not yet found a way to sustain the energy, excitement, and love for learning they came with when they first entered our classrooms" (p. 5). Some of my previously least-engaged students have now begun talking and writing. My goal is to have them sustain this level of engagement.
2. Genius hour is mentally exhausting. "There is no plan" (Wettrick, p. 29) means that anything could happen during the class and the teacher needs to be on their toes and ready to re-direct, look things up, shut things down, and be very flexible.
This sounds very negative, but it can be rephrased in a much more positive light as follows:
Genius hour keeps the teacher engaged and energized. Let's face it. I am 23 years into my teaching career and sometimes it's easy to get discouraged by the workload, the micromanagement, the effect of social determinants such as poverty on student success, or the pressure to cover curriculum content. Small "victories" or the satisfaction that I, as the teacher, get from seeing students engage so well with a project may very well be the inspiration I need when feeling overwhelmed or jaded.
Ideally, teachers would also have a Genius Hour. Picture this: dedicated time provided to teachers so they can come up with creative lessons, learn more about a topic of interest, or engage in developing a skill that will not only help keep the teacher refreshed and well for their own benefit, but ultimately impact student learning in a positive way. I tried looking for examples where this has been done, but to no avail. The closest I could come was finding an educator named John Spencer who sets aside dedicated personal time to work on a Genius Hour project of his choice. It's not surprising, unfortunately. Teachers aren't given enough time just to keep up with current workload of planning, assessing, recording and reporting, much less have time to pursue something of personal/professional interest.
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| Friends and co-learners. (Used with permission) |
A particular example is how three students in grade 9 (two students who have lived in NS for their whole lives and one student who moved here from China last year and is still navigating learning English and making social connections) have combined their projects. As a trio, they are now exploring how sex and gender is determined in a baby, how this has impacted families in China throughout the "one child policy" and how this might relate to the adoption process in Nova Scotia. Wow. I'm thrilled that this working group could build a friendship that crosses cultures and combines student interests in genetics, politics, social values and equity.
4. Genius hour is accessible to everyone, regardless of ability. We had some wonderful class discussions about how different projects would reflect our diversity as a class and how assessment and evaluation of the projects can look different for various students. We also talked about a final product not telling the whole story of a project and how the goal is to challenge ourselves and be honest.
5. Genius hour can generate a lot of paper waste if the teacher doesn't plan in advance. I should prepared better beforehand and used technology to my advantage, but I'll discuss this more in the next section. Suffice it to say I feel guilty about the amount of chart paper, sticky notes and and number of markers we used.
What I would do differently next time:
In a nutshell? Start early. I mean this in two ways. Start early in the year. But more importantly, start at a younger grade level.
One thing I noticed was that my grade 9 students were much more excited, positive and willing to take a risk with what they discussed and wrote about than my grade 11s. I couldn't help but be reminded of Sir Ken Robinsons's TedTalk, Do Schools Kill Creativity?, and I think that the farther students "progress" (if we can call it that) through school, the less passionate they becomes, replacing their excitement for learning with resignation or indignation. Cue the chart paper from one grade 11 class group (pictured below).
Another Robinson video, Changing Education Paradigms, mentions how divergent and lateral thinking contribute to creativity. I absolutely see more divergent thinking with my grade 9s than my grade 11s. A single concrete example is the first time I had students write "I wonder...?" questions. After providing a few examples, I had students write their own on sticky notes. In grade 9, all the questions were unique. In grade 11, at least 4 students in each of the two classes used one of my example questions, and when I asked them why, the most common answer was "I wonder that, too". Sheesh. As for my grade 12s, I overheard a few students in my grade 12 Biology class discussing what they'd heard about the project from the grade 11s and, based on their reactions and comments, I decided that I wouldn't do the project with them. Part of this was because I didn't want to deal with the whining and complaining and part of me acknowledged that this same student cohort missed a huge portion of particular science-related curriculum content during the Covid shutdowns and had a lot of anxiety about it. For everyone's mental well-being, they are not doing Genius Hour.
So, starting early is my plan. I am going to pitch the idea to the Science Department (7 teachers have Science 9 classes) that next year all Science 9 classes implement a project like this. Doing so will not only give access to this type of rich learning to more students, it will provide more opportunity for teacher collaboration and improve the quality of the project. There could be an opportunity to share and collaborate among students in different classes as well.
Starting early in the year is important, too. All of this takes time. Building a culture where students feel safe to share ideas, try new things, and to fail doesn't happen overnight. The modeling should have started earlier with me so that students are more confident and independent. And if I really want students to establish partnerships in the community, well, that takes time, too.
Bonus of starting early in the year: I'll never need to make another sub-day plan! If students get the hang of how "project time" works, I can simply have them work independently or in groups while I am out and we can recap what they accomplished or learned when I return. Win!
Next time I will also have set up a digital platform for recording and sharing ideas in order to save materials. I can use Jamboard or some other shared document where students can express their ideas and see others and where I can also provide feedback.
I also want to be sure to show student exemplars to serve as inspiration. I couldn't really do that this time without finding a project from a student at a different school, but I really think that the value in an exemplar is the fact that the students can connect the product with a peer or mentor, someone they actually know. That way, students can say "Oh, that person was able to accomplish this. So can I!" I will be able to do this next time.
Implications for my teaching moving forward:
Even without a Genius Hour project happening in class, there are some lessons I've taken away from this experience that will impact my day-to-day teaching. Here's what I know I'll be more aware of in my daily practice:
- provide students with as much choice as possible - they'll do higher quality work.
- make sure that, whatever they are learning, students can make a personal connection with what they are doing in class. If the content of a lesson doesn't apply to students' daily life, then I make explicit a skill or attitude required for the task that IS applicable to their daily life. There is better student buy-in.
- give students the opportunity to self-assess - they are pretty honest and, at the very least, it forces them to critically reflect on their learning.
- Stop worrying so much about "covering the curriculum" - without deep learning happening, students won't remember the content, anyway. It's a better investment to work on transferable skills and attitudes.
Sustainability Considerations:
🌱- Provide exemplars, models, and discussion opportunities that involve green ideas, question unsustainable practices, and encourage sustainable ones. Students aren't interested in what they don't even know about, so building an understanding of this in advance is helpful.
♻️ - If you have access to technology anyway, use it to your best advantage to reduce waste, particularly during the planning stages. Students can also create digital products that not only reduce waste but develop skills using new platforms.
🤔 - Be sure that inquiry questions are rich and open-ended enough to sustain student interest and research opportunities throughout the project.
🧘 - Set up the project so that students become independent and collaborative learners. As students become better at trouble-shooting and problem solving, reliance on teacher support during and outside of class time decreases and long-term sustainability and success of the project (and the teacher's teaching career!) is more likely.
That's it! The projects won't be finished for more than two months, but I'm looking forward to seeing how they progress and what more I'll learn as we continue.
References:
Juliani, A. (2015). How 20% time changed the world. In Inquiry and innovation in the classroom: Using 20% time, genius hour, and PBL to drive student success. New York: Routledge.
Krebs, D., & Zvi, G. (2016). Introducing genius hour to your class (Chapter 2). In The genius hour guidebook: Fostering passion, wonder, and inquiry in the classroom. New York: Routledge.
Maiers, A., & Sandvold, A. (2013). Achievement gap or passion gap (Chapter 1). In The passion-driven classroom: A framework for teaching and learning. New York: Routledge.
Marre, W. (2009, June 10). How is Social Entrepreneurship different than Regular Entrepreneurship? Youtube. Retreived April 2, 2023, from https://youtu.be/n6e4cGJwJ28
Robinson, K. (2006). Do schools kill creativity? Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? | TED Talk. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity/comments
RSA Animate, & Robinson, S. K. (2010, October 14). RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms. YouTube. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&t=499s
Spencer, J. (2022, January 3). Teachers need a genius hour, too. John Spencer. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://spencerauthor.com/teachers-genius-hour/
Wettrick, D. (2014). There is no plan (Chapter 3). In Pure genius: Building a culture of innovation and taking 20% time to the next level. San Diego: Dave Burgess Consulting.
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