After having a few eight-week classes participate in genius hour, I am ready to post part 1 of my thoughts and results!
If you missed my initial post about genius hour, please click here!
As a brief reminder, genius hour involves students choosing and designing their own project that they want to spend 20% of their time completing. Genius hour also needs to be public; some people accomplish this through TedTalks or large audience presentations. I had the students blog every other week about their process, accomplishments, or drawbacks, and then present to our class.
Overall, I am very happy with the turnout!
If you missed my initial post about genius hour, please click here!
As a brief reminder, genius hour involves students choosing and designing their own project that they want to spend 20% of their time completing. Genius hour also needs to be public; some people accomplish this through TedTalks or large audience presentations. I had the students blog every other week about their process, accomplishments, or drawbacks, and then present to our class.
Overall, I am very happy with the turnout!
Eric and Joe both are freshmen on the chess team. They decided to learn the best moves for the black pieces in different situations. They ended up an even 3-3 and were often found arguing about strategies on Youtube and chess websites.
I initially told students to stay away from research projects because even I would get bored after hours of research. Ben broke that mold for us. Seen next to Eric, Ben researched Walt Disney's life, parks, and movies. He stayed on task and picked something he was really interested in, and that led to an informative lesson on everything Disney!
Alex took a love for Egyptian history and made six of his own weapons (one seen to the left). He then taught us about how these weapons were used during battle and also during normal life. Don't mess with him!
Many students went techie with their projects. A few students learned how to DJ/mix songs; many students edited videos of trick shots, real sports, or video games. If you'd like to see a video on how to "dominate scrubs" in Pokemon, click here.
As seen on the right, some worked on either promoting or creating a Youtube channel. Dominic and AJ, with the help of Jon, made a sports talk show. They often invited Coach Hamilton to pick his brain about college football.
Some students created fundraisers. Ryan designed a t-shirt for our paint-it-pink games while two students promoted an idea about donating to charity after touchdowns on their football team.
To the right, Jake teamed up with Mr. Lewis and STUCO for a ping-pong tournament to help donate cans to our National Honors Society's canned food drive.
As a teacher, my job is to help create life-long learners. As it relates to genius hour, my hope is that some students continue their projects into the future.
Chris is a perfect example of this. He created his own website and has been updating it with posts, videos, and pictures for four months after his project was "finished".
Please click here to see his site about architecture around St. Louis and his dreams for future projects.
As stated when I initially wrote about genius hour:
1). Genius hour allows students to find their own passions.
2). Genius hour allows for student choice.
These are still two things I am passionate about.
I could write how proud I am of a lot more students and all of their projects for another ten blog posts. Most students took their projects seriously, and I learned more about random hobbies and sports than I ever thought I would. I was lucky enough to see a glimpse into my students' passions and was also able to step outside the box in my own teaching.
Next week I will be posting about the student's blogs and how they ended up feeling about genius hour.
These are our stories!
1). Genius hour allows students to find their own passions.
2). Genius hour allows for student choice.
These are still two things I am passionate about.
I could write how proud I am of a lot more students and all of their projects for another ten blog posts. Most students took their projects seriously, and I learned more about random hobbies and sports than I ever thought I would. I was lucky enough to see a glimpse into my students' passions and was also able to step outside the box in my own teaching.
Next week I will be posting about the student's blogs and how they ended up feeling about genius hour.
These are our stories!