Genius Hour Blog

Welcome!

This week I began my initial research for our genius hour projects and one very important finding came up...

I love genius hour!

Bradshaw, R. (2015). Students Leading Learning [Online Image].
Retrived October 2, 2016 from http://bit.ly/2eq0u23

Teachers college is a unique experience and a very new experience for us university undergrads.  This is because of its highly creative nature.  But, what I like most about it is that our teachers are not up their lecturing, they are teaching theory and teaching techniques through practice.  This gives us teacher candidates an opportunity to evaluate what we like and don't like about certain techniques.

So from this experience, I've learned that genius hour is in fact an activity I would do with future classes.  I like genius hour for its versatility which includes, its large scope in practice, its endless options for topics, its ability to enhance research capabilities and its highly embedded in notions of being a good digital citizen.

Large Scope in Practice

I love genius hour because it is an activity that can be used on a larger scale, such as the one we are doing currently.  Large scale projects similar to this one would be beneficial to wrap up a unit.  Students will already have knowledge on the subject matter, but to dig a little deeper, we can get students to ask one last question.

What are you wondering now that you know what you know?

Such projects would be ideal for any subject- wrapping up a history lesson on WW1 or a science lesson on heat and light.

Or alternatively, genius hour projects can be cultivated on a much smaller scale.  In this circumstance, maybe students only need to write one paragraph explaining what they've found.  Teachers can facilitate smaller scaled genius hour projects through more engaging means such as twitter.

At the end of that science or history lesson, a teacher can post a video or a relateable subject to twitter and get students to answer it as homework- or even at the beginning of a lesson to get students interested and excited about what they are going to learn.

Endless Options of Topics

Tucker, S. (2014).  Bored kid in class [online image].  Retrieved September 30, 2016

         from http://bit.ly/2dcVV91

Genius hour tailors to all types of learners- how many times have you seen this image above in the classroom?  You've assigned a task, but the student "doesn't know what to write" this image is all too ubiquitous.  Genius hour mitigates this effect by allowing students to pursue what they want!  While replying to my fellow class mates on their topic ideas, I noticed some very interesting questions, yet I would be this kid in the image above every night as I tried to engage myself simply because I don't have a desire to speak Japanese and I don't like macaroons.  And this goes for my classmates as well-my genius hour project is heavily based on research, which would absolutely bore some people.

Enhances Research Skills

Proper research skills can be a difficult task to master, especially when you're researching something you have absolutely no interest in.  Genius hour gives students the excitement to want to research, while increasing their ability to distinguish credible sources from non credible sources.  Students will also learn how to be a good digital citizen through real life practice.  In doing so, many areas of the curriculum for the media studies strand can be checked of without boring students with a lesson on it.

Valentina, A. (2015).  Research your question [Online Image].
             Retrieved September 30, 2016 from http://bit.ly/2cQXuK4 

These are only some of the many benefits of genius hour.  For my genius hour, I have decided to cross reference definitions of altruism across different cultures through video interviews.  The flexibility of genius hour has allowed me to gain contact with many of the people I have met along the way of my travels throughout the years- this is incredibly exciting!  This aspect of the assignment makes me excited to research and work on the project.

With this approach there have certainly been a few hiccups along the way- one significant one being time differences!  When I'm finished work/school here at 5pm it's nearly midnight in many places of the world, making interviews a little bit tricky to conduct.  Now that this stage is complete, moving forward I need to conceive of a way to organize the findings I've incurred through interviews.