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Webinar with A.J. Juliani on Starting up Genius Hour in Your Classroom

Genius Hour isn’t just a time for students to choose what they want to learn. It’s time for them to find themselves in their creative work. -Juliani

What is the idea/research behind genius hour?

Google gave their employee’s 20% time and this is how Google Earth and Wikipedia were created. 20% time is a time for employees to learn and explore on their own time and can create and learn on their own.

Daniel Pink’s book, Drive, says that people are motivated by intrinsic motivation. We like to follow our passions with

purpose. This intrinsically motivates us.

Why?

  • Student empowerment

  • Student autonomy

  • Life long learning model

  • More is not always better- genius hour lets kids go into depth of a content.

  • Increases engagement

It isn’t telling Ss what to do.

It isn’t T sitting in the corner not doing anything.

It’s really more a GUIDE on the SIDE

What Does the Genius Hour Structure Look Like?

The Basics

give time to create their own learning path (20% time)

A Product

It has to also be about creating. Need some kind of product to share.

The Pitch

What do they want to learn, how are the going to learn it, how are they going to present it.

Learn

Start learning and researching, documenting

Share

Blog, video, confer

Make

Create their product

Practice

Get feedback

Present

Share what you learned and created

Show the world

Send it out in the global community

(Click on the picture and download a PDF.)

Time??

How much time do you give?

4-12 weeks may not want to do much longer.

Tips for Getting Started With Students

Ask ?s about what are you passionate about? like…

What do you do for fun?

What are you curious about?

What you always wanted to make or create or do?

Then create a passion madness bracket challenge

KWL

what do you know? What do you WANT to know? What you LEARNED?

Shark Tank Pitch: Share with the class

What

  • learn to code/program

  • crate a video game for elementary students

Why

  • I’m passionate about...

How

  • Online tutorials

  • Code mentor

Success

  • How can you measure your success? 100 people play my game, it’s successful

Action Plan

Ts can confer with this plan to help kids move along.

Reflection

What did you learn?

  • I learned java is a coding language.

What did you make/create?

  • I made a sample java line of code and watched to see if it worked.

Epic failures

Goal for next time

Did you accomplish last week’s goal why, why not?

Progress Meter: Where are you?

Idea

Pitch

Learn

Create

Present

Reflect

Giving a great talk: Presentation Structure

Starts with the problem.

What did you learn.

What could the solution be?

What were the learning struggles and learning wins?

What did you make and what are the rewards for learning/making?

Live stream the presentation FB, Ustream, perascope

What I learned…

What did I struggle with and how did I learn from it? What was the most exciting

Grading….

Grade the process?

Have the kids develop a class rubric?

Have a peer review?

GRIT rubric -Juliani's favorite option

Guts

Resiliency

Integrity

Tenacity

Genius Hour Master Course

GHcourse.com

GHCOUPON $119

w/o coupon $149

Resources

Genius Hour Planning Pack by Rachel Poetker


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