What is Genius Hour?
Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. It’s not easy to determine where the idea was originally created, but there are at least two events that have impacted genius hour.
Genius Hour Origins
The search-engine giant, Google, allows it’s engineers to spend 20% of their time to work on any pet project that they want. The idea is very simple. Allow people to work on something that interests them, and productivity will go up. Google’s policy has worked so well that it has been said that 50% of Google’s projects have been created during this creative time period.
Genius Hour in Education
The same genius hour principles apply in the classroom as they do in the corporate environment. The teacher provides a set amount of time for the students to work on their passion projects. Students are then challenged to explore something to do a project over that they want to learn about. They spend several weeks researching the topic before they start creating a product that will be shared with the class/school/world. Deadlines are limited and creativity is encouraged. Throughout the process the teacher facilitates the student projects to ensure that they are on task. A goal of every teacher should be to create lifelong learners. Genius hour projects are a huge step towards that goal.
The Genius Hour Process
There are 5 steps to the Genius Hour process
1. Plan
2. Propose your Genius Hour project to your teacher
3. Work on your Genius Hour project in class showing your teacher along the way
4. Present your refined and finished and project to your class.
5. Show the world your Genius Hour project by adding it to your personal blog if not too large AND sharing it with your class teacher.