Should Teachers Consider Genius Hour?

This system was later adopted by teachers and used in the classroom to allow students to discover their passions. You can provide information to your students by adding structures to the Genius Hour. “The quality of the first project was poor because the students were bored playing games,” said Morley, a fifth-grade teacher in Georgia. Genius Hour provides students with the opportunity to explore their classroom interests.

My Genius Clock class is set up so that once students have mastered the content from Monday to Thursday, they can spend the entire Friday on the Genius Clock project. This means that you will get the best grades in your class from Monday to Thursday.

When Genius Hour came up at my school, I created a chart of questions and ideas that were circling in my students’ minds – like “Why does it rain?” Once I had the plans for Genius Hour ready, I had to consider the curricular connections that had to be made.

Students practice fluent skills in the classroom for hours in their free time. This is an opportunity to pursue your interests, ideas and questions in the hope of lifelong learning. Giuliani uses the term “itching” to describe how a seemingly random passion project moves from a waste of time to a one-off event. This happens when you listen to some of the project podcasts you’re involved in and realize that what you’ve learned turns into a story you’ve incorporated into a history lesson.

Creating Lifelong Learners-The purpose of Genius Hour is to foster a love for learning. Encouraging students to develop their passion can pave the way for their future careers. A genius clock is like giving students a magical key that opens the door to a world they’ve never seen before.

You also need to provide basic rules for staying focused. Throughout this type of lesson, it is inherently more informal and the rules of keeping noise levels low still apply. On the research side of Genius Hour, students can find relevant and reliable sources and develop the skills to evaluate the information provided. Finding ways to make learning exciting, exploring your passions and giving students the opportunity to be creative is always important.

It is up to Teachers if they want to go the extra mile and conduct a genius hour. It will definitely take more effort but a half baked effort might leave the kids disappointed. Growing the curiosity in them is the key goal here!