Genius Hour
Students Explore "juicy" Questions of Their Own Choosing.
First I Created a Hook
For the bird classes I showed a video of amazing crow behavior. For the more generalized genius hours I modeled thinking about an interesting topic. (Here is one: why do mosquitoes inject annoying poison when they bite? Wouldn't they get more compliance if they injected you with something pleasurable? Why does this happen?
Crows using traffic to crack walnut
The Kids Then Created Their Own Juicy Question and Did Research
We talked about questions that are interesting, but easy to find answers to vs. questions that are deeper and lead you down a road with many side streets. Often if a kid had a mediocre question it could be made meatier by inserting the word "Why" in front. Ex: "What was Hitler like?" vs "Why was Hitler like he was?"
As students researched their questions, they collected photos, videos and links on their ipads to use in their presentations.
Students loved doing research on their questions so much you could hear a pin drop in the classroom. They frequently did not want to stop for lunch or recess.
Learning a Lot
You Can hear a Pin Drop
Researching Juicy Questions
Kids Created Presentations to Show Their Research and Thinking
Many used iMovie, Explain Everything, and Prezi. SOme made iBooks, or comics on the iPad. THe sky is the limit here, there are o many great tools for presenting. Some kids did "App Smashing". For example they might create some art in an art app, then add it to a slide in explain everything.
Each Student Presented to the Class
Classmates gave a lot of genuine positive feedback, and asked questions. We also worked on respectful ways to give constructive criticism.
I was only able to have students formally reflect on their work in one class. We ran out of time in the others. Next time I do this, I will make sure this is an equal part of the experience.
Jamie's video
Smore!
I created this presentation on a tool called Smore. It will be part of my arsenal of tools to suggest to kids for presentations the next time I do this.
Your mission, should you be willing to accept it, is to try creating something with Smore. It's easy, very intuitive, looks great, has no glitches, and you will then know how to use it with kids should you want to do some Genius Hour or Curiosity or PBL work with them