Genius Hour Surprise

Wow! We started GH last Monday and were in awe of the 38 kids that showed up to participate. Traditionally, GH is held in individual classrooms once a week for an hour. Mr. Collins, our 6-8th grade Social Studies teacher, and myself are piloting it during the students' lunch/recess time twice a week so participation is completely voluntary. We hope to use this blog as a record of our trials, errors, and successes throughout the process. We also hope it will inspire some of our 7/8th grade students to blog their experiences.

Prior to Monday, students were presented with a brief overview of GH and were encouraged to look online for more information. When they showed up Monday, we had printed questions to promote brainstorming and distributed them to students. We asked students to read the questions aloud. It was our intention that these questions would foster curiosity and ignite some enthusiasm. Then we spread out sticky notes and had the kids write subjects on them and stick them to large pieces of paper. There were a variety of ideas: computer programming, dance, video games, environment, scientific questions, fashion, building a guitar, and much much more. Kids were encouraged to do a "total brain dump," on sticky notes of anything and everything that held their interest. After class we spent time trying to organize them into topics and hung them up so we could go back and refer to them if needed.

On Tuesday, we had kids fill out the "green" sheet which laid out their questions, thoughts, needs, and the process they saw their projects taking. There was no requirement on finishing the sheet, and we emphasized that it is a guideline not a commitment set in stone. We voiced that we knew the ideas, process, and questions on these sheets were likely to change and THAT IS ACCEPTABLE! Each child will each have a folder for his/her paperwork which will allow us to track progress and make the project individual to each participant.

We have divided the student folders and will begin to meet with the kids to see what we can do to help. They will have library access as well as computer access during GH. There is a lot of positive energy and excitement among all of us. It will be our goal, as educators, to keep that feeling going.

Check back for reports and examples of our progress.

Keep reading and researching,
The Noisy Librarian