The idea was given to me, and not my original thought. Apparently the concept is taken from companies like Google, who give their employees time at work, to think and explore ideas of their choosing. Having this time to be creative, has proven to have some amazingly productive outcomes for the companies.
So, in the classroom, my fourth and fifth graders are given an hour a week to do nothing. Well, not to do nothing, but to sit and think and research and focus on any topic they'd like. The topic should be of high interest to the child, and of their choosing.
Then the directions were that students should prepare a presentation of their genius hour topic, to share with the class.
I didn't create a rubric for scoring or grading their work. It was a free and open assignment.
The results have been nothing short of genius!
Some of the topics presented so far are: Greek Mythology, baseball, roller coasters, softball, waterpolo, piano, music, Washington DC, various religions, restaurants, helping homeless people, a futuristic Nasa Space Station, and archery.
The method of presentation has varied from PowerPoint to Prezi, to Minecraft, to TouchCast to Educreations, to iMovie! These presentation apps have been utilized for presenting the Genius Hour topics, in ways I haven't seen them used before. For example, using Minecraft for taking polls, was something new to me!
Genius is the right word for this project! The students are asking to do this assignment again!
I'm sure that we will, and now my internal debate is whether to create a rubric for the activity.
Once again, my students have amazed me with their creativity!
