Three benefits of Genius Hour or 20% Time:
- Student empowerment. To be honest, as a teacher, Genius Hour or 20% Time kind of scares me! Losing that much class time and letting students find their own area of interest to explore is very intimidating to me. But from a student perspective, it sounds great! I’m a Stats teacher and one of the units I teach is probability. During this time, I think I could let students try to create their own game of chance. If I were a student, I would really like this. I’m personally really into board games, and it would be so neat to be given time to actually try to create something worthwhile that maybe others would even want to play. We have a 3D printer at my school, so my students could even 3D print their own pieces for their game. If students were given this power and authority at school, they could create great things.
- Open-ended structure. Students will be able to do things at the upper levels of Bloom’s taxonomy by creating, analyzing, etc. This open-ended structure will allow students to think beyond the classroom. All too often, teachers are focused on meeting various academic standards and objectives set forth by the district or state. As a result, our students lose the opportunity to be creative and think outside the box. This Genius Hour or 20% Time can help with this.
- Promotion of technology. Just by the heavy emphasis on all things technological nowadays, there is a strong possibility of technology implementation during Genius Hour or 20% Time. Even when students are using technology in our classrooms, how often are they really using it to think creatively? I feel like most of the time, students are just typing in a Google Doc or going to a website that we provided for them. However, if students are provided time to engage with their own project, they will be able to create instead of just consume. They will probably end up using new technology that they haven’t before. This is setting students up for future job opportunities and getting them to think in innovative ways.
Two potential hurdles or obstacles (curricular and/or stakeholder) and how to address them:
- Parents might not be on board with “letting students roam free.” Parents might think that this is the teacher’s way of doing nothing for 20% of their workdays. To address this, you could send an email home to parents explaining exactly what Genius Hour or 20% Time really is. If parents fully understand the process, they might be more likely to get on board. Additionally, you could even set up a collaborative site where parents can log in and see the progress of their children. For example, a Google Site (that was my Course Project!) could be made for a class, and each student or team of students would get their own page on the class Google Site. Students can use their page to show off what they are creating and learning about. This way, parents get firsthand knowledge of all the authentic projects that are being explored during this time.
- Teachers might not know how to grade the work being done during Genius Hour or 20% Time. If students are allowed to look into something they’re passionate about, they might all be doing different things; how can something like that be graded? To address this, a more generic rubric could be created. Our provided website for this discussion post had an included link that had 15+ rubrics. Teachers do not need to reinvent the wheel! They can get a start on Genius Hour or 20% Time by using one of these rubrics that already exist. Then, once teachers get the hang of it, they can adapt the rubrics to make it more their own. Additionally, there was another included rubric that stressed grading the process, not the final project. In doing so, students are benefiting from the time and effort they put into their project. This is a great way to let students know that it’s okay to fail. Not everything they complete has to be a success; instead, the Genius Hour or 20% Time emphasizes that it’s better to grow and learn during this process.