Our Genius Hour has now been in place since September of this year. It is amazing to see how far our students have come in terms of guiding their own learning. At the beginning of the year, students were often unsure of how to proceed and would often ask "what do you want me to do?". We resisted the urge to take over and they have now learned that we will not swoop in and provide answers for them. They have had to struggle, problem solve and be creative in order to figure out a passion worth exploring. As teachers, we have also evolved along our journey. At first, we were concerned about having students document their progress after each hour to ensure that they stayed on track. We soon realized that the form filling often sucked the joy out of the process and was being dutifully filled in to serve our needs, but was doing little to inspire, and motivate our students. In fact, students who are passionate about their topic of study are self-motivated and require little direction once they are fully engaged in a topic. We still reference the 4'cs of Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking and Communication but have woven them into our conversations and final presentations. Our students have surprised us with their enthusiasm and wide range of interests and delighted us with their desire to share their learning with peers. The projects are personalized and completely open-ended- there are no time lines, no must do's, no teacher direction. The only thing that we require is that students must share with each other once they feel that their project is complete. The sharing aspect is a truly remarkable part of the process. Students stand before their peers and teach them what they have learned, discovered and experimented with. The audience asks questions and is in turn motivated by the ideas presented. A line we often hear now in our presentations is "I was inspired by hearing ... to do this project." Isn't that what true learning is all about?
Please see the images below for some of our latest Gr. 3 projects.
Please see the images below for some of our latest Gr. 3 projects.