Genius Hour: Honoring Student Voice

In today's marketplace there are company's that stand out for a variety of reasons. Google, Amazon, Zappos, and 3M are just a few of the industry leaders whose names are commonplace by those of us that enjoy online shopping. Innovative designs of products, free delivery, quick turn-around purchases, and negotiation-free returns are promises made and kept with these companies and as subscribers of their services, we help to keep them honest.

Part of what makes these companies great is their willingness to allow their workers a bit of independence from normal responsibilities. Introducing, the Genius Hour concept, or the 20% time idea/philosophy. These companies allow, on a regular basis, employees to spend a portion of their week on unidentified projects. This means that they get to work with whoever they want on whatever they want. Sound chaotic and unruly? Exactly!

This business concept has brought to consumers the single most important office supply material, and one that I simply can not live without, the post-it note!

Recently, when faced with open time in my middle school schedule, I introduced the concept of a Genius Hour for our students. The teachers, although hesitant, were familiar with the idea and were cautiously excited to give it a try.

To begin, we worked together to set the stage for how our new Genius Hour would look for our students. This required time for the students to adjust to non-teacher directed activities. Some students relished in this new freedom and others struggled with no boundaries. Ultimately, after sharing a few short readings and watching a few motivational videos, the students understood that this time was theirs to make their own and the potential impact on the world could be huge!

The only requirements that we put into place involved a shark-tank like pitch about their project and daily diary reflections of their time spent on their project. The shark-tank pitch gave students an opportunity to showcase their idea to a panel of "judges" and to hear immediate feedback and questions. The discussion about each project helped the students see some potential obstacles with their ideas. In addition, it was a practice in delivering a quick, on-point elevator pitch to a collective audience and receiving feedback that may or may not be positive. As many students talked through their ideas they, themselves, were able to identify potential obstacles and pitfalls to their designs.

Enter here the idea of design thinking. Students were participating in this philosophy without any formal introduction to it. Many would develop a design, work with it, identify flaws or areas for improvement, work on a redesign, and reintroduced their concept or model.

As you can see from this short blog post, Genius Hour has many benefits for students and staff. In other posts I will share my resources and playbook for introducing Genius Hour to staff and students.