Melissa Terry Genius Hour

Ten years ago, I was the Instructional Coach at Clemson Elementary, and I worked with several teachers to begin two new classrooms – Primary Multiage and Intermediate Multiage.  The concept of a multiage class is not new, but we were looking for an alternative to the regular classroom for students who had difficulty (for several reasons) with that environment.  Basically, the Primary Multiage had 20 first grade and 20 second grade students with 2 teachers and the Intermediate had 20 third and 20 fourth with two teachers.  Both classes are heterogeneously grouped.  Most of the teaching done in these rooms has been small group geared toward student level rather than grade level, and many work stations throughout the day that are collaborative as well as a time to work independently on skills.  The teachers in these classrooms used projects and self-directed learning as a way to get students interested in their learning. 

I close the IMA (intermediate group) to do Genius Hour for two reason.  I knew that they were used to doing some independent self-study and this would be a good next step.  I also knew that science and social studies standards are always challenging for IMA.  It is very hard for those teachers to teach all of the third and fourth grade standards and keep the integrity of this class.  Basically, the more you divide them up into grade levels, the less you have the opportunity for them to learn in a multiage setting.  I thought that Genius Hour might be a way to help students dive deeper into those standards, or provide time for teachers to pull small groups while students are working on Genius Hour projects.  Either way, I wanted the IMA teachers to have to opportunity to learn about it and incorporate it the way it would work best for them.  These teachers are always willing to try new things and they were very excited about this.

I met with both teachers after school prior to my teaching to go over the basics of Genius Hour.  I shared parts from the webinar and also showed examples.  I went over twice and taught – one lesson on thick and thin questions and another on notetaking.  I met both times after the teaching with the teachers to discuss Genius Hour and next steps.  I also talked with them about the many directions they could go in with this.  We talked about ways this could be used in their classroom. 

For this first project, the teachers wanted students to work under the theme of “Earth”.  The teachers were okay with leaving it open-ended after that, but they wanted students to research something under that theme so it could tie into both sets of Science standards.  I was in agreement with this; although during my teaching, several students wanted to know why they couldn’t do what they wanted to do.  I told them they would get an opportunity another time, and they were okay with that. 

The teachers are still in the process of working through this project and I foresee completed projects before Christmas.  They promised to invite me back over to see them.  I also have had an opportunity to share Genius Hour (just the basics) with some district personnel and we are talking about times this could be presented to others.  I would like to practice some with it and plan to meet with some interested teachers at my school to share this and get them started in this area. 

I think what I love most about it is that students are learning and they don’t even know it.  They are so excited about new information!  It was so fun to see them wanting to learn more.