Genius Hour
After learners completed their final project-based
learning (PBL) assignment, I asked them to complete a Reflection document (Schoenbart, 2016) . I did not grade
these reflections choosing instead to use them as guidelines for me going
forward with PBL. Through this document, learners were able to evaluate themselves.
Each one completed a 50-point rubric and self-assigned their scores. The rubric
was divided into three parts, the actual rubric, the reflection, and an
evaluation of the concept of Genius Hour.
The Rubric. Learners had to evaluate their work and
score themselves supporting their choices.
The Reflection. Here, learners answered questions
having to reflect on their learning and vividly detail what they did. Questions
for part two included:
a) What was the value of Genius Hour for you? Consider
the skills you learned and practiced, the research and writing you completed,
the knowledge you learned, and the product you created. What did you find most
valuable?
b) What did you like or learn from? And what wasn’t
valuable? Why?
c) How did you feel about your presentation? What went
well? What could you have done better?
d) Would you consider your project a success? A failure?
Somewhere in between? Consider your work and effort, your proposal, and your
product, and then explain your answer.
e) How did you apply yourself in this project? Did you
work to the best of your ability, individually or with peers?
f) What advice would you have for teachers who are doing
Genius Hour projects in the future? What about for students? What would you
tell them that would make the project go more smoothly or more successfully?
Evaluate Genius Hour. I included this section to get
feedback from my learners on this Genius Hour so that I could better plan for the
next one.
Below,
I’ve included a few responses learners provided.
For you, what was the value of Genius
Hour?
-
Genius Hour forced
me to think and be creative.
-
The most valuable
part of Genius Hour was letting us express ourselves by letting us learn about
whatever we want.
What advice do you have teachers with
Genius Hour?
-
I think it is
easier to work at my own pace so I liked how we could work independently. I
would tell teachers to make sure that their students are confident about their
work.
What advice do you have students with
Genius Hour?
-
Choose a topic
that you want to learn more about. Don’t choose something that you think will
be easy or that you’ll lose interest in. Then, learn as much as you can about
it as you can.
-
Make sure you
don't fall behind on any of your goals.
These comments were just a few of the reflections my
students provided. I like this type of reflection and would love to make it a
more regular part of my classroom. Genius Hour appears to be great for
developing student voice with choice and audience.
References
Schoenbart, A. (2016, June 06). #GeniusHour: What
Students Think. Retrieved from Teach & Learning:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14CzDMtXX7L6fK6avkacWMUyPth1ZC47e_fkB2LH0cJY/edit
MEDIA:
I love that you allowed your students to evaluate themselves. They are harder on themselves than the teachers normally.
ReplyDeleteHi Robert,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the Genius Hour reflection that you used with your students and shared with us from Schoenbart. I would love to share this with our class in our next seminar and with our teachers in future pbl cohorts. This is a great resource. I found the questions and your sample student responses to be beneficial for the students in that it required them to reflect on not only their products from Genius Hour but also from the learning processes they used and learned from during their inquiry, but also for the teacher as a means of formative assessment on the effectiveness of genius hour and on the engagement and understanding of Genius Hour.
With math, tell me more about the context of your genius hour project. Was this incorporated as part of your cell phone pbl or with a different project? What were the parameters of your genius hour project? Can you provide a brief description/overview?
Thanks,
Dawn