Genius Hour

Genius Hour is a time to allow students to explore their own passions and topics/content that they are interested in.  I would love to implement a genius hour into my future classroom.  The main reason I would use this in my classroom is because the students can be original and display their knowledge on subjects they enjoy.  The students begin by brainstorming potential topics that they are interested in.  If the students are having trouble finding things to research you could give them questions such as; What excites me? What am I good at? As a teacher you can decide when and how much time is spent on Genius Hour.  You can choose if it is done daily, weekly, or so on. I personally would love to have a time of the week to have it, but also use it as a incentive for students that complete all of their work.  The students that complete their work quickly, instead of having additional assignments and to prevent students from becoming disruptive, they could work on their project.  As a teacher I would use Genius Hour to help introduce how to research.  I would explain how their are unreliable and reliable sources.  I could even show the students certain web pages to find scholarly articles and even how to cite your sources.  Genius Hour is a wonderful way to introduce this content.  The last stage of Genius Hour is having the students become an expert on their chosen topic and presenting it to the class or parents.  The students can use multiple different media to present their findings such as; posters, a model, power point presentation, or a speech. 

I found this image that displays ten principles for genius hour.

This image breaks down the steps of Genius Hours into three steps.  Research, Create, and Present.