Having just started Genius Hour with 4 of my high school physics classes last week, I return to the book Drive, by Daniel Pink for inspiration. Over the past 6 months my students have been learning physics, well, what I have wanted them to learn about physics. After receiving several feet of snow in Massachusetts this winter, it is now time to let them stretch out and choose what they want to learn. Students in my classes are very grade conscious, and sometimes achieving the desired grade gets in the way of learning the concepts. As introduced in the book, researchers discovered that, "The performance of the task (and not the end result) . . . provided intrinsic reward." Thus, with Genius Hour students will focus more on the process of learning and reap the rewards of such a challenge.
As we prepare students for the future, we see that they must be more self-directed, creative and intrinsically motivated. New jobs have become "less routine and directed by others." As I ran Genius Hour for one term (9 weeks) last school year, I could see how many students were challenged by the project. Several students were overwhelmed with the fact they could choose any topic they wanted to. While others were uncomfortable with the changes their project took throughout the 9 weeks. As traditional learning often has a direct route (lecture, activity, homework, test), Genius Hour can take many twists and turns. This is something students are not traditionally instructed on how to handle or cope with. As stated in Drive, "Those sorts of challenges - solving novel problems or creating something the world didn't know it was missing - depend heavily on Harlow's third drive." This "third drive" being the performance of the task as the motivator.
What else do employers demand in the 21st Century from their employees? Autonomy. Pink presents how businesses are creating ROWE (results oriented working environments). ROWE was pioneered by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson of big box store Best Buy. "Management isn't about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices. It's about creating conditions for people to do their best work." As educators we could easily replace "Management" with "Teachers" and "people" with "students." It is important to note that students do need assistance in making the transition in learning. I address this by creating many opportunities for students to receive feedback on their research. I begin Genius Hour by having students brainstorm ideas, they proceed to write these ideas on a poster. Students then carousel poster to poster and comment on each other's ideas. My students also create blogs to document their progress on Genius Hour. Students and myself further comment on the blogs to inspire, challenge, and support the learning.
The opposite of autonomy is control. Pink states, "Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement." This I believe is the bigger goal of Genius Hour. Last school year I saw students more engaged and learning to become self-directed on the steps to answering their questions. As Pink says, "Only engagement can lead to mastery." During the student presentations it was evident that students became kind of "mini-experts" of their topics. In fact many students produced more than just a slide presentation to summarize their research. One student created a javascipt program to demonstration resonance while a few others constructed robots. "The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity," stated Professor Teresa Amabile of Harvard University. I look forward to what my students will create this year for Genius Hour.
Blogging is a way to teach students about good digital citizenship. I have students create blogs to document their research, but I also encourage them to write about how they feel about the project. Pink states, "At the end of each day, ask yourself whether you were better today than you were yesterday." I intend to use this question often as a prompt for blog posts. I want to encourage students to express their thoughts and feelings about the journey as for many this will be their first time being self-directed learners. It is important for me as a teacher to hear from my students to then make decisions on how to best support them throughout the project.
Genius Hour is vital to our students' success as schools continue to promote compliance instead of engagement. Pink points out, "They're (schools) redoubling their emphasis on routines, right answers, and standardization." He further advises, "Whatever they're studying, be sure they can answer these questions: Why am I learning this? How is it relevant to the world I live in now?" These are questions I intend to ask my students throughout their journey through Genius Hour this year.
If you are considering implementing Genius Hour in your classroom, I highly recommend starting your journey as a teacher by reading Drive.
For those of you interested in following my students Genius Hour projects (topics, links to student blogs, etc.), you may do so at:
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