"How do I engage and motivate my students? (and why should I?)
"As the academic requirements rise, so too must students' willingness to take on increasingly difficult tasks and persist through the failures that often precede success."
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innovate or die
"We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google," they wrote. "This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner."
Classroom Possibilities
one hour a week can...
- facilitate autonomy and a sense of purpose
- promote critical thinking
- develop creative problem solving skills
- celebrate failure as in important part of any process
- encourage creativity, adaptability, flexibility
- reinforce collaboration with peers, staff and experts (collaboration is the new innovation)
- intrinsic motivation
- change the world
Much of education is oriented, for better or worse, toward making a living, rather than making a life ~ Logan LaPlante
Creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same status ~ Sir Ken Robinson
The Confidence of a Child 3:42-6:01
growing risk takers
Genius Hour is time set aside weekly to promote, inquiry, experimentation, discovery, failure, creativity, excitement, opportunity, collaboration, and connections. It has many faces and can work in any classroom!
IBM’s Institute for Business Value recently surveyed 1,500 chief executives to understand what the most highly sought after business skills are today. These CEOs identify "creativity" as the most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future. (NYSE: IBM - News)
Genius Hour Potential?
- Better problem solvers
- Better prepared for the rigor of CCSS
- Better equipped to successfully break down the complexity and rigor of Smarter Balanced and NECAP Science questions
PLANNING AND PREP...YOU CAN'T "WING IT"
- Communicate with parents
- Launch process (skill assessments, questionnaires, interest organizers, brainstorming ideas, pitching projects)
- Research (may have to create a collection of safe research resources for younger students)
what comes first? A driving question or the potential impact?
It depends. it is organic.
Change the World!
- educate others
- solve a problem
- call people to action
- build/make something useful
- plan an event
- raise money for a purpose
- recognize/inspire others
- design a better way to do something
Making a Pitch
research
- Organize Folders (Physical or electronic)
- Collaborate with your school Librarian
- Create a survey (SurveyMonkey or a Google Form)
- Conduct an Interview with an "Expert"
find an expert
- research experts
- draft a formal letter requesting an interview
- cross your fingers
Real problems~real solutions
Credits:
Created with images by xegxef - "light lamp electricity" • daguphoto - "lantern light light bulb" • Pexels - "art bulb clear" • Katie Snyder - "texture 18" • Pexels - "post it notes sticky notes note" • feliperivera - "google" • Kinologik - "Gmail logo" • James Laurence Stewart - "DSCN0016" • chipgriffin - "Lightbulb" • alicjap - "A lightbulb" • Unsplash - "lightbulb light bulb" • Andreas Kollegger - "Wine Bulb" • Froeschle - "light bulb light fragile" • brokentrinkets - "Filament, clear lightbulbs #3" • Unsplash - "light bulb lightbulb light" • StockSnap - "light bulb electricity dark" • dwstucke - "pull chain" • Unsplash - "lightbulb light bulb" • wheany - "Dim light bulb" • RENIERn - "bulb light energy" • bluelightpictures - "lamps colorful lights" • zimpenfish - "Lightbulb"