Genius Hour-- Where Passion Comes Alive

Genius Hour-- Where Passion Comes Alive

The short video that we watched in lecture taught us that the Genius Hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom.  It is a movement ran by Google that provides children with a choice of learning whatever they would like to for an hour.  The video showed this technique in schools of the younger grades, such as a primary school.  I think this is a great idea to incorporate into the curriculum but at first I was unsure why and how this would be beneficial for the older grades in intermediate- senior.  Since the video only had examples of younger children, it didn't express the advantages that Genius Hour could provide to older students.  High school is a time in your life when you have to make a lot of difficult decisions, and often after the four years still don't know which path you should take for post secondary.  I believe that with incorporating Genius Hour to the high school curriculum it will allow students to explore what they're interested in without having to directly choose a path, this could potentially help them figure out what they want to do post secondary.  High school schedules are much more difficult to find the time to do activities such as these considering the 4 different classes that take place in a day.  However I believe that during the mandatory grade 10 class; civics and careers, would be an excellent time to incorporate the Genius Hour seeing as it fits into the curriculum and is not taking time away from other subjects.

Looking back at my high school career I believe that I never fully got the chance to explore other careers and interests that were not laid out in front of me.  I knew the basic careers such as teacher, lawyer, doctor, etc.  I decided on teaching because I knew that it was a good career, I love working with people and I am in a family full of teachers which definitely had a influence on me. To this day I feel comfortable with teaching as a career however I do not know if it is for me.  I have never had the 'ah ha' moment of where you know what you are meant to do until recently, and the career has nothing to do with teaching.  Although I know that Concurrent Education is an excellent program and extra education never hurts, it still took me 4 years in a program that is not right for me to realize this.  Looking back I wish that during the grade 10 careers class we were given an opportunity to research other careers and take time to really and truly understand where your interest lies.  The Genius Hour would provide students with an excellent opportunity to explore their interests and careers that are connected with those specific interests.

Blog 1: Old Story vs. New Story

All students makes sense of the world through story, what they are told and their past experiences. This is one things that all humans have in common, that they learn in similar ways.  Therefore it is totally understandable that there has been many different methods of teaching styles throughout history.  It has recently been categorized into what is called the old story and the new story.  The old story consists of the typical ideas of teaching, that the teacher is the expert, the student is the passive learner, there is one right and answer and the classroom consists of students in rows, and the teacher dead centre at the front.  In some cases not much has changed from classrooms today.  An example that I can think of off the top of my head is BIOL 1F90.  It was three one hour lectures a week which consisted of writing what the professor said and sitting in D. Howes, a lecture theatre set up in rows.  Before I can begin criticizing this type of teaching, I realized that this was the only way this professor could get the information across that he needed to, to 300+ students in a crowded room.
There are still old story values that take place in the new story teaching methods of the 21st century which are, tradition, accountability,standardized tests and teacher based tests. However the new story values consist of an open, dynamic and collaborative classroom.  It was John Dewey who incorporated the new story ideas to the old story method of education.(Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014)  He understood the need for a democratic classroom, that consisted of problem solving and student growth because it helped the students with moral and personal development through communication.  Students make meaning of what they are being taught through interaction with others.  Teachers interactions with students is very important, the more comfortable the student feels in a learning environment, the more they will learn and participate in what they are being taught.  This is the number one flaw of the old teaching methods, the lack of personal interaction between student and teacher.
I recently just returned from a semester abroad in Australia at Curtin University, although I had the best experience I could ever ask for, I found their teaching styles in university quite different from what I am used to back here in Canada.  All of the classes were online, this includes the lectures in written format but also a video of my professor giving the lecture, as well as all the course materials and chat rooms that would help you if you didn't understand something.  The option was there to go to the classes, however no one ever went so if you did it would be yourself with maybe a couple other people. For the most part I loved this idea because it left a lot of time for so many other activities because you could get a weeks worth of school work packed into one day on your own time.  However there was one class that I was particularly interested in, Geographies and Food Security.  This topic is very interesting to me however I feel as though the learning experience wasn't as enhanced as it could be because there was no interaction to go along with the learning.  The textbook for this class has information in the first chapter about personalization, and this is exactly what this course was lacking.  "Passion takes them on different paths, even though they share the common, big picture learning goals of the curriculum."(Drake, Reid & Kolohon, 2014) I am very passionate about this topic however I did not get to express it because I wasn't given the chance to engage in conversations about it, seeing as most of the course was online.  Therefore after that experience I understand how important the new methods of teaching are when they incorporate interaction and discussion into the classroom.

Drake, S.M. & Reid, J.L. & Kolohon, W. (2014). Interweaving curriculum and classroom assessment: Engaging the 21 Century Learner. Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.