Once students learn they have the chance to discover, explore, and share a passion of choice with their school or community, it will not be difficult to generate excitement for Genius Hour. Still, you want students to think seriously about project ideas and what a passion project is all about. Like a roller coaster, often the anticipation is the most thrilling part. Help students find that excitement. Let’s look at some methods and resources that will inspire students and help them to brainstorm ideas and develop a driving question.
Hook 'Em In
You must invest class time to inspire students and discuss the creativity process. Motivating students and building a classroom environment based on inquiry will pay off in the end. Students need to know that Genius Hour is about pursing passions and demonstrating skills and knowledge by creating products and presentations. This is exciting to students, but also a little intimidating. Fortunately, there are ways to spark students’ curiosity and encourage ingenuity.
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Videos to Inspire and Motivate
How will you make the world awesome? |
How can you help others? |
What will you do with your passion? |
How will you use your talents to solve problems? |
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Where do good ideas come from?
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How does creativity work?
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It's Story Time...
With Picture Books That Ignite Imagination
This is the story of one brilliant idea and the child who helps to bring it into the world. As the child's confidence grows, so does the idea itself.
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This is the story of a girl who has a wonderful idea. She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing!
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This is the story of Iggy who has one passion: building. When his 2nd grade teacher declares her dislike of architecture, Iggy faces a challenge.
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This is the story of Rosie who seems quiet during the day, but at night she's a brilliant inventor. She dreams of becoming a great engineer.
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This is the story of Maya who builds a go-cart unlike any of her classmates. Who said there is only one way to cross the finish line?
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This is the story of Vashti who can't draw. She jabs at a sheet of paper to make an angry mark. That dot begins Vashti's journey of self-discovery.
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Permission Slips…
NOT Required to Get Ideas from the World
One Passion to Rule Them All
I doubt anyone has but just one passion. We are interested in many things. Genius Hour is about exploring one passion, but it can tie in other interests and lead to new fascinations. Students will need to spend time reflecting on their interests and discovering new curiosities before they choose the one passion to rule them all. List-making is a great place to start. I call the process of listing a lot of items in one sitting a “Mind Dump.” Students are to dump everything from inside their brain onto the notepad. Not all ideas will be good and that is okay. Encourage even silly ideas. Writing all sorts of ideas will help make students feel comfortable about sharing their interest. You never know, a “bad” idea might be refined into something quite meaningful. Use the chart to help you get started with and implement the brainstorming process.
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Think brackets are just for sports tournaments? Think again! Hierarchy diagrams like the one to the left help students visualize the significance of each idea. Brackets support the decision-making process and let students refer back to ideas from the beginning. You can generate and print blank brackets for students to record ideas and narrow down their topic to just one. You can also have students create their own brainstorming graphic organizers using Google Drawings like I did here. There are a number of other word processing applications such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs for creating charts and diagrams. Any time you can get students to think, design, and create, the better!
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If your students need more guidance or a different approach during the idea phase, check out this useful handout from the Genius Hour Guide. It can be a good first step in convincing students that they do have interests and passions worthy of pursuing during “their” time.
Drive Projects With a Driving Question
Students are back in the driver’s seat during Genius Hour. They will need a clear direction for the journey ahead. Now that students have identified a focus for their project, they need to develop a driving question that fosters and sustains inquiry. The question drives students to discuss, inquire, and examine the topic. If students can Google the driving question and get an answer, they will need to rethink and revise. A driving or inquiry question challenges students to explore multiple facets of the topic, investigate new developments, seek solutions or different ways of thinking, and design a thoughtful presentation or product. Developing a driving question can be quite the challenge. Take a look at the different types of inquiry questions from Learning in Hand. Maybe the different structures and examples will help your students write that one essential question which drives their learning. Refer to the "Driving Question" page for more details.