DAY 1: What is Genius Hour? As we mentioned earlier....Genius Hour is where passions come alive! Students are given the opportunity to pose their own questions, problems, or challenges. With support, students will plan, manage, and reflect upon their learning. Students will switch roles from learner and teacher throughout the process. They will have the freedom to think independently and interdependently, take risks, and learn from their attempts. You and your students will not be able to…

Self-directed learning builds skills and confidence. And it's just plain fun!

In today’s blog post, I’ll be sharing step-by-step directions and strategies for implementing Genius Hour in your elementary classroom. If you teach older grades, I also share more broa…

Last week I was scouring the internet for some more inquiry ideas for my classroom when I came across Genius Hour. One word ... hooked. And inspired. And motivated. (I was never good at limiting my words). ;) Sufficed to say, I KNEW it was going to happen in my classroom. In a nutshell, Genius Hour is something that happens in your classroom for one hour a week. During this time, students research and complete an inquiry project based on their passions - really digging deep into what…

This week at Genius Hour, 3B students showed their understanding of Genius Hour by completing the sentences "Genius Hour is.." and "Genius Hour isn't…" These will be our guidelines for Genius...

How do you organize Genius Hour in elementary classes? Today we're revealing our roadmap for organizing Genius Hour.

Update: I have had NUMEROUS request for my rubric and information on the inspiration stations. I very nervously took a step outside my comf...

What are you passionate about? If you could spend one hour out of your day learning about any topic...what would you pick? These are the questions I asked my fifth graders for weeks before we started...

We hear the charge for more student-directed, inquiry-based learning, but it can seem like a load of pie-in-the-sky hooey without instructions for how to do it.