One of the things that most often gets lost in school is the passion for learning the things that you want to learn. Many adults are lifelong learners – I am! – but when we are finished with school, our learning is in the areas that we feel some curiosity. Rather than having someone tell us what subjects, ideas, curriculum, skills we need to learn, we get to choose.

And that can be very freeing.

Genius Hour is a way to help get that back for our students. When they were kids, learning wasn’t a chore: it was something they did every day, and something they were passionate about. Somewhere along the way, students lose some of that passion. With Genius Hour, they have the ability to explore their passions again.

In our class, students choose something that they’re interested in and develop a question around it. The question must meet the requirements of the Wondering Litmus Test. Then, students complete the Genius Hour Inquiry Project Proposal.

Each week, they get an hour to work on their projects in class, doing their research and – depending on the project – working on creating something. They they have about twenty minutes to blog about their learning that week on our class blog, using these questions here.

At the end of their learning, on a due date that they have selected in consultation with me, students will be presenting their learning in some way. It doesn’t have to be an oral presentation, but they will be sharing what they’ve learned.

And then we will begin the process all over again.