In-class time was finished today...

We had our last Genius Hour in-class time today. Of course, that doesn't mean my students are done researching, blogging, vlogging, and creating and fine-tuning their presentation.

Today we talked about doing a "dress rehearsal" at home for their presentation. I strongly emphasized that the first time they present should not be in front of the class.

Their fourth blog entry is due this week, by Sunday at 7 pm, and then for their fifth entry, I have some questions I'd like them to answer in order to reflect on the entire learning process.

Harder Than I Thought...

Many of my students are writing blog entries with that sentiment..."this is harder than I thought."

I'm happy when I see that (it means they're really trying), but I'm even happier when I read that they are pushing through anyway. Sometimes learning is hard. Success doesn't look like a straight line. There are twists and turns, obstacles and hurdles, and unexpected problems all along the way. Those who persevere may not even reach their goal, but they will have learned quite a bit along the way--both about what they were researching and about themselves.

I can report the same thing--this is harder than I thought. I had no idea how long it would take to check and grade 90 + blog entries every Sunday. I can now tell you: approximately 3 1/2 hours. Because I wanted them to interact with each other, too, I required at least two comments on other students' blogs per week, so I must read and take note of every one of those, too. Sometimes I miss them, and the students correct me so that I can correct their grade. :)

But I've learned how to make things easier: I leave every blog that isn't updated in its own tab, open until 7 pm (the deadline each Sunday). Then at 7 pm, I click on each one and hit refresh. This way, I don't have to go through the entire list again, and I can get to watching Game of Thrones on time. Just kidding! (No, I'm not.)

On a final note, it's interesting when Genius Hour even affects people not in school. My husband has been inspired. At first, he was going to learn Spanish, but decided he didn't have the stamina or time to devote to it (it's good to acknowledge your constraints!). So he's seeing if he has what it takes (or can learn what it takes) to remodel a bathroom. Here's a picture of the destruction he has wrought just today in our bathroom. It looks awful, but hopefully by the end of May, there will be a gorgeous updated bathroom in its place! (This used to be a shower.)

Happy Learning! 

Getting into it...

Last night, all blog entries and comments were due at 8 pm. I've found I have to move that back to 7 pm, because reading and scoring 90+ blogs took far longer than I thought. It wasn't bad, it just took a while. This Sunday, I won't also have a driving question to grade, but I have told all my students I'm pushing it back to 7 pm.

I've also been talking about the importance of not waiting until the last minute. Especially with online assignments such as these (and most all of my students will use virtual learning in their future!), you have to be careful about getting assignments done on time. You could have wifi issues, Blogger could be buggy, your younger brother could be hogging the only working laptop in your house, any number of things could happen to add to your stress level and lower your grade.

This is week 2, and a lot of my students are in the "now what?" phase. They chose a passion, a driving question, did some initial research, and are now looking at me wanting to know what's next. As a teacher, I steer them in a direction, but refuse to tell them precisely what they should do, because part of this process is the learning journey itself--figuring out what to do when learning independently.

DJ Josh

I made a video on Animoto! I thought I got a trial of the pro version, but the Animoto watermark still shows up. Enjoy it, DJ Josh! <---that's the link

Today's Genius Hour Work!

Today, ninth grader Josh brought his DJ equipment (a sound/mixer board, and his laptop) and he worked on becoming a better DJ. He will also be reading up on advanced techniques and researching successful DJs. I hope he interviews one or two and shares those interviews with us!

Here he is in action:

Mystery Solved!

Thanks to our brilliant IMS (Instructional Media Specialist) Kathy, we figured out my tech problem, which is NOT a tech problem! The blogs that only go to HTML code are blogs without a blog entry yet. Once they write an entry, it'll show up. I knew Kathy would figure it out! Thank you!

Students, get that blog entry up so the world can see the emergence of your genius!

No Learning After the Test? NOPE.

I get a bit upset when I hear people say, even jokingly, that there's no learning going on in classrooms after the state test. This bothers me for a couple of reasons:

• I know the state test is important, but it is far from being the only learning objective in my classroom!
• My students' state tests are in very late March and very early April. School gets out in early June. If I stopped all their learning at that point, I'd be shortchanging them, setting up conditions for behavioral issues, and wasting their time. That's a LONG time to sit in a class you aren't learning anything in.
• My job isn't to babysit. If we sat around from late March to early June, I'd be nothing more than a babysitter, which is ridiculous.

Here's just a sampling of what my eighth graders will do the last quarter of school:

1. They are reading and analyzing the Holocaust memoir Night by Elie Wiesel--this includes essay responses, modified AP-style quizzes, Socratic Seminars in class, and at the end, they will paint on canvas a depiction (concrete or abstract) of the mood of Night.

2. GENIUS HOUR! They select their own topic (appropriate for school, of course) to research and create a technological-based presentation on, then present this to the class. They have to document their learning in a blog, comment constructively on other students' blogs, and use MLA format to cite their sources. This is something they literally look forward to all year long.

3. They will be writing an essay in class documenting their learning process from Genius Hour.

4. They will be writing collaborative short stories. This is at their request! It will take half a class period spread out over seven class periods. I will be getting copies of the stories bound for them as an eighth grade/middle school graduation gift, to keep forever. They're quite excited about their fiction writing--I have a very creative group of eighth graders!

5. Free writing! Like I said, they're pretty creative and strong writers, and they love free writing--when they are allowed to simply follow their thoughts and explore any genre of writing they wish to in their journals.

Here's a sampling of what my English I students are doing this quarter:

1. They are reading and analyzing the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer. Essay responses, quizzes, and an analysis of archetypes and epic similes and metaphors will be included. Each day when we read, the mood is set with a ton of flameless flickering candles all over the room. It's as close as I can get to an ancient Greek banquet hall with a blind Homer reciting his poem! Towards the end, we might enjoy a small Greek meal with kalamata olives, feta cheese, pita bread, grilled goat, and grape juice. (No wine, obviously!) That would be to read the final parts of Book XXIII.

2. GENIUS HOUR! See above.

3. They will also be writing an essay in class documenting their learning process from Genius Hour.

4. Free writing! Like my eighth graders, English I students also enjoy the opportunity to explore writing in completely different genres.

(English I did not request to write collaborative stories, but The Odyssey is quite long, so they have more than enough to do!)

I'm not including smaller elements of their learning this nine weeks (such as preparing to do the summer reading work), but obviously we're pretty darn busy learning and getting ready for Pre-AP English I and II. Learning time is valuable, and I don't intend to waste it.

First Day of Research!

As you can see from the growing list to the right of this post, my students are all getting their blogs and starting to document their learning journey during their Genius Hour research. If any of the links go to HTML code instead of a blog, go up to the URL address and take off everything after .com and it works. I'm still trying to figure out why it does that only for certain blogs. I've taken their links out of my list and put them back in over and over with the correct address, and blogger seems to add extra text after the .com just to some of them. Frustrating, but I guess technology comes with it's own issues to be overcome! Hopefully our wonderful campus IMS will be able to help me resolve this issue.

Today was our first day in the computer lab, and it's always fun to me to hear them talk about their projects. Because they are choosing their topics, they're very excited and passionate. Many students started their research long before we officially started it in school, some of them as long ago as last semester or even last summer.

Here's Danielle hard at work on her first blog entry:

Kaiya was getting a lot of information down in her journal before writing her first blog post:

More pictures as the process goes on!

Introducing Genius Hour

Today, I introduced Genius Hour to my B day English I students. Tomorrow, I will do so with A day and with my eighth graders. The students I taught last year are familiar with it, but I am adding three new components this year:

* Driving Questions are required

* Blogging the learning journey is required (students blogs will be in the Blogs I Follow link in the upper right)

* Resources used will be compiled in MLA format in the final presentation

I love seeing the excitement on their faces as we get this process underway! Students who did this last year walked in, saw the Promethean board, and fist-pumped and couldn't wait for class to start.

I'm already hearing of some great Driving Questions. A few I heard today were:

*How can we help foster children feel like they are part of a family?
* Can I learn to play the cello?
* What kinds of social experiments can I perform?

I can't WAIT to see what they do this year! More to come...