In October, I read an article Kids pursue passions during ‘genius hour’ at Centennial Arts Academy. I meant to blog about it, but never did.
At my school, which is a STEM school, we have an hour of intervention. This is a time, in which, students have to work towards completing a learning path using an online tool. Many students dread this hour. They say it’s boring, not real learning, and it takes too long to complete an activity.
STEM schools should be places of exploratory learning similar to what is described in the article. I think it would be engaging and enlightening for my students to have a Genius Hour versus an hour of remediation. My students have to acquire their deficient skills somehow; I am not disregarding that notion. However, I think these skills can be developed through what interests students.
Interesting enough that teachers are evaluated on how much choice they give students in what they want to learn; however, the system prevents those choices from occurring. I would love to see Genius Hour at my school.
Posted by Crystal from WordPress for Android