GENIUS HOUR

Conceptual Basis & Self Reflection

A Pep Talk by a Kid President: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-

gQLqv9f4o&list=PLs14qnpGyssRGXwuyol9Heo3ehzQRR7iM
What stands in our way from traveling the road less traveled?
Can all learning be exciting? What strategies could you use to make learning fun?

New Brigden School: Earth Day Project - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abf6dNnTJ-k

What are the similarities and differences between the race car lesson and the junk contest?
Which one has greater student engagement/ investment and ownership? Why?
Compare the role of the teacher and the students in the race car lesson and the junk contest.

Audris Monster Trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDDEEHDf1Y

What is driving Audri to create his monster trap?
What does this video tell you about the relationship between success and failure?
What science skills/ knowledge did Audri gain from doing this project?

What is Genius Hour?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMFQUtHsWhc&list=PLs14qnpGyssRGXwuyol9Heo3ehzQRR7iM&i
ndex=6
Could you implement this in your classroom? What are some constraints to
implementation? What do you think your students could gain from this experience?

Passion-Based Learning- Ainissa Ramirez- Accessed Aug. 20, 2014

There is lots of talk about the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pipeline and all of its leaks.
My personal mission is to fill the STEM pipeline with so many children that it bursts. To do this, STEM must be
taught in an inspiring way. To keep children engaged, we need to bring passion for learning back into the
classroom.

Passion is hot. It is a force that sells movies and margarine and everything in between. It is a force the can
move mountains, inspire art and make the weak strong. We need to bring passion back into learning, in
teaching and all around. Passion motivates. It makes a way out of no way. It allows students to overcome
hardships to achieve a goal that is meaningful to them.

When writing my recent book for TED, Save Our Science, I learned about the alphabet soup of instructional
strategies out there, with the common theme of enticing and engaging learning. Let's name a few of these
pedagogies: there is inquiry-based, project-based, design-based and problem-based learning, for example.
Each of these methods has a central theme buried under all that jargon. If we were to compare the learning
process to fishing, we want to draw students in (with the worm) and keep them engaged (with the hook). These
pedagogies provide the motivation and the momentum using different approaches. You can hook a student's
attention if they get their hands dirty (inquiry-based learning); have learning interactions with other students
(project- and problem-based learning); or need to perform a specific task (problem- and design-based
learning). All these methods are ways -- with their direct discovery, problem-solving, hands-on learning and
collaborative methods -- used to keep the embers of passion for learning alive. A love of learning is a key skill
for the 21st century. (See Figure 1)

The Power of Passion

There are two ways to get a child passionate about something:

1. Find out what each child is innately passionate about.

2. Be an instructor that exudes passion for the topic, and infect your students with that excitement.

Only a few of us have benefited from the first option, but all of us can benefit from the second one. That is the
power of passion.

Figure 1. Passion for learning is the key pedagogy to prepare for 21st century challenges.

Credit: Ainissa Ramirez

I've witnessed this in my own journey. I met a graduate student working in a very esoteric (read: boring)
scientific field that uses magnetism to determine the properties of atoms. It was a foreign technique that was
equivalent to watching paint dry, but she gave an enthusiastic presentation. I later asked her how she got
involved with this topic. She replied that she had a professor who loved this field, and his passion was
contagious. His legacy was a group of students who loved this topic, too. That is the power of passion; it can
make what was once dull now desirable.

Now, we must be careful when we talk about passion and making topics interesting. Lots of instructors and
teachers feel that they are passionate about what they teach. They will launch into a lesson from the deep end
of the pool. Too often professors, teachers and instructors who have been teaching a subject for some time
cannot engage a beginner, because they have forgotten how life was before knowing what they know. In
teaching, you must have a beginner's mind. And you must ask, "How does this look to someone if they are
seeing this for the first time?" Help your students into the shallow end of the pool and bring them to the deeper
end. Teach with passion and with patience.

Vulnerability and the Inner Geek

Show students why you love the topic. Be vulnerable and show them the human side of knowing this new thing.
To teach well, teachers must go back to the stage of vulnerability and put themselves in the shoes of a student
who is learning the material for the first time. Students respond to vulnerability. It shows that you are "with
them."

Now, I must be clear: vulnerability does not mean a loss of power. We must decouple that in our minds -- being
vulnerable can be a source of power. (I would suggest you read the work of Bren Brown for proof). We are all
from an age where knowing is related to our self-worth. No one can know everything! So we've got to have a
new posture with knowledge, especially in this age where the rate of information creation is exponential. In this
age of Google, the human element still has a market on engagement; there isn't an algorithm for passion (yet).

Be a passion-based teacher. Take on a new learning posture with your students by presenting a story behind
the topic you are teaching, or by showing its beauty, or by delighting in the topic. Get in touch with your inner
geek. When you do that, you give students permission to do the same. Remember that the word pedagogy
comes from the Greek root, which means "to lead the child."

Everyone is a geek for something; everyone has passion for something. Make that something learning. Infect
your students with passion, and they'll never be able to contain it again. Release your passion!

Critical Challenge: Reflect on some aspect you are passionate about in science and try to create
a project that enables you to explore your passion. The format is wide open! The only two
criteria for this challenge are that your project is science based and that you choose something
that is personally meaningful to you.
Additional Resources:

Passion-based learning implementation strategies

http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/25-ways-to-institute-passion-based-
learning-in-the-classroom/

Project-Based Learning: Building Communities of Reflective Practitioners Management Learning

March 2001 32: 61-76,

Genius Hour Resources: http://www.geniushour.com/2013/04/06/genius-hour-teacher-

resources/