Intentionally Sharing the Good and Bad

     This year, my goal is to share more. I want people to see what my students are doing and to recognize their accomplishments. With that being said, I am finding myself playing the role of a "photo journalist" more and more. My students are becoming more comfortable with sharing their work with others both inside and outside the classroom, and that is a "win" for me. This also means that I need to be better about sharing what I'm doing in the classroom too. So, here is what we've been up to today.

     In math today, we used Plickers. If you are not familiar with Plickers, it is a website and an app that works GREAT in classrooms with no devices (or not one-to-one devices). Students are given cards that are free to print off of the plickers.com website, and they use these cards as QR codes to solve different problems that you create on the website. When the students solve the problem on the screen, they raise their QR code in the direction that corresponds with the letter that they are choosing, and the teacher scans the room with the iPad. The iPad will pick up everyone's letter answer and will tell you what percentage of your students chose the correct answer.

     I am always trying to find ways to spice my math warm-ups up, so I decided that this could be a good avenue for my students and I to take. I made a few questions, and I demoed them with my math Scout Time kids. I found that I had made some mistakes in my questions, so I was able to fix those mistakes before debuting the activity to my big algebra class. For the most part, things went well. The only issue I encounter ed was that the cards that I printed off from the site didn’t match up the letters with the letters that my iPad read. I was kind of freaking out, because the iPad was reading that most of my students were not getting the questions right. We figured out that their letters were not the same ones that the iPad was reading. I’m still not really sure what happened there, but even with the confusion, I’d be willing to give this activity another go. I was really fumbling around in class today, but I think next time should go smoother. 
     

Thoughts on Genius Hour

Late last year, I was introduced to the Genius Hour movement that was developed from one of  

Google's business practices. After talking with several educators, I decided to try it out in one of my Scout Time classes. What the students learned and produced through the course of this class completely blew me away.  

What is Genius Hour? 

I'll be honest here. Giving students free reign to create, investigate, and explore basically any topic that they want is mildly scary. Giving MIDDLE SCHOOL students this freedom is down right terrifying. Or, so I thought. 

When I introduced this idea, many students were really confused. "So, what do you want me to make?" "Do you want me to write a paper?" "Is this a powerpoint thing or something?" These were just some of the many questions that students had for me. Many of them could not grasp the concept that the only thing I required of them was CURIOSITY at its purest form. I wasn't going to tell them to write a paper, to create a presentation, or even FINISH what they started. I simply wanted them to figure out something that they were passionate about and let that passion guide them. 

It took a few weeks for students to feel totally comfortable with this idea, but once they really started to understand this concept, they soared. 

I had students teaching themselves how to play instruments, taking a dabble in coding, designing websites, photographing different things, writing letters asking businesses how they make products, raising money for a charity, etc. 

Not a single student chose to write a paper. Interesting. 

Of all the things I hope to carry with me into this new year, this concept of Genius Hour is definitely something I do not want to leave behind. This is one of the many reasons why I LOVE my profession!