The first artifact I chose for this class was the GeniusHour Project. I included this project because I think that this is a great way
to really impact student achievement. This kind of project is an important way
to differentiate and improve student engagement. Students will be excited and
motivated to participate in a Genius Hour project because they get to choose
their own question. Students will become excited to research a topic that
interests them. This project is also great because there are so many different
ways that students can show their research. This allows students to be creative
in how they want to present their learning. Additionally, students will be able
to show mastery of a variety of different skills during this project. They
potentially can show mastery in reading, writing, and technology skills, as
well as potentially a subject area that their project is connected to. This is
why I chose to discuss the Genius Hour Project.
Although this project has so many potential benefits,
there are also some potential challenges. One of the strengths of this project,
how open ended it is, could also be a challenge for some students. Some
students enjoy or feel secure when completing assignments that have very
explicit directions. These students often struggle when they are provided with
more choices and freedom. One way to address this challenge is to have a rubric
ready to discuss when presenting this project. By explaining and discussing the
rubric with students, you will explain the expectations for students and give
those students some structure, while still allowing them the choice and freedom
to develop their own question and be creative when sharing their project.
Another challenge could be helping students to develop questions to research.
Students will need to develop questions that allow deep thinking and research.
Students are often not familiar with asking these types of questions. It may
take some time and some guidance to help students to develop appropriate questions
to research for their Genius Hour.
I think the Genius Hour Project would be a great addition
to any classroom. I think one way to incorporate a Genius Hour would be during
an informative Writing or nonfiction Reading unit. Ideally, if you are teaching
these unit together you could devote even more class time to the project. You
could potentially teach the reading and writing skills of the unit and then
have students show mastery of these skills by completing a Genius Hour Project.
During the process of researching their question they would have to use the
nonfiction reading skills taught during the unit. Similarly, while creating
their project, they would have to utilize the informative writing skills they
had just learned. I think what is really important for this project, is to
determine which skills you will be assessing at the completion of the project
and be sure to include these on the rubric. It is important to take time to
review and discuss the rubric so students have a true understanding of the
purpose of the project. This project provides so many potential opportunities
to incorporate into the classroom to address a variety of learning standards,
it is just important that a rubric is provided and those standards are
addressed with students to provide them with some guidance to understand how
they will be assessed.
I think that this project is a great example of how I
have grown throughout this class. This project really shows how I have used the
different information I have learned through the other classes, but through
this class I am using this knowledge to assess and really transform my students’
learning. In previous classes I had learned about different site and resources
that students, such as Google Sites, WeVideo, and Padlet, but during this class
I learned about how to use these in combination with rubrics and other
assessment tools to really impact my student’s learning. This project is a
great example of this learning because of the variety of ways to utilize a
genius hour. However, what takes this project to the next level is the use of a
rubric to focus in on the specific learning standards the teacher would like to
address. This will really help students to stay focused and improve their
learning.
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