20 Time and Genius Hour

As I'm letting 20 Time "swirl around" my brain, there are a few distinctions and insights I'm having.  There is a wonderful website - 20 Time in Education - which I was introduced to this morning.  It is getting finishing touches done and will be "officially" launched in the next few weeks. I'm reading through and am excited to use as a resource. I'm just jotting these thoughts down as they occur and how I understand them, so adjustments and corrections will be made as necessary.




First, I need to clarify the difference between the two (I didn't know there was one until a few moments ago):

• 20 Time is more structured, giving students 20% of class time to work on a project that has a final product or goal at the end.
• Genius Hour is less structured, giving students the freedom to study whatever they want however they want.

Both are very, very cool.  I think my ideas run more along the lines of 20 Time in my class (though Genius Hour may be more appropriate for my extra-curricular class), but I came across an interesting idea just now:

Would it be wise to begin with Genius Hour for a semester and then move to 20 time the next semester?

 This instantly resonated with me.  It makes perfect sense.  One of the commonly re-occurring reasons I keep coming across about why 20 Time and Genius Hour are so important is because students simply don't know what they want to learn about.  They've been told their entire lives what they need to learn and how they need to learn it, so how many could really answer the question of "What do you want to learn about?" when they've never been encouraged to think about it?  I experienced this yesterday with a horse lesson student/assistant of mine: she's in middle school and is very mature.  I thought I'd run my ideas by her.  She, of course, had never heard of 20 Time before, but she lit up and got very excited abou the idea.  However, when I asked her what she would want to learn about, she was at a loss for an answer.  It took her a long time to come up with something, and even then, she really wasn't sure.

I believe Genius Hour gives students the freedom to decide what they are interested in.  Thus, starting with Genius Hour would give students the opportunity and freedom to explore different subjects and ideas to discover who they are and what they are interested in.  This addresses one of my fears for 20 Time that students would commit to studying something they thought they were interested in only to realize they didn't like it as much as they thought (isn't this what happens so many times in real life when people commit to a major or occupation and come to realize that, after all this hard work and dedication, they can't stand what they're doing and need a change?).  There is another lesson to be learned here simply about how to find out what you're truly passionate about.  Then, once students have ample time to decide what they love learning about during first semester, we can move into a 20 Time project for second semester knowing that we've fully explored many options and chosen the one that we like the most.

In practice, I would plan for students to have Genius Hour every Friday for the first semester, keeping a blog or some type of journal about what they're learning.  I could even give them a structured format which includes logging what they learned and reflecting on the ideas and reactions they had to it (do they think they would enjoy learning about this topic as a hobby?  Doing it as a career? Do they think they're bored of it or not as interested as they thought? etc).  I would ask that, during the course of the semester, they both explored whatever it is they are interested in ("Pure" Genius Hour) as well as things relating to Spanish-speaking culture and hopefully make connections between the two.  I would need to stay up-to-date on their progress and learning to be sure that, by the end of the semester, they have an idea for what they will study and produce second semester.  Maybe the ultimate assignment for Genius Hour first semester would be to write their topic proposal for their 20 Time project for second semester!  I'm very excited about being able to implement "pure" Genius Hour for my students to explore whatever they're interested in without any of my parameters or expectations other than to eventually come up with an idea for what they want to focus on during 20 Time during the last half of the year.  This would also include identifying a mentor to work with to make sure they'll have support throughout the project and experience success.

This brings me to "The Pitch" - where students present their ideas to the community.  I want them to have the entire first semester to develop their ideas, interests, and passions, so I think I'll hold off on "The Pitch" until second semester.  Rather, at the end of first semester, students will be able to share their learning and experiences as well as what they've decided to learn about second semester during 20 Time.  Throughout this process I will help and guide them to their best possible topic and ultimately give them my approval on what they've decided to focus on.  Then, we can jump right in second semester developing ideas for the actual project and students can present their Pitch very early on in the semester.  I really like the idea of making their Pitch a BIG deal, presenting it to their class and their community in a professional manner.  I also like the suggestion to have students present their pitch to me for grading before the event so that I can truly take part in the event and manage things OTHER than grades.

I could go into depth about so many other things on this website, but I may as well just send you on over there!  It's spelled out so easily and makes this really seem plausible.  I simply cannot wait to see what my students do this year :)

PS - I need to eliminate the "o" I keep putting in "Genious" lol!  Thank goodness for spell check :)