- Pose a question to spark interest: “What if I were to tell you that once a week, you would get to learn WHATEVER YOU WANT?”
- Show videos to give more information and spark interest:
- GH Introduction
- Project Examples
- Pitch Example
- Kid President (Great for introducing to elementary)
- Begin Brainstorming: Ask students what they are passionate about, this can be done digitally or with post its!
Develop Driving Questions & Pitch Ideas
- Explain the concept of a driving question and discuss Google vs. Genius Question (a genius question is open ended and is requires research and ideas, cannot be answered with a simple google search)
- Provide students with links of examples to Genius Hour Projects
- Joy Kirr Live Binder
- Driving Question Examples (by grade level)
- 3rd Grade Examples
- Once students have spent the time creating and refining their driving question (Wonder time should of really helped with this process!) students will need to pitch their idea. The idea came from an elevator pitch where you have 2 minutes to pitch why your idea is important. This can be done in many different ways and can look different for all grade levels. As long as students are sharing their idea and supporting the why behind it is the important part.
- 7th Grade Pitches
- Google Slide Pitch Example
- First Grade Vlog examples (first graders were asked to create a short video sharing their driving question and reasoning behind it on their blogs)
- Once students have a driving question, they will begin to create a vision for what their project will look like and how they will solve the problem and/or answer their question
- Encourage students to reach out to parents, teachers, coaches, and other “experts” in their area of interest
- Allow students (over 13-years-old) to create a Google+ account for expert connections