Genius Hour 3

This week's Genius Hour Plan: Complete a Project Proposal. We first read two great books: The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and 11 Experiments that Failed by Jenny Offill. The kids enjoyed them both. They especially loved 11 Experiments that Failed, as we have been conducting experiments about the states of matter.

Students were asked to complete the following questions:

• Name
• Date
• Topic
• My INQUIRY question will be (What are you wondering about?):
• Materials I need for my research (How do you plan to find the answer to your question?):
• How do you plan to show/share/present your research findings?
• Teacher Approval

By the end of last week, I had conferenced with each student and worked with them to create an inquiry question. This week, two students had completely forgotten their topics! Most of them did however, remember their exact question. Overall, students had difficulty answering these questions - even with modeling and assistance. Many students were demonstrating the exact reason that I wanted to implement Genius Hour - they were scared to take a risk. This task wasn't a workbook page or a defined set of problems, this was open ended and much more difficult for them. 

We worked on these proposals for most of the period. With about 15 minutes left, I asked students to complete the daily log reflection (posted last week). This was a complete flop. I am going to take off the "Notes" and "Resources" boxes and simply create a new form that focusing on reflection. The theme of Genius Hour Week 3 was - HOT MESS. I felt a little discouraged, but then remembered our classroom's precept of the month...