Genius Hour
What is Genius Hour? As Chris Kesler states, "Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. "
Where did Genius Hour come from? Google allows its employees to use up to 20 percent of their work week at Google to pursue special projects. That means for every standard work week, employees can take a full day to work on a project unrelated to their normal workload. Google claims that many of their products started out as pet projects in the 20 percent time program.
Where did Genius Hour come from? Google allows its employees to use up to 20 percent of their work week at Google to pursue special projects. That means for every standard work week, employees can take a full day to work on a project unrelated to their normal workload. Google claims that many of their products started out as pet projects in the 20 percent time program.
Daniel Pink
Another origin of genius hour projects came from the book Drive by best-selling author, Daniel Pink. In a blog post he writes about how the Google-time projects are also used in other corporations.
"Each week, employees can take a Genius Hour — 60 minutes to work on new ideas or master new skills. They've used that precious sliver of autonomy well, coming up with a range of innovations including training tools for other branches."
For example 3M has been using 15% time since 1948. Ever wonder where the idea for Post-It Notes came from? During his 15% time 3M scientist Art Frye wanted to create the perfect bookmark for his church hymnal.
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What does this mean for you?
This semester in Accounting class we will be completing two Genius Hour projects. One during first quarter and one during second quarter.
- Every Friday will be Genius Hour.
- You must do this project alone.
- Choose a project that is new to you and something you wouldn't normally do in another academic class.
- You must produce a product or achieve some sort of goal.
- Reflect on the process each week on a personal blog.
- If, at any moment, you feel lost, overwhelmed, or uninspired, you must set a meeting with me to find a solution.
- At the end of the quarter you will need to produce evidence that learning occurred. How you do this is completely up to you!
- Failure is an option. Simply learning from your mistakes teaches you a lot.
- You will not be graded on the overall final project, but you will be graded based on your weekly blog posts and your use of Genius Hour.