Bringing Genius Hour to Your School
Course
Proposing Genius Hour to Your Campus [5:34]
- Learn what to be prepared with before you present Genius Hour to your stakeholders.
- Learn ways to face the challenges you may encounter from various stakeholders.
- Learn the importance of clearly defining Genius Hour.
No matter which stakeholders you address, always be prepared with your State's mandated curriculum and an explanation of Genius Hour and how it supports it. You'll also want to have a copy of the Teacher evaluation system to show how Genius Hour helps educators reach the highest standards of teaching excellence. Finally, it's always good to be prepared with peer review journal articles that demonstrate the value of Genius Hour or a book that shows that you have a plan. With all of this ready to go, you'll show that you've done your homework, that you're prepared, and you'll significantly be able to increase the odds of gaining support from your administrators, faculty and parents.
Now, the first stakeholder you need to convince is your school administrator. Always start with your principal, whether starting small or with a whole campus program, because a Genius Hour Program might very well cause you to dramatically change the landscape of your program. When you want to change the context of the way you teach library skills, people might get concerned. What's there to be concerned about? Well, the library won't be just for sitting and reading quietly anymore. Mini lessons will become just part of the greater plan. Suddenly, students are going to be involved in projects that require lots of activity and it causes lots of noise when they get busy applying curriculum knowledge and skills and guess what? The ring leader of what might look like chaos to the untrained eye is the librarian.
Parents and teachers might challenge what they perceive to be library homework, or if you're stepping up expectations for student participation and you're using assessments as you go, people might react and express concern that library time has become too demanding.
Your administrator really needs to completely understand the reasons for the changes you want to make and how it's going to benefit students, the faculty, and overall campus achievement. Your principal also needs to be aware of your activities, the rationale, or the goals for Genius Hour ahead of time so it can be easier for them to speak with concerned parents and teachers with a fully-informed knowledgeable response about the program's mission and goals.
Consider going into the office with not just a few good reasons, but also some valid research. Whatever steps you take, keep it concise and powerful. Too much information is too time-consuming for a busy administrator to read and digest, but give them key points, either anecdotal or statistical. Get an outside source such as an authoritative journal. All of that should be excellent support for your case.
You'll also need to go into the meeting with an honest evaluation of your current library program. Now it might already be good, but you can do better. Explain that you may have concerns about staying current and relevant in the face of a quickly changing digital landscape, and you're looking for ways to integrate technology in the library in a natural way. You might have been looking for a way to give students choice and opportunities to take charge of their own learning. Genius Hour will give students a natural way to practice and develop key skills that are currently missing.
When you propose Genius Hour as a solution, don't forget to define it. Genius Hour is basically giving students the opportunity to research and learn about anything they want in school while giving them the chance to apply everything they've learned in the classroom to their own personally selected topic. Explain why, given the current library program, maintaining status quo is not desirable or optimal for student success. Focus on whatever is an overarching concern in your eyes, and provide support for why change is in order.
Give these reasons: Genius Hour helps students become better, more creative thinkers with more problem-solving skills, giving them the ability to become confident learners and therefore, more likely to pass standardized tests. Most importantly, it just gets them ready to succeed in life. Also, it's a chance for students to see that school is, in fact, relevant to their life and not just something to silently and passively endure until they are no longer required to attend.
Make yourself available for questions, but then go out on campus and start to collect the overall feelings of the faculty. So, like that, you can take that burden off the principal. Really, there's no true logical reason why administration wouldn't want you to adopt a plan that so wonderfully integrates curriculum, while generating high student interest.
When it is time to present Genius Hour to your school community, having a fully-informed knowledgeable response prepared will keep the conversation headed in the right direction!
In this lesson, Elizabeth Rush outlines a few items to have on-hand when getting ready to present Genious Hour to your school community. Using page 4 in the Course Packet found in the Resources above, start to outline your research and responses to challenging questions that you may encounter. Be sure to include a thought out definition of your Genious Hour and how the program's mission will benefit the entire school community.
MLA Citation
Editorial Team, SLC. "Bringing Genius Hour to Your School: Be Prepared." School Library Connection, September 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2264412?learningModuleId=2264392&topicCenterId=2253166.
Entry ID: 2268303
You have put all of your research together and you are ready to present Genius Hour to your administration. There is just one more important step before you walk into that meeting. Take a look at your current library program and give it an honest evaluation. It may already be a great program—but there is always room to do better! How will Genius Hour improve your library program?
In this lesson, Elizabeth Rush talks about preparing to present Genius Hour to your administration. One of the ways to prepare is taking a look at your current library program and giving it an honest evaluation. Is your program meeting the expectations of others around you? Are those expectations matching your vision? Does it give students choice and opportunities to take charge of their learning? Is your program current in the face of the changing digital landscape? Are there concerns being voiced by parents or teachers about your program? Are there gaps in student achievement? Do students actively participate? Using page 5 of the Course Packet (in Resources above), create a list of 3-5 shortcomings in your current library program that would benefit from implementing a Genius Hour.
MLA Citation
Editorial Team, SLC. "Bringing Genius Hour to Your School: Evalute Your Current Library Program." School Library Connection, September 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2264412?learningModuleId=2264392&topicCenterId=2253166.
Entry ID: 2268513
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Rush, Elizabeth Barrera. "Bringing Genius Hour to Your School. Proposing Genius Hour to Your Campus [5:34]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, September 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2264412?learningModuleId=2264392&topicCenterId=2253166.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2264412?learningModuleId=2264392&topicCenterId=2253166
Entry ID: 2264412