Genius Hour

I know what you're thinking, this was a "thing" a few years ago, but as I revealed recently, I am not an early adopter!  I have been wanting to try Genius Hour for about 5 years and actually approached a colleague to get his class involved.  He said no.  I was teaching grade 2 at the time, and needed support with tech and just extra people.  I thought it would be a great opportunity for grade 7's to get involved with younger students, but the teacher said no.  This time, I really tried to sell it, offering to do all the planning and setup as well as the training of his class.  His friend advised against it and so I was sunk before I started. 

So now, because of new curriculum and the buzz about project based learning, I'm going to try again.  I have been reading some blogs and other resources that I have found online.  My principal is really excited about the idea and other staff actually seem interested.  So this coming school year I'm going to start Genius Hour or something along those lines.  Project based learning where the focus is really what ever the student wants to learn about.  I don't know all the particulars yet, but I am working on it.  I think this will just have to be one of those things that I just jump into and try it out. 

So far, this is what I have planned:
-Introduce PBL at the beginning of the year to parents and students. 
-Do a learning project on a topic as a class, something like dogs or cats, and teach them different ways to show their learning.  A practice run.
-Get others involved, parents, older students other staff.
-Start in November(?) with the practice and then January(?) with the project they do themselves.

I still have to look at organization, what I want to teach them during the practice and a few other details.  That's what August is for!