View Content #20043

The 20% concept started with the company 3M as the “15% project.” The idea is to let employees spend 15% (in modern implementations 20%) of their time working on projects of their choice - resulting in innovative, passion-inspired work. Google has most famously adapted this concept. Many who have adopted the policy now call it “Genius Hour” - one hour a week in which employees can work on the project of their choice.

Can this work in education? Many educators have been inspired to try it, including world language teachers. Here are some resources to consult if you’re interested in trying it in your classroom:

First, some background on the Genius Hour concept: http://www.20timeineducation.com/, http://www.geniushour.com/what-is-genius-hour/, and http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=829279

Next, a collection of blog posts from the PBL in the TL blog. How to set it up: http://www.pblinthetl.com/2014/01/genius-hour-agenda-part-1-setup-and.html; what it feels like to actually do: http://www.pblinthetl.com/p/blog-page.html; and a collection of driving questions: http://www.pblinthetl.com/2013/12/genius-hour-driving-questions-for-world.html. There are many more posts about Genius Hour; you can begin to view them here: http://www.pblinthetl.com/search/label/Genius%20Hour

The applicability of Genius Hour to language classrooms is being discussed by many excellent teachers, many of whom are concerned with the loss of time spent getting exposure to target language input, especially at the novice level when students require a lot of scaffolding from the teacher that they are unlikely to find in independent projects. See one such critique here: http://musicuentos.com/2014/01/novicegh/

We at CASLS believe that a key to student engagement is student choice, and we hope that these resources can help you to decide whether to try Genius Hour in your own classroom, and if so, how best to adapt it to your own teaching philosophy and context.