We started doing Genius Hour 7th hour on Thursdays in the first semester of the Arete PBL Academy. It was a learning experience for everyone. When one is passionate about something they will read, watch, ask questions and practice and in general find every means to learn about the topic.
Some kids knew what they wanted to do in the first thirty seconds. Others had a tough time finding a passion and joined with another person who was their friend, they thought would do all the work, or topic seemed interesting. Needless to say, those who pursued a passion enjoyed the time they were given and used it well. Those who weren't passionate about their topic usually were working in a group, generally with people they liked, but not necessarily with a topic they loved. That situation led to the one who was passionate about the topic feeling like the other person wasn't doing anything and the other person who wasn't really into it feeling like the passionate one was always bossing them around.
It took some of them awhile to figure out that each of them had skills they could leverage to push the project to success. For others, the main learning was that they didn't want to work on a project with a person who was not as passionate as they are, or that they didn't want to work on a project where they got to choose how to spend their time both in and outside of school, but didn't love.
At the beginning of the hour for each Genius Hour, we took the first three minutes and did a quick research tip, discussed a point where they should be in their project and waved the green flag by saying, "Think big, Do something important, Change the world." I used it was a touch point for everyone no matter which stage they were in with their project. Another frequent saying was Oliver Schinkten's expression, "If you didn't fail, then you fail." The expression fits into the Think Big portion of the project. By that I mean if you didn't think big enough for something not to work out, then you didn't think big enough.
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