Denise Krebs - The Genius Hour Guidebook: Fostering Passion, Wonder, and Inquiry in the Classroom

Promote your students creativity and get them excited about learning! In the second edition of this popular, practical book, authors Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi show you how to implement Genius Hour, a time when students can develop their own inquiry-based projects around their passions and take ownership of their work. Brought to you by MiddleWeb and Routledge Eye On Education, the book takes you step-by-step through planning and teaching Genius Hour. Youll learn how to guide your students as they:

inspire learning and brainstorm wonders;

develop inquiry questions based on their interests;

conduct research and experiments about their topic of choice;

create presentations to teach their fellow students in creative ways; and

present their finished product for a final assessment.

This edition includes new chapters on managing your classroom projects and recommended books. Throughout the book you will find voices from the Genius Hour community sharing real-life stories and inspiration. Appendices contain handy FAQs and ready-made lessons and resources. In addition, a companion website, www.geniushourguide.org, offers bonus materials and regular updates to support you as you implement Genius Hour in your own classroom.

Denise Krebs teaches English to grade 5 students in a bilingual Arabic-English school in Bahrain.

Gallit Zvi is a teacher in a grade 47 multi-age classroom in Surrey, BC, Canada.

Denise Krebs (@mrsdkrebs) and Gallit Zvi (@gallit_z) are co-moderators of the Twitter chat group #geniushour.

Also Available from Routledge Eye On Education and MiddleWeb

www.routledge.com/collections/11190

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Close Reading the Media: Literacy Lessons and Activities for Every Month of the School Year

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STEM by Design: Strategies and Activities for Grades 48

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The Flexible ELA Classroom: Practical Tools for Differentiated Instruction in Grades 48

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History Class Revisited: Tools and Projects to Engage Middle School Students in Social Studies

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Two Teachers in the Room: Strategies for Co-Teaching Success

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First published 2020

by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi

The right of Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Krebs, Denise, author. | Zvi, Gallit, author.

Title: The genius hour guidebook : fostering passion, wonder, and inquiry in the classroom / Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi.

Description: Second edition. | New York : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019048486 (print) | LCCN 2019048487 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367225797 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367225780 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429275722 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Inquiry-based learning.

Classification: LCC LB1027.23 .K735 2020 (print) | LCC LB1027.23 (ebook) | DDC 370.154dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048486

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048487

ISBN: 978-0-367-22579-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-22578-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-27572-2 (ebk)

This book is dedicated to all of the amazing students we have had the pleasure of teaching. Your sense of wonder and willingness to try new things inspires us.

For additional resources on implementing Genius Hour, visit the books companion website at www.geniushourguide.org.

Brainstorming with Genius Hour group

Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi met on Twitter in 2011 and have been an integral part of each others professional learning network (PLN) since. Theyve had the joy of meeting face-to-face a few times, but most of their collaboration has taken place across many miles.

Denise Krebs is a connected educator, leader and learner. In fact, she is the chief learner in her classroom, whether shes teaching kindergarten or college. Denise has over 20 years experience in private and public schools and recreation centers in California, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona and Bahrain. Denises teaching evolved as she began to embrace connected learning for herself and her students. She was teaching junior high when she dove into Genius Hour. Her smart and intrepid junior high students helped her find her way in Genius Hour. Of course, she couldnt have done it without the help of her online PLN and #geniushour community. Today Denise is teaching English to fifth grade geniuses in a bilingual Arabic-English school in Bahrain. Denise tweets at @mrsdkrebs and blogs at Dare to Care (http://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org).

Gallit Zvi is a passionate, connected educator in Surrey, BC with experience teaching fourth through 7th grade in the public school system. In the past, Gallit has also worked as a Faculty Associate in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University where she taught and supervised teacher candidates as they went through the professional development program. Gallit has many years of experience mentoring both teacher candidates as well as experienced teachers and has coached many educators as they implement Genius Hour. Gallit is passionate about helping her students find their passions. She enjoys learning alongside her students and embraces a philosophy of student-centered, inquiry-based and passion-based learning. Gallit tweets at @gallit_z and blogs at Integrating Technology & Genius Hour: My Journey as a Teacher and Learner (www.gallitzvi.com).

We hope this book inspires you to take a new risk in your teaching practice and give Genius Hour a try. Or for those of you who have already taken the plunge and are doing Genius Hour with your students, we hope that you find something new to help you and your amazing students along the way.

Thank you for taking this journey with us.

There is nothing more rewarding than being trusted with the responsibility of teaching others. I take this privilege very seriously. For the past three decades, I have been driven by a simple idea that inspires my every word and actionevery human being wants and needs to matter. No one is motivated by mediocrity. We do not wake up in the morning eager to do something of little consequence today.