AJ Juliani on Genius Hour, PBL, Design Thinking and Student Inquiry

Connect with Vrain Waves
Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb

Connect with AJ Juliani
Twitter: @ajjuliani | Website: http://ajjuliani.com/ | Books: AJ Juliani on Amazon

Links & Show Notes

• Skip to Minute 9 to get to the Interview with AJ Juliani
• What is Genius Hour? (01:33)
• Out of Our Heads and Into the Classroom (02:07)
• Structure (02:30)
• Getting Started with Genius Hour
• Genius Hour Blueprint
• Numbers app template
• Inspiration (03:45) | Kid President on Empowerment | Jack Andraka TED Talk | Caine’s Arcade | Genius Hour Examples
• Authentic Audience (05:17)
• Three N’s (06:46) - What did you learn that’s new, what do you need from me, what are you going to do next?
• #20time / #geniushour
• AJ Juliani Intro (9:07) - Director of Technology and Innovation at Centennial School District
• Genius Hour, what it is, how AJ started with it (10:40)
• Read Daniel Pink’s book Drive - Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
• The 20% Project blog post | #20Time
• Joy Kirr, Gallit Zvi, Hugh McDonald, Denise Krebs
• The Genius Hour Manifesto
• Examples of Genius Hour projects (15:28)
• How Genius Hour works (17:42) Planning → Topic Selection → Pitch → Research → Making → Presentations → Reflection
• Topic Selection: March Madness Bracket for ideas
• Shark Tank Pitch - 1 minute
• 1. What they’re going to learn / make
• 1. Why they’re going to learn / make it
• 1. How they’re going to learn / make it
• 1. What will success look like
• Mapping to Standards (21:12)
• Managing Time (22:53)
• Getting started with Inquiry-based learning (25:35)
• Get kids comfortable talking without the teacher asking a bunch of questions: Discussion games, sentence stems, fishbowls, symposiums, etc
• Genius Hour / Passion Projects for teachers (28:34)
• Teacher Innovation Pitch in Centennial SD
• Student Innovation Lab / Centennial X
• Design Thinking (31:50)
• Launch book | co-authored with John Spencer
• Chris Lehmann quote: “If you assign a project and get back 30 of the exact same thing, that’s not a project, that’s a recipe.
• HBR Article on Design Thinking
• Stanford d.school
• IDEO
• Failures to watch out for with Design Thinking & Genius Hour (36:08)
• 1. Managing expectations & building early
• Project Global Inform
• Prototype early
• 1. Trust & Relationships - be self-reflective
• Compliance - Engagement - Empowerment Continuum (42:34)
• Empower book
• Developing choice & decision skills (44:47)
• 14,000 hours with students - how much of that time do we give them practice making choices and decisions?
• Other podcasts / interviews with AJ
• Cult of Pedagogy | AJ’s podcast, Inside Innovation | TLTalk Radio
• Homework for teachers (47:46)
• What were the last 5 things you learned and why were you excited about learning them? Then, think about how you learn best, and then think about your classroom
• Ajjuliani.com - @ajjuliani on all social media
• Post interview takeaways with Becky & Ben (49:34)