Danielle Emmons EDT 520

Genius Hour For my professional inquiry project, I wanted to look deeper into genius hour. From years of teaching and what I've learned in this class, I know that student lead inquiry is in important aspect in the classroom. I wanted to include more student based learning into my classroom, but wasn't sure where to start. It seems daunting to give control over to the students- what will that look like and how can I form it into something productive? In comes genius hour. Through my readings and research on genius hour, I am gaining a better understanding of how to slowly incorporate student lead learning. I am excited to try out genius hour in my class and hope that it allows students to feel heard, respected and excited about school!                                                                 ...

I am a 4th grade teacher in Bar Harbor, ME. My learners are aged 9-11. All students in the school have a one on one device. Up until 4th grades, their device is an iPad. Once they enter 4th grade, they will use a chromebook. Most of my 4th graders are pretty efficient with their chromebooks and can navigate them without my help. Others are still learning and need more support accessing materials I have posted for them. Prior to last year, I was on the fence about technology in the classroom. With my students being younger and knowing that they play video games, watch tv and youtube outside of school, I thought it was beneficial for them to have school be mostly non screen time. Once we were teaching remotely, I realized that other 4th grade teachers in the district had been using google classroom and other now necessary tech tool all year long. Their students pretty seamlessly transferring into remote learning, while my 4th graders had to learn how to use gmail, google classroom, e...