Have you heard of Genius Hour? Maybe you’ve heard about 20% time?

20% is a concept developed from Google where employees are allowed to spend 20% of their working week on passion projects. This is free time for them to allow for the workers’ creative and inquisitive nature to take over and explore new ideas and answer some big questions. The only catch is that at the end of a cycle they must present their findings to their peer group. Accountability is still key. Through 20% time Gmail was created at Google. Something that we all would have thought to be a strategic development from this company.

Branching off this is the educational spin of 20% time. Please welcome the concept Genius Hour. It is 60 minutes of the students week that is dedicated to exploring an open ended question that they are interested in. This question must be one that cannot be solved with a quick Google search and must have research and evidence to confirm their findings. There is no making up an answer here. 

Genius Hour has been trailed at Wyvern over a five-week cycle and we have discovered some really interesting things. We have discovered how trends in the world affect the purchasing of luxury cars. We’ve discovered what would happen if we cut down all the trees in the world. We’ve even been able to analyse comic books from their earliest creation to present day and rank them accordingly in categories. All these topics were created by the students.

Here are some images from the presentations in 6H and 6L.

It was extremely powerful to see how absorbed our students were and what they achieve and this got me thinking. How could I help my child at home (when she is old enough) to explore the world through a Genius Hour lense. I’m sharing this question with you because I’d love for our boys at Wyvern to spend their time at home not playing games online, rather exploring the world with their Genius Hour glasses on. eLearning food for thought indeed.

Mr Tony Cross
eLearning – Wyvern House and Lindfield Preparatory School