Introduce give them an hour of work for however many days until

project is complete.
Finding their passion passion projects
Finding historical significance in our genius hour!
Given time to research what motivates them
From the time period (1776 1900) we have studied in class over
the last couple months, who is someone you would like to know
more about? Or, what movement or historical event spiked your
interest? Would you like to do more research to discover who was
involved with that historical movement?
Figure out what you want to do!
What do you like to do for fun?
What are you curious about?
How can you connect who you are to what you want to learn from
this time period?
For example, I love painting. I would like to research if there was a
historical painter from this time period that made a historical
difference. What is a historical difference? What does that mean
to me? If there is a painter I find from my research, what did they
do? What did they paint? What was their life like? How can I make
a difference like they did?
KWL chart about their topic they narrow down!
What I already Know?

What I want to
Know?

What I learned

Freedom in Genius Hour! Freedom to pick any person, do

research, and present in a variety of creative ways through a prezi
presentation. Prezi allows pictures, music, words to be present in
presentation in a fun and dynamic way.
Project pitch to classmates
Shark tank share with class! No single genius
4 Questions!
1. What are you learning?
2. Why are you learning it?
3. How are you going to go about learning and creating
prezi?
4. What will success look like?

Students can use google

hangouts to collaborate
on their screens within
the classroom, at home
or anywhere where they
have a computer with
microphone. This can
allow pairs of students
to support one another
in the brainstorming
process!

Students can click the

video call to find studnets
through their facebook
accounts (messenger) or
e-mails to start a
computer screen share.

By clicking video call the microphone and

camera are activated (as you can tell by my
silly face and my roommate in background).
After the invitation they must accept and
participate in the video share in order to
collaborate and support one another on their
computer screens.

Action
-

Plan: what we learn and what we make (research part)

Timelines
Organizing
This was found from
Barriers
a live binder link
Resources (people or online)
that gives ideas on
Analyzing Internet Resources
how to guide
students through a
genius hour project.

There is a scoring system to the right. If

the statement is a yes then the students
get a one, and if the statement is a no
then the student scores a 0. Students
are aiming at achieving 6 points for
their online source to meet all the above
requirements. This will aid the students
in their research and allow them to use
viable resources in their genius hour

Create their genius hour! Freedom to research, explore, and start

creating!

Share Prezi of their Genius Hour, and can be downloaded onto YouTube
to share with world.
Examples of prezi presentations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=7NIT0Xu9vTc&list=PL92546C8F504816AF

All of the prezi templates I found cost money, even to start the
free trial. However, there are education packages for teachers,
which is what I would use.

https://prezi.com/profile/welcome/?license_type=PUBLIC#0

However, I was capable of making a public account for the sake of this
demonstration!

I would have
students walk
through this
tutorial to
receive all the
information
they needed
to manage
the details of
the
components.
Then they
may ask
questions or
use their
google
hangout
experience to

This is simply a template,

but in a real presentation
students would be able to
create sounds, more
visuals, and customize their
presentation to their needs.
There is a lot of growth and
creativity involved through
this piece of technology.
Here is my completed
example of a prezi, and it
contains the requirements
of how the genius hour
would fit the curriculum of
an 8th grade Social Studies

On your
computer,
you would
click
present to
begin
presentation
and then
there are
arrows at the
bottom of
screen to
continue

In the presentation the screen

is zooming in and out from one
content piece to another.

After this last step, the

presentation zooms out to the
main diagram from the beginning.

Reflect The journal

Journaling what you are learning and how to create
(http://www.journalate.com)
Failures/ hardships
Success and growth
Keeping track of their learning

Below is a detailed write up of how I organized and constructed this genius

hour lesson.

Curriculum objectives: students use a prezi to create a

presentation about an historical figure we have covered in our
history curriculum. Below are standards from the OSPI site, and I
would target this towards the 8th grade curriculum.
This tool of using a prezi to present the students work aligns with
the curriculum because you are able to add pictures, graphs,
timelines, words, voice recording, sounds, music and other
additions to a presentation. It allows the students to organize their
work in an interactive and visually dynamic way.
As a teacher, prezi can be used to introduce a lesson! Its not just
for the students.
Prezi allows students to map out their research and organize it in a
way that makes sense to them. After 8th grade, they will be
required to assemble projects and presentations at the high school
level many times throughout their four years. By allowing them
the creativity in genius hour to research a historical figure and
present in in prezi, they are learning a new way to communicate
information. Power point presentations are easy and quickly
cabable of loosing the audiences interest. However, prezi allows
the character of the presenter to be shown in a personal and
interactive way. It allows learning to be more enjoyable and thus
more effective.

Standards: 4.2.1. - Understands and analyzes how individuals

and movements have shaped U.S. history (1776 1900).

Genius Hour Project!

Step 1- Students pick a significant person from this time
period 1850 1877. Below is a list of 20 people if some students
need support.
List of important/ influential people students have the
option to pick from:
o Harriet Beecher Stowe
o Susan B. Anthony
o Elizabeth Stanton
o Harriet Hanson Robinson
o Eli Whitney
o President Abraham Lincoln
o President Andrew Johnson
o President Ulysses S. Grant
o Fredrick Douglas
o Lucretia Mott
o Margaret Fuller
o Sophia Ripley
o Harriet Tubman
o David Wilmot
o Dred Scott
o John Brown
o Hiram Revels
o Booker T. Washington
o Joshua John Ward
o Stephen Duncan
Step 2 Students take 3 days to research their person

Step 3 The 4th and 5th day students prepare their prezi
presentation. This presentation must be accurate, cite resources
and be approximately 3-5 minutes long. It will include all the
important information about who this person was, what they did,
why they did it, and what important historical event they were
involved in.
Example, Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. He was born
December 8th, 1765. He attended Yale University.... and so
on. This is a biography presented in a dynamic way through
a prezi presentation.
Step 4 Presentations will be presented to the whole class;
and if applicable, they can be uploaded to a classroom blog or
website through a YouTube account. In this case, they can be
shared to people outside of the classroom if needed (globaly).
Step 5 Audience must be paying attention and taking notes
as these presentations could be introducing content needed for
summative assessments.
Step 6 Every person must type up a small summary (2-3)
sentences of who their person was and a significant thing they did.
Step 7 teacher will compile all summaries into a test, and
students will take the test after all presentation are completed. A
study guide can be made before, and the test will simply be
matching the historical character to their description.