The 20% Project - Week 5

    This week, Daniel Dillon - a Senior Years teacher from Flin Flon, delivered what I would say was a very enthusiastic presentation to our class. He shared a lot of his teaching strategies that he currently employs in his classrooms. Two strategies he touched base on were using virtual reality (VR) to explore the world, and one that really peaked my interested 20time projects.

     20time projects is very similar to The Genius Hour where students, almost every week, get 20% of their class time per week (or 1 hour) to work on a passion project on their own choosing. The strategy is based off the management philosophy that Google subscribes (or at least used to) which yielded such profitable ventures such as Gmail, Google Maps, and Adsense.  The basis of the philosophy (both in management and education) gets it roots from three essential ingredients described in the book Drive by Danial Pink; autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I used to listen to this book on my way to school in my undergrad. The book investigates the foundations of motivation in people. By allowing students the opportunity to experience these ingredients, students build confidence in their own abilities to turn their ideas into realities. They get to see their ideas grow by tracking their progress through a weekly updated blog and express their passion through purpose. Purpose is one of the objectives outlined by this classroom management strategy. Students have to decide who their audience or clients will be and strive to connect to them. I think allowing students this type of autonomy towards their own learning in our school system is so inspiring. I mean isn't that our goal as educators? To foster independence in becoming a life-long learner? Well it seems this technique lets the students practice this the way they would like too!

     I'm sure the 20time Projects technique comes with it's own challenges. One challenge, at the senior years level, would be meeting the curricular outcomes. One of the ways Daniel Dillon is recently experimenting with is providing students with a hand-out that lists the outcomes that they need to meet for the course. The students, through-out the term, need to come up with how they will meet the outcomes. By doing this, and setting some limits on projects to keep projects connected to the course, the students are taking their learning into their own hands. From what I have read online, students are strongly motivated by this through intrinsic means instead of extrinsic rewards like grades; a idea that Pink says is much more powerful.

     I hope to get the opportunity in my future classroom to try the 20time Projects with own students. Daniel Dillon recommended trying with one class first and moving on from there which I will definitely trust to be the right approach. I gotta say, there are so many great ideas out there for motivating learning in students and I am quite excited to try this, among others.