Reflection

This project was difficult for me to wrap my head around. I am passionate about many things, but coming up with a project that centered around something my interest rather than being student centered proved to be harder that I had imagined. Although we were given our Genius Hour assignment early, I did not come up with my project until around the first of February. I am one of those students that needs a rubric or some guidelines to follow as I'm working. Once Kasey gave us a rubric, I felt more directed and more knowledgeable about this project.

While at TCEA, I was inspired by classroom stools. After seeing them and thinking about how changing the chairs to stools would completely transform the look of my classroom, I decided to research how changing the classroom environment would promote student learning, enhance creativity, and improve behavior. I found a ton of articles that showed many ways teachers can change their classrooms so that their instruction is more student driven. Many of these experts discussed that changing the seating alone helped with student focus and success in learning! After reading and looking at many pictures of several classrooms across many grade levels, I decided to make over my own room! My first step was deciding on new seating for my students. One of my kinder kiddos told me that he liked the balls that the second graders sit on in Ms. V's room. She wrote a grant earlier in the year for stability balls. I decided to do some research myself on stability balls and other types of seating for the classroom. There are several options ranging from the exercise balls to stools. Prices also range from about $11 per piece to over $100. Taking into consideration what was age appropriate for my students and the cost of the items, I decided to go with some smaller stability balls! I just finished writing a grant through Donor's Choose for those as well as frisbees to hold the balls on top of the tables (for stacking purposes). My grant has not yet went live, but should be in a few days. Once it is live, I will post a link to it here on my blog!

As far as implementing genius hour with my students, I feel that it is definitely something that can be done. I tried to do genius hour with my class earlier this year and don't feel like it was student centered like it needs to be. I have an overwhelming feeling to always be in control and although I have been better about that this year, I still feel like I need to let my students explore more freely. It is possible to do and I think it would be a very successful activity especially with kindergartners! I need to do some more research and come up with a game plan to hopefully implement it more effectively next year!