AJ Juliani on Genius Hour, PBL, Design Thinking and Student Inquiry

Connect with Vrain Waves
Twitter: @VrainWaves | Becky Twitter: @BeckyEPeters | Ben Twitter: @mrkalb
Connect with AJ Juliani
Twitter: @ajjuliani | Website: http://ajjuliani.com/ | Books: AJ Juliani on Amazon
Links & Show Notes

Skip to Minute 9 to get to the Interview with AJ Juliani
What is Genius Hour? (01:33)
Out of Our Heads and Into the Classroom (02:07)
Structure (02:30)
Getting Started with Genius Hour
Genius Hour Blueprint
Numbers app template
Inspiration (03:45) | Kid President on Empowerment | Jack Andraka TED Talk | Caine’s Arcade | Genius Hour Examples
Authentic Audience (05:17)
Three N’s (06:46) - What did you learn that’s new, what do you need from me, what are you going to do next?
#20time / #geniushour
AJ Juliani Intro (9:07) - Director of Technology and Innovation at Centennial School District
Genius Hour, what it is, how AJ started with it (10:40)
Read Daniel Pink’s book Drive - Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
The 20% Project blog post | #20Time
Joy Kirr, Gallit Zvi, Hugh McDonald, Denise Krebs
The Genius Hour Manifesto
Examples of Genius Hour projects (15:28)
How Genius Hour works (17:42) Planning → Topic Selection → Pitch → Research → Making → Presentations → Reflection
Topic Selection: March Madness Bracket for ideas
Shark Tank Pitch - 1 minute


What they’re going to learn / make




Why they’re going to learn / make it




How they’re going to learn / make it




What will success look like


Mapping to Standards (21:12)
Managing Time (22:53)
Getting started with Inquiry-based learning (25:35)
Get kids comfortable talking without the teacher asking a bunch of questions: Discussion games, sentence stems, fishbowls, symposiums, etc
Genius Hour / Passion Projects for teachers (28:34)
Teacher Innovation Pitch in Centennial SD
Student Innovation Lab / Centennial X
Design Thinking (31:50)
Launch book | co-authored with John Spencer
Chris Lehmann quote: “If you assign a project and get back 30 of the exact same thing, that’s not a project, that’s a recipe.
HBR Article on Design Thinking
Stanford d.school
IDEO
Failures to watch out for with Design Thinking & Genius Hour (36:08)


Managing expectations & building early


Project Global Inform
Prototype early


Trust & Relationships - be self-reflective


Compliance - Engagement - Empowerment Continuum (42:34)
Empower book
Developing choice & decision skills (44:47)
14,000 hours with students - how much of that time do we give them practice making choices and decisions?
Other podcasts / interviews with AJ
Cult of Pedagogy | AJ’s podcast, Inside Innovation | TLTalk Radio
Homework for teachers (47:46)
What were the last 5 things you learned and why were you excited about learning them? Then, think about how you learn best, and then think about your classroom
Ajjuliani.com - @ajjuliani on all social media
Post interview takeaways with Becky & Ben (49:34)