The Schoenblog

My students started presenting their #GeniusHour Projects in class today. I’ve asked them to talk to the class about their work, learning, and passion, and to share their final products. Many students created presentations, some created physical things, and a few wrote papers. The creations ranged from videos to models, and I’ll share them all here soon.

So far, I’ve been very impressed by my students’ knowledge and their ability to answer questions. While I often ask students to take notes on, respond to, and evaluate presentations, for Genius Hour, I just asked for their attention and interest. Everyone studied something they were passionate about, worked hard on, and created something cool; it’s sometimes nice to just share the accomplishments. Still, I was impressed with the conversation and questions that the presentations generated. These students learned a lot, developed genius, and knew their stuff.

As I move towards the end of this year’s passion projects, I’m left reflecting and reconsidering for next year. I like to use this space for note taking and analysis so that I can archive my successes and challenges to do it better in the future. In this post, I’ll ask and answer some of the big questions that I’m left with about Genius Hour, my planning, and my students work. Like always, my answers are a work in progress, but they they might address some of your ideas, questions or concerns, too. If not, please ask away on Twitter or in the comments below.

After two years of passion-based learning projects, what questions are still on my mind?

Find more of my recent writing on Genius Hour check out Sharing Students’ Genius: A #GeniusHour Reflection, Developing Genius: Reflecting on Choice, Passion, and #GeniusHour, and Teaching Students to Conduct Action Research. For my students’ blogs and work, visit geniushour.aschoenbart.com.

1. Do my students learn more with Genius Hour?

Yes. Probably. What I’ve concluded is that they certainly don’t learn less and they definitely learn differently. For me, the beauty of the learning with passion-based projects (Genius Hour/20 Time--take your pick!) is that students are in charge of their own learning experiences and that their interests and skill development can be explored through any content.

My students might not be learning about literature or literary analysis (or other English class topics) right now, but their knowledge is so much deeper and more complex about their research topics and interests in ways that I could never teach. Instead of some students succeeding in the content I direct, they’re succeeded more in the content they choose, with passion, purpose, and agency. The skills are stronger, too, since I’ve tied all of the steps in our Genius Hour process to standards and English, critical thinking, research, and writing.

While I can’t quite measure their learning--and I’m not sure I should want to or need to--I see it in their writing, contributions, and presentations. Genius Hour enables students to develop stronger understandings through subject-appropriate and 21st century skills, and I do think we learn more from it.

2. How should I grade and respond to Genius Hour work? Is process work feedback and grading different from the product?

This is a tough one. Should I evaluate a student’s genius or passion? Do we need to attach a grade to everything? I’m not sure I’ve worked this one out well enough just yet but I’ve tried to strike an effective balance. I’m not quite ready to throw out grades (that’s a whole different blog post) but I do want to shift the power dynamics and importance to learning and students.

To that end, this year I’ve established clear checkpoints for student work throughout the process, and graded it based on clear guidelines. Students had deadlines, models, and guidelines for blog posts, proposals, annotated bibliographies, and more. I graded them all and provided detailed feedback. My students provided feedback to each other, too.

The projects, though, are a little more complex. I wanted to value learning, critical thinking, hard work, and growth. What students proposed in February likely shifted since, and some changed dramatically. Therefore, measuring success based on the proposal seemed unfair. My solution? Once again this year, I had students evaluate themselves. With a specific and thorough rubric, they evaluated and graded their own work based on their work ethic, process work, and final products. Then, they reflected on the process in writing. This is what I graded. I evaluated their reflections for honesty, development, and critical thinking.

My students, parents, school, and our system value the grade. But I think this balance values the learning, too, by putting the onus on the student to really reflect on his or her work and to explain their successes, challenges, and progress, and really makes the learning clear.

Find my students’ #GeniusHour blogs and projects at http://geniushour.aschoenbart.com.

3. Should our work be based more concretely in the curriculum and standards?

I think that good teaching already meets the standards, whether I’m thinking about it or not. Maybe the liberal arts have biased my view, but when students are learning research skills, evaluating sources, synthesizing information, writing, and creating, they are always going to be meeting so many standards. In the future, I think a post addressing the specific Common Core State Standards in Genius Hour would be great to support what I already know: Good teaching beats the standards anytime.

I’m by no means saying to ignore standards or curriculum (but we could get rid of testing)--and I certainly do not do so. I’m lucky that teaching high school English gives me the flexibility to focus on content through skills. However, I truly believe that passion-based learning can be tied to any subject area, for any age level, and can always be designed to meet or exceed standards. We are speaking, listening, writing, reading, and thinking critically every day, along with creating, collaborating and so much more.

In the end, adapt and evolve to do better tomorrow. Take these big ideas and marry them to your own class, standards, or school policy. Empower students to explore their passions in whatever context you can. But don’t put standards before students, and their passions and growth.

4. How can I better prepare for success for all learners?

I think I had good answers for many of these questions. This is the one that gives me trouble, though.

In my two years of planning for passion-based learning, I've had a small group of students who do not complete the work. Some of them just don’t complete any work. Others fall behind and never catch up. A few have trouble with the abstract nature of finding passions. Many need guidance in shaping their plans and projects, since they vary to meet individual needs.

But because Genius Hour was a six-week process for my students, and because that process, practice, and skill development was essential in developing learning and products, there came a point where we had to only look forwards. There came a point where the few students who did not catch up on their work, accept help, or show real effort towards growth were cut off. Instead, I offered a more test-based project that was much more concrete and aligned to the class final. This argumentative essay was great practice for the state test and our next unit.

In some ways, it’s what I needed to do for these students to help them find some success and to prepare them for the next steps. But it also was no longer about passion. Everything I raved about above? Passion, agency, creativity, and empowerment? Gone.

How can I avoid this next year? How can I better prepare all students to succeed? Are all students ready for passion-based learning? What type of scaffolding could help students prepare for it?



These are some great questions. But I don’t have the answers--yet. I need more time to think and reflect, to view my students’ work and respond to it. I’ll share that work, my thoughts, and ideas from some of their reflections in the future. In the meantime, I’d love your thoughts on my questions--both the answered and unanswered.

What are your questions about Genius Hour? What are your answers? Share your experiences, questions, and reactions in the comments or on Twitter.

Learning vocabulary is hard. Too often, it’s taught without real context and application, with a list of words and skill-and-drill learning. Unfortunately, this isn’t really learning for many students, at least not in the long term. When vocabulary is killed with skill-and-drill, it often is forgotten after (if not before) the dreaded test. At best, the forgotten words are meaningless, and at worst, they become a waste of valuable time.

And it pains me to admit my guilt. As an English teacher, I value language, vocabulary, and grammar, but have just never been able to find a good enough way to teach these essential skill and topics. Like my students, I’m a work in progress, and I’m getting better.

Last year, I taught an SAT/ACT Review course as a regular teaching period, so vocabulary was a major focus. A strong vocabulary is essential in succeeding on many sections of the test, from defining words in context to reading comprehension. My co-teacher, who designed the course, had a great system for all of the SAT skills and content. We then worked together to integrate technology to make our jobs easier, feedback more effective, and to bring in some valuable 21st century skills.

“A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words”

Take a look at the SAT Vocabulary List. Our students needed to learn these 600 or so words on one semester. That’s crazy! But as Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” And for the SATs, time spent on vocabulary matters.

Our solution? Visual Vocabulary.


In addition to studying the word lists, students choose words from each list to create a visual representation of. They had to define the word, use it in a sentence, and create a picture of video that illustrated the meaning. We encouraged students to post their work on social media with #OHS2400, our school initials and the highest score on the SATS.

Students also posted their work on our Google+ Community and submitted a link to their media on a Google Form. This helped us create a database of visual vocabulary. At the end of the year, we have 470 examples of visual vocabulary documented. Not all of them were great, but so many were. They required creation and critical thinking, and it made vocabulary fun.



Then students practiced their knowledge by creating questions for Kahoot quizzes to apply and reinforce the vocabulary and grammar rules. For any content, we also practiced skills, and students used Quizlet, Kahoot, and online portfolios to assess their growth and reflect.

My SAT Review class loves @GetKahoot #ohs2400 @Mrs_Helly pic.twitter.com/CA6kO39egp

— Adam Schoenbart (@MrSchoenbart) December 3, 2014

Developing Skills

Let’s face it: grammar and vocabulary are boring on their own. In isolation, few people enjoy the study. But with application, purpose, and creativity, I hope we added some more meaning to this work and test preparation. It’s not a perfect system, but it worked well to improve our students’ engagement with vocabulary.

Throughout the Visual Vocabulary assignments, students had to make choices in selecting their words, define them, use them, think critically about their meaning, and then create media. As they saw each other’s work, the class improved as a whole because it was fun and added some friendly competition with visual and media literacy. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

How do you teach vocabulary in your classroom? What strategies or lessons have you found effective for making vocabulary and test preparation more meaningful? Share in the comments or reach out on Twitter.

Welcome back to the third episode of The Schoencast. The goal of these screencasts is to provide strategies and guides to improving edtech workflows and productivity. With more effective workflows, organization, and more automation, we can spend more time on what matters: our students.

It’s been a while since the last episode; I quickly learned that screencasts take a lot of time. But I hope to do them more regularly moving forward. Please check out past episodes, 01: Form Mule and 02 Automating Tweets From a Class Twitter: An Updated Workflow.

Tips for Viewing Google Form Results in Sheets

I love Google Forms and Sheets. But sometimes it can be hard to manage the data and make meaningful use of the information. Whether you use forms for data, assessment, feedback, or to track student work, life is better when the spreadsheets are more easily viewed.

In this episode, I walk you through five tips for better use of form results:

1. Summary of Responses
2. Freezing Rows and Columns
3. Hiding Rows and Columns
4. Resizing Cells
5. Formatting Word Wrap

Below the episode, find two bonus tips to increase your impact and productivity. If you’re looking for more use cases for forms or sheets, here are few articles worth checking out, too: The 5 Best Google Forms & Sheets Add-ons for Teachers, The Pros & Cons of Google Forms in Classroom, and Managing Late & Revised Student Work in Classroom & Forms.

I’ve been pretty happy with my writing lately. I have a list of ideas for potential blogs on a Google Doc, and usually one rises to the top. Some weeks, it’s so clear what I want to say, and even when it’s not, my notes or teaching usually spark something worth writing about. Sometimes, though--like today, I’m just stuck. I hit the wall of writer’s block and just couldn’t figure out what I had that was worth sharing today. A half a dozen ideas, two different series of posts, and a question or two are all circling through my digital to-write pile, but nothing seemed just right, yet.

Like usual, I turned to my #PLN for support. Chris Nesi suggested I write about what I do when I have writer’s block. One thing led to another, and my notes for a rambling post about how to handle writer’s block brought back to one focus: purpose. Why do I write? Why should educators write? And what should we write about? And like most things in education, it all goes back to goals and purpose.

Calvin & Hobbes comic strip from 1995

3 Reasons Educators Should Blog

If you’re already blogging or sharing your classroom in a different way, you probably have more to add to my list. If not, think about what you might have to share. While there are many reasons I like to write about my teaching and work, my 3 best reasons are explored below. When I’m stuck without a topic or focus, rather than just writing for writing’s sake, here are the reasons I try to come back to.

1. For Reflection and Growth

Writing about my teaching, student’s learning, personal growth, and professional life makes me a better teacher and a better writer. It forces me to organize my ideas, reflect on my practice and experiences, and think in new ways. While I hope that my readers find value in my writing, more and more posts are about my own reflection. For me, it’s cathartic and powerful to see growth unfold on the page.

In past years, I would intend to take notes on a lesson, revise a unit, or keep better track of model student work. Sometimes this worked, but more often something else got in the way. Between grading, planning, student meetings, and other professional responsibilities, it was hard to make the time. It’s still hard to make the time, but having a platform to share these reflections--even if only for myself--makes it so much more real and meaningful. These are the notes and messages that I can come back to again and again to always grow and do better.

2. To Recommend and Inspire

No teacher has a perfect lesson every day. But we all have those great days, inspirational ideas, and transformative practices. Whether it’s the activity you revised, new implementation of technology, or a really successful class discussion, the best learning rarely happens by accident. We have to plan for success with intent and critical thought. So when the lesson works (and even when it doesn’t), share it so that others can learn from the experience.

When I start a new unit or approach an unfamiliar text, the first thing I do is search Google for inspiration. I look at web sites and blogs, ask questions on Twitter, and e-mail my colleagues. Instead of inventing brand new content and units, I want to make better use of my time and technology and #GoOpen by adapting from the great stuff that already exists. I hope that by sharing my challenges and successes, lessons, student work, and edtech recommendations, I can inspire others to do the same.

2. Share Your Awesome

I’ve used this phrase before and stand by it. Educators need to share their awesome. It’s not just about sharing with other teachers, but about telling the stories of our students, schools, and classrooms. Technology--whether it’s blogging, social media, or something else--allows us to make connections and open our classroom doors like never before, and to share what we do with the world. When we do something awesome (and we all do), it deserves to be shared with an authentic audience.

Too much of the story of education is told from skewed, displaced, and inexperienced perspectives. The more educators take control over the narrative of education, the more power the story has. Information today is transmitted around the world with a click and virtually anyone can create everything; the power of communication and branding has never been more powerful. I want to tell my story with transparency, honesty, and clarity to share our awesome.



As educators, we need to always remember our purpose and consider our impact. Whether it's in a conversation with a student, a lesson plan, or a piece of feedback, purpose matters. In blogging, too, I think it's important to step back once in a while and reflect about the why.

For more on the whys and hows of blogging in education, a quick Google search reveals hundreds of articles. They range from lists of blogs to follow to how to guides, and so much more. For more inspiration, I've incorporated Sylvia Duckworth's awesome sketchnotes on blogging. Take a look at her Sketchnote Flickr and website--they're great.

We often talk about how technology can improve our teaching and students’ learning, sharing anecdotes, lessons, and stories. And these stories are powerful. They capture a snapshot of our classrooms, relationships, and transformations in classrooms to share with the world.

Like many of you, I read other education blogs and articles, attend conferences, and present about my work and technology integration. I’ve even built a blog and part of my career around it. I work hard to help my students learn and master 21st century skills and to transform their education with collaboration, creativity, creation, and critical thinking.

But what do our students really think?

These conversations are valuable but they are usually more about the teacher than they are the students. They sometimes focus too much on how we teacher rather than how students learn, process, and grow.

So instead of discussing what I think, I wanted to flip it and ask the students what they think about 21st century #futureready learning. This data complements the stories and anecdotes I write about here and probably represents trends in all of our classrooms, helping us tell a more complete story about the power of purposeful and effective technology use in education.

.@MrSchoenbart rocking it w his Ss at #LHRICTLI #EJL pic.twitter.com/Yjc8ik1kx1

— Christopher J. Nesi (@mrnesi) April 8, 2016

Student Presenters at #LHRICTLI Tech Expo

Last week, I presented on this topic with three of my students at a local conference, the LHRIC Tech Expo in Westchester County, NY. My students volunteered to participate, and they had a lot to say. We decided to organize the presentation by skills. I introduced our work and goals while each student discussed successes, challenges, and models through the lens of communication, collaboration, and feedback. Then, I shared the data summarized below and we had a Q&A session with the audience.

In the next week or two, Zoe, Mike, and Melanie will blog about the experience and share their reflections on our presentation and the process. I’ll share the presentation and our resources, too.

But today, it’s about the data.

@MrSchoenbart and his students presenting at Tech Expo #LHRICTLI #ossiningpride pic.twitter.com/JxhtYzGhBu

— Katie Helly (@Mrs_Helly) April 8, 2016

Surveying 21st Century Learning Experiences

For the presentation, we decided that we wanted to present a larger and more well rounded data set on these issues. Three students can provide a lot of insight but don't necessary represent the masses. The easiest solution was to design a Google Form for my students. We only asked my classes to take the form because the learning experiences we were examining were particular to my class and my students.

Find the form here and an overview of the 51 responses below. It asks a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions, providing so much data on students’ opinions about technology, social media, student-centered learning, and more.

Defining 21st Century Learning

For consistency and clarity, we needed to first define 21st Century learning. We’ve discussed the transformative power of technology through our evaluation of modern schools with Genius Hour, so the concept was familiar to my students. We settled on the following simple definition:

Think of 21st Century Skills as anything that helps you create your own learning, collaborate, and communicate more effectively (with each other and with teachers). This often involves technology and things like Google Apps, Chromebooks, social media, Genius Hour, flipped lessons, and more.

What Students Think

First view the form, then explore the data. Below, find the students’ responses with some slight edits for grammar, clarity, and relevance.












How does technology and the types of learning described above help to improve your learning? What do you like about it?

Excerpted Student Responses:

• Google Apps just makes the work more accessible and convenient
• I like the English calendar because it shows me all the work I have to do for the week so it helps me plan my work accordingly to my schedule.
• It allows others to view it and give constructive feedback to others and to you which is interesting
• Technology helps me communicate with the outside world.
• The ability to share documents over google drive and have friends review them I find to be extremely valuable. This connection has taught me things that I would never have learned or thought about in class.
• I enjoy being able to connect with my friends and classmates 24/7. I also like all the different choices that technology offers, like creating a video or powerpoint instead of just writing something down.
• Gives me a better perspective on things.
• It gives me a way to organize my assignments on the cloud so I can access them at any time on any device.
• I like the work that can be posted online and that is homework instead of taking home packets or worksheets.
• You can virtually learn anywhere. If you miss a day you can get caught up because of the accessibility to the web
• Technology allows me to share out my ideas as well as get feedback from people all over the world.
• Having choices allows students to be more interested in what they're doing.
• It helps because I can access information faster and it helps me with normal everyday skills, especially when collaborating. Having choices forces me to think and be independent.

What are the challenges or problems with technology and the types of learning described above? What don't you like about it?

This question yielded interesting responses, with three common themes: concerns about access/equity, technology glitches, and online distractions. 80% of student responses discussed at least one of these three trends.

Excerpted Student Responses:

• It is very easy to forget about work and it is harder to get face to face feedback from teachers
• Some challenges are if you don't have access to internet at your home it could be difficult to complete assignments.
• Almost everything you do with technology you need wifi or use cellular data. You can't always get wifi or wifi for free. Also cellular data is starting to get more expensive.
• I find technology to be extremely distracting, and deadlines are super easy to miss. I will often go on my computer to do my English homework, only to find myself two hours later having scrolled through Facebook. All of a sudden I'm about to (or do) miss a deadline. 
• I worry about my privacy online, since I know that Google is collecting my personal data. I also think that having less technology in the classroom might encourage face-to-face debate and conversational skills.
• You can get lost in it, it's not like a face to face conversation
• Due to technology's flaws sometimes a simple glitch can result in a late submission of an assignment. Additionally, we are becoming so dependent on technology, but it isn't always available to us; in a way technology is hindering our skill of self- reliance.
• In the case of a flipped lesson I find it harder to understand and I can't ask questions because it was recorded. 
• Some teachers don't know how to use technology in a meaningful way.
• The challenge that I’m not understanding enough of technology

---

Please share your thoughts on Twitter or in the comments below. 

I look forward to sharing our presentation and the students’ reflections soon. After writing this, I realize that I want to spend some time discussing and analyze the results in the future, and would love your thoughts on that, too.

We are nearing the end of our Genius Hour journeys for this year. This week, I will ask students to complete a project check-in form reflecting on their growth and genius as the process turns towards the product.

In the process, students have researched, blogged, prepared elevator pitches, written proposals, and crafted an annotated bibliography. Now, they are in the last stages of structured research, class work, and analysis as they begin to use what they have learned to produce some sort of product to reflect that learning. And I’ll be sure to share those products in a few weeks. I’ll also blog about my students’ reflections and self-evaluations, and hope to have a few of them guest blog for me right here to share their experiences.

This year, I really pushed students to go beyond researching other people’s ideas to creating their own findings through action research. Most students either conducted surveys or interviewed experts, and the process of conducting this research was an interesting learning curve for us all. Below, I share some reflections on the action research process and some of my students surveys. It would be great if you could take a few minutes and respond to a few or share with your students and colleagues!

The Doctoral Influence

As a doctoral student, survey design and questioning is always on my mind. This certainly worked for my students because I was able to help them develop stronger and more objective questions. It also led me to probably hold them to higher standards. I asked all students to make an attempt at action research and required everyone to have their surveys, e-mails, or questions proofed and approved by me.

Some students ended up with projects that just didn’t need other people’s expertise. Others clearly favored one research tool over another. For some, their attempts at experts didn’t pan out and no one responded. I wanted to try to make research more real, living, and authentic for students--and for many, it really worked.

The Action Research

One student interviewed his mom and aunt to learn about a career in accounting. Another is in the process of filming interviews with students about their opinions on heavy metal music.

In one of my favorite examples, Lauren wanted to study classroom design and space. Her goal was to design a better classroom, considering aspects like light, furniture, space, color, etc. I told her that if her work is promising she can have my classroom and redesign it however her research conclusions and analysis show to be effective. Then, I demonstrated the power of social media to find experts to help Lauren. With a few Tweets, Lauren was well connected with teacher-experts on classroom design, and on her way. Find Lauren’s blog and work here.

Emma’s work took action research to another level. To study the hero’s journey and story structure, she created a Google Form and posed questions on popular Google+ Communities. Read her blog, take her poll, to learn more about the ingredients of a hero’s story. She is well on her way to having meaningful data from a range of authentic sources to analyze her audience's interest in heroes.

A screenshot from Emma's blog.

The Surveys

My students worked hard to ask meaningful questions to help them learn about their topics. In our meetings and e-mails designing and revising the forms, I focused on the following understandings:

• Ask questions that you need the answers to, and that previous research doesn’t answer as meaningfully
• Design questions that are as objective as possible
• Since our main data pool is students, surveys must be be short and easy to complete.
• Always consider question types with purpose; when and why should you ask a qualitative question vs. a quantitative one?

I also constantly framed design through my lens as a student: it’s difficult to get it right. The students’ work isn’t all perfect, but it’s thoughtful, purposeful, and interesting.

Please consider taking a closer look at some of the blogs and surveys below. For more on our Genius Hour work, visit geniushour.aschoenbart.com.

Developing Genius

The examples above are just some of the great ideas being explored by my students. They are also some of the ones that had surveys and action research ready to share. Through Genius Hour, I hope to not only push my students to develop important skills and passions, but to make research more authentic and meaningful.

I’m excited about their progress, about the variety of interesting topics, and about the results they are developing. I hope you will take some surveys, read some blogs, and help my students become geniuses.

How have you used action research in schools or with students? What advice do you have for teaching students to create, use, and analyze surveys or data? Please share in the comments or on Twitter.

On March 15, my English 10 students had a rare opportunity to share our classroom with the world when CNN reporter Clare Sebastian and her team filmed and interviewed my class. She reached out to discuss the role of Twitter and social media in education to tie into coverage on Twitter’s tenth anniversary. I wrote about the day, documenting my challenges and lesson redesign recently, in When the Lesson Fails. Now I want to share the segment and the lesson plan that worked.

Find the full CNN segment, titled “Teacher Encourages Twitter Chat in Class” below.

Teacher encourages Twitter chat in class - CNN Video

Twitter has made its way to the classroom and CNN's Clare Sebastian went back to school to see how one teacher is using it as an educational tool.