Genius Hour
This past week we've been learning a bit more about what exactly genius hour is and the intentions behind it. Essentially, genius hour allows students time to work on projects in any subject area that is of interest to them. This helps them customize their education towards an area they are passionate about and gets them engaged in what they are learning as it is likely they will find connections between their genius hour topics and other subjects already being taught.
For my personal genius hour project I have decided to do it on what else, but food. Specifically my Grandma's pierogies. Her pierogies are an iconic symbol of my families Ukrainian heritage, something I have never fully explored myself. My genius hour is a way to ask myself, which variety of pierogie tastes the best when comparing my grandma's and the Ukrainian church next door, as well as which method of cooking is the best.
A subset of this question also involves me examining the history of certain countries such as the Ukraine and Poland to determine why there are so many regional variations of how pierogies are made.
I was motivated to do this as my topic because I know very little about my family history as of right now. This project will allow me to gain some insight into the kid of culture my grandparents came from and how it affected them and myself, and not just in the way of food traditions.
After two weeks of tech class I have gained insight into a number of different activities to use to teach my students about technology and one of the ones I would consider using would be the Carnegie Cyber Academy.
This site contains "missions" which students can complete to earn badges for themselves, and will teach them about the basics of cyber safety. This ties in very nicely to earlier discussions on gamification as it provides a motivational way to get students engaged with learning about this topic, which become increasingly important as our world continues to advance technologically. I would adapt it by attempting to provide some form of tangible reward for the class in addition to the badges earned online. This could be anything from pencils etc. to some free time at the end of the day and I would create a chart to post in the classroom where students could place stickers or something similar to physically see their progress. When planning these activities it would be important to keep in mind the timing of these activities so that the students are able to set realistic goals for their level of completion. It is also important that as a teacher I remain diligent in ensuring that the students are not getting sidetracked onto any potentially dangerous websites. This can be done by checking that there are no easily accessible routes towards these sites from any of the pages they will be visiting.
For my personal genius hour project I have decided to do it on what else, but food. Specifically my Grandma's pierogies. Her pierogies are an iconic symbol of my families Ukrainian heritage, something I have never fully explored myself. My genius hour is a way to ask myself, which variety of pierogie tastes the best when comparing my grandma's and the Ukrainian church next door, as well as which method of cooking is the best.
A subset of this question also involves me examining the history of certain countries such as the Ukraine and Poland to determine why there are so many regional variations of how pierogies are made.
I was motivated to do this as my topic because I know very little about my family history as of right now. This project will allow me to gain some insight into the kid of culture my grandparents came from and how it affected them and myself, and not just in the way of food traditions.
After two weeks of tech class I have gained insight into a number of different activities to use to teach my students about technology and one of the ones I would consider using would be the Carnegie Cyber Academy.
This site contains "missions" which students can complete to earn badges for themselves, and will teach them about the basics of cyber safety. This ties in very nicely to earlier discussions on gamification as it provides a motivational way to get students engaged with learning about this topic, which become increasingly important as our world continues to advance technologically. I would adapt it by attempting to provide some form of tangible reward for the class in addition to the badges earned online. This could be anything from pencils etc. to some free time at the end of the day and I would create a chart to post in the classroom where students could place stickers or something similar to physically see their progress. When planning these activities it would be important to keep in mind the timing of these activities so that the students are able to set realistic goals for their level of completion. It is also important that as a teacher I remain diligent in ensuring that the students are not getting sidetracked onto any potentially dangerous websites. This can be done by checking that there are no easily accessible routes towards these sites from any of the pages they will be visiting.
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| Norton UK Blog. (10 Nov, 2015). Graduate from the Carnegie Cyber Academy [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://uk.norton.com/norton-blog/2015/11/6_fun_ways_to_teach.html |
Perogies!!! My grama, while Slovanian, is a master perogie maker (in addition to a few other particularly tasty dishes - like cabbage rolls!). I've seen some pretty diverse perogies as well, everything from fish to blueberries.
ReplyDeleteI share your passion Zack! :)
Dave