Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom

Using 20% Time, Genius Hour, and PBL to Drive Student Success

A.J. Juliani

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317802693
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Careers in the 21st century are changing, but traditional education methods are not preparing students for these new jobs and demands. In this thought-provoking book, esteemed educator A.J. Juliani describes how we need to modify our classrooms to instill in students the drive for inquiry and innovation that they will need to succeed beyond school doors. Juliani reveals the ways that teachers can use Google's 20% Time, Genius Hour, and Project-Based Learning to make students more creative, inquisitive, engaged in learning, and self-motivated—the kind of people we need to move society forward! He offers easy ways to implement these ideas while meeting the Common Core and still allowing plenty of time for content instruction.

Special Features:

• Research on the benefits of inquiry-based learning
• Connections to the Common Core State Standards
• Stories and examples from the field
• Exciting ideas for using 20% Time, Genius Hour, and PBL at various grade levels
• Tips for preparing parents and administration for your new instruction
• Ideas for expanding your knowledge and continually learning in this area
• Classroom applications for each chapter, including sample projects and resources
• Bonus content with reproducible materials that you can use in your classroom right now, such as student checklists, questions, lessons, and unit plans

As Juliani emphasizes, if we want our students to change the world, we must change our classrooms to foster inquiry and innovation.

Chapter1
Real Classrooms for a Real World

Google may be the most famous company to have 20% Time, but many other organizations and businesses have used this “inquiry concept” to their advantage. This chapter takes a look at how working in the real world is very similar to this type of project in school. Full of examples and quotes from leaders in business, it shows how a typical student’s path in education does not always prepare them to work in the real world. The use of 20% learning time can change that as it provides a structure for students to develop grit and perseverance.

The Recession-Proof Graduate

Charlie Hoehn was the type of student we all hope our kids will become. He had a 3.8 GPA, high SAT and ACT scores, was on the honor roll, and held positions in a number of clubs. This is what Charlie had been told would lead him to success. His parents, teachers, and society as a whole had led him to believe that hard work in school would pay off. But then it didn’t.

Three months after college Charlie had been either ignored or rejected by every company he applied to. He joined a generation of students who were struggling to find jobs in the recession. There was no blueprint on how to compete with 35-year-olds who had been laid off and desperately needed a job to support their family and lifestyle. One night he found himself lying on the bathroom floor. Anxiety was building. Depression was close to setting in. It was then he decided to make a change.

Eight months later Charlie had done a complete 180.

In less than a year he had worked with four New York Times’ best-selling authors, a Hollywood producer, and various entrepreneurs. Billion dollar companies were approaching him with job offers that he was turning down. Charlie no longer needed to send out his resume, the positions were coming to him, and he was so busy he had to turn away work.

What changed in those eight months?

Charlie stopped following the rules he had learned in school out in the real world. School teaches our students: “Your grades show others how motivated you are. Make sure to have your GPA on your resume, and send it out to as many companies as possible.”

Instead, Charlie stopped applying to low-level jobs on CareerBuilder, Monster, and Craiglist. He built an online portfolio and started reaching out to people he wanted to work with and learn from. By doing “free work” for these authors and entrepreneurs, Charlie was able to leverage paying jobs for the future, and built up a strong number of testimonials from influential people.

School teaches us that we have to pay our dues: “Don’t skip steps or you won’t be prepared for the next level or grade.”

Charlie paid his dues, tried to get an entry-level job, and there were no takers. Charlie was tempted to go to grad school, but another $100,000 in student loans kept him away. Instead he self-educated in the areas in which he wanted to work. By reading books, blogs, and watching videos online, Charlie was able to be “in the know” on current trends in the market. He found out who were the top people, and ones most likely to need some extra help. Then he taught himself the “in demand skills” that were needed for each of these jobs (video editing, web design, and online marketing).

School teaches us: “Keep your failures quiet. Don’t broadcast your ups and downs to the world.”

Charlie built a blog to go with an online portfolio. Charlie wrote about his failures to find a job, and what he was going to do to change his luck. His blog helped establish trust with future employers, and enabled him to be “Googleable.” When someone googled his name, they found a wealth of resources tailored to jobs he wanted, as well as a story to support his mission and goals.

The story of Charlie Hoehn does not stop there. He went on to write “The Recession-Proof Graduate,” which has been downloaded over 150,000 times. He’s given two TEDx talks. He helped Tim Ferriss, Ramit Sethi, Tucker Max, and others reach the New York Times’ bestseller list. He was the Head Developer on the “Negotiate It” iPhone App, and has worked with a dozen best-selling authors to market their books.

Charlie did all of this before age 30. He did all of this by turning his back on what his schooling taught him, and focusing on what would lead him to success in the real world.

Does School Prepare Us for the Real World?

As a parent I’m hoping that my daughter becomes a great learner. Good grades, lots of activities, and strong SAT/ACT scores. I want her to get into the best possible college. This is what most parents hope for their children. The recipe is simple:

Do well in school = Get into a good college

However, that recipe leads to one of our biggest misconceptions:

Get good grades at your college = Get a good job in the real world

What we end up having is parents pushing students to get good grades (not a bad thing), and get into a good college (again not a bad thing), but their child eventually struggles to find a good job… much less their dream job.

On the flip side, we also have students that do not have that pressure from home, and rarely see the connection between “what I do in school” prepares me for “what I do in life.”

As an 11th grade English teacher, I used to have “reality check” days for my students. The class started off with the students coming and sitting down ready for the lesson. I had a giant question up on the board: “Who do you want to be?”

Students answered this question in a variety of ways. Some chose a person that they admired, some chose a general answer like “famous,” but most looked at me and said: “Mr. J, what do you mean?”

If I had asked them, “what do you want to be?” many would have responded with “rich” or “famous” or “a professional athlete,” etc. Instead, the question of “who” threw them off. I explained that each of them had the ability to choose their own path to who they will become. Their choices right now mattered.

Then I asked a second question: “What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now? 20 years from now?”

This was a bit more tangible. Students chose everything from “running my own company” to “sitting on a yacht” and even “teaching a high school class” (I was very proud). After much discussion with each other, I turned to the class and said: “So, how are you going to get there?”

Sadly, the most common answer to this question was: “get good grades.” Most of my students couldn’t think about what was really needed to reach their ten-year dream. And, it wasn’t their fault. Our schooling system likes to push kids’ thinking to the next logical step. We learn our “A, B, C’s” in kindergarten so we can start spelling in first grade. We learn our multiplication tables and division in 2nd grade so we can start fractions in 3rd grade. We learn how to write a 5-paragraph essay in 8th grade so we can write research papers in high school. When do we ever stop our students and allow them to think about the “big picture”? And more importantly, if my 11th grade students in a top-performing school can’t conceptualize how they will reach their goals, what about the rest of our students?

The Future of Work

The popular equation I mentioned above does have a missing piece:

Good Grades = Good School = Good Job =?

The final piece is supposed to be “Good Life.” But the notion that we can be rewarded for simply “doing what we are supposed to do” is limited and quickly becoming false. In fact, the whole notion of work is being changed exponentially.

Hod Lipson is a professor at Cornell University. He said at a recent “Future of Work” symposium:

Machines are better at learning than humans in many different areas. So now the question is, what will they learn and what’s the end game?

If you’re talking 100 years, there’s no doubt in my mind that all jobs will be gone, including creative ones. And 100 years is not far in the future— some of our children will be alive in 100 years.

In a way, we cannot help ourselves. We try to automate every difficult task that we see. It is rooted in the fact that the mantra of engineering has always been to try to alleviate drudgery and increase productivity—that was the good thing to do. That’s what we still train our students to do.¹

The reality our students and children are facing in the next generation is a stark difference from what previous generations have faced. There are many forces at work: globalization, the spread of technology, and the rise of a global middle class. However, maybe the most important factor to consider is the “types” of jobs that will be available.

Many of us know the US Department of Labor prediction that kids in high school will have had 10–14 different jobs by the time they’re in their late thirties, and that 65 percent of our grade-school kids will end up in jobs that haven’t yet been invented. Other studies show that by 2020, over half of the workforce will be consultants, freelancers, and independent contractors, cobbling out their own careers.²

Let’s think about that number for a second… 65 percent. More than half our students will be in jobs that are yet to be created. New positions for new companies in new markets. My question is:

What are we doing in school to get students ready for this future of work?

Preparing a Generation for a Different Type of Success

In this new work landscape employees will have to be innovative, resourceful, and resilient. They will also have different measures of being successful. We make it simple in school. Successful students receive an “A.” Failing students receive an “F.” And those students who are “average” receive a “B,” “C,” or “D.” Every student falls somewhere along the continuum and conversations about “performance” are dictated on these grades. Although research has shown time and time again that this type of extrinsic motivation does not actually improve a student’s performance over time, we still cling to an old way of measuring success.

What does work is intrinsic motivation. When students (or anyone for that matter) are able to learn what they want, they are rewarded through the act of gaining knowledge and demonstrating that knowledge. When a student learns a new instrument or sport, they practice because they want to be successful, not because they will get an “A” if they do well. This is the type of success that will also be found in the future workplace.

Bruce Tulgan, author of the book Not Everyone Gets a Trophy, recently explained the new reality of the workplace in a Time Magazine article:

Paying your dues, moving up slowly and getting the corner office—that’s going away. In 10 years, it will be gone. Instead, success will be defined not by rank or seniority but by getting what matters to you personally.

Companies alresady want more short-term independent contractors an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Meet the Author
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Real Classrooms for a Real World
• 2 How 20% Time Changed the World
• 3 History Repeats Itself … In a Good Way
• 4 Designing 20% Time for the Classroom
• 5 Genius Hour for Elementary Students
• 6 20% Time For Secondary Students
• 7 20% Time for Teachers
• 8 Preparing Your Institution, School, and Class
• 9 Personalized Learning and the Common Core
• 10 Taking the Leap into Inquiry
• 11 Support for Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom