Genius hour in French as a final project for Course 5

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Digital story telling and blogging with my students were until recently my main ideas for my final project. But I wanted to use my final project to have my students really being creative. While I was wondering how I could have it worked out, I went to #Learning 2 Europe.

Since then I have two bright ideas that I equally like.

• Genius Hour in French


• Creating a game with Scratch and Makey Makey: the upper primary grade would create it to the early years to play. I’d like them to create a “Operation” like as they both know, learn or will learn vocabulary about the body.

As I’m still discovering Scratch, I decided to give up on the latter to focus on the Genius Hour.

Here is my UBD planner.

Why do you think this unit is a good possibility for my course 5 project ?

This project would definitely cover or approach all the Coetail courses: digital citizenship, copyright usage, remix…, visual literacy, effective communicators and creators and using technology as a catalyst for learning that I learned about, discovered and applied in my classroom on step at a time. I would also probably use my PLN to guide my students in their research and to share their findings and presentations.

What are some of your concerns about redesigning this unit?

With the genius hour/ 20% time project I don’t really redesign a unit. So at first, my concern was to fit the curriculum. However, to master a language, we need to practice it. By doing this project, they would still learn grammar rules, expand their vocabulary and work on sentences structures. I strongly believe that they would learn even better as they would have chosen their topic. My students would learn through French.

On another practical note, my biggest concern is the ( my Coetail) time constraint. I know that if I really used 20% of the French class time, my students wouldn’t have enough time to do the project. If I want the project to be really efficient, I need to give time to my students to choose their topic. The reflective part of the learning also takes time. And finally there is still a risk that the final product wouldn’t be ready on time.

What shifts in pedagogy will this new unit require from you?

I’ve always tried to have my students being in charge of their own learning. By giving them the choice to learn what they really want to learn is such a great opportunity to really take charge.

I’ve already tried different strategies. I have found some of them on Whatedsaid blog post a while ago.

 

This time, I believe that I would really have the role of coach, helping and guiding my students to find answers.

What skills and/or attitudes will this new unit require from your students?

Let’s start with the 4 C’s

• Critical thinker


• Creator


• Communicator


• Collaborator

But also, they would need to be

• responsible for their own learning and


• have a growth mindset.


• manage the freedom of choice.


• Learn how to look for information


• Learn how to reflect


• Tech skills: how to search on Internet and depend on how they want to present: digital story telling, slide presentation…

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