Genius Hour at Middlebury Elementary School

From Pomperaug Regional School District 15: 4th grade students at Middlebury Elementary School (MES) completed student led research projects in a unit designed to focus on reading complex informational text, critical thinking skills, and communication skills. As a celebration, the 4th grade classes invited family members to view their projects during “The Genius Hour.” The project exemplified the purposeful link of 21st century skills in action. Region 15’s 21st century skills are collaboration, critical thinking, communication, innovation/creativity, character, and global citizenship.

For the project, 4th grade students developed a question to research about a personal topic of interest. Research topics were varied and included: how trains have changed over the years, who is Malala Yousafzai, the truth about sharks, what is COJI (coding with emojis), why was Jackie Robinson so important, why do animals have different patterns, and dolphins and their prey.

Students were required to gather multiple resources to help them answer their research question. Students gathered non-fiction text resources and watched related videos and documentaries.

Using their resources they gathered information to help them answer their initial research question. The final step was to present the answer to their research question through a digital presentation using Google slides and/or a poster presentation format, and to include both written text and text features to support their research question.

During the project sharing students commented about how they enjoyed learning about a topic of personal interest and sharing their knowledge with their peers. “It was so wonderful seeing our students' passions come to life during these past six weeks. They really took charge of their learning and made these projects their own as we slowly guided them through choosing a topic, collecting research, and creating their final presentation!” said Miss Megan Rausch, 4th Grade Teacher at MES.

Embedded within the lesson was learning how to apply critical thinking skills and how to communicate the information to their peers and to adults. Students were instructed on how to read complex informational text and how to judge the validity of their sources of information. Students demonstrated rigor in their research and critical thinking skills, and relevance in their choice of topics of interest to them.

Image courtesy of Pomperaug Regional School District 15: Aiden DelBuono and his father, Simone DelBuono, review Aiden’s research project at Middlebury Elementary School (MES). The 4th grade students at MES completed student led research projects in a unit designed to focus on reading complex informational text, critical thinking skills, and communication skills. As a celebration, the 4th grade classes invited family members to view their projects during “The Genius Hour.” The project exemplified the purposeful link of 21st century skills in action. Region 15’s 21st century skills are collaboration, critical thinking, communication, innovation/creativity, character, and global citizenship.