20 Time Update

Today marks the official half way point of our 20 Time project. The kids are working really, really well. On Friday this week I am going to put them in groups of four to discuss their progress with their peers. I will walk around and give them credit for this as well. Here is the evaluation form I made up: 20 Time Group Evaluation Form. The purpose of the half way check point meeting is to talk through your project, get some feed back, and to make sure that everyone is around the half way mark. Overall, I am very pleased with how things are going. I have a handful of students that I am worried about, but out of 103 students I really only have concerns with about five of them. Not bad!

I did take away the in class points. I found that I did not really need to use it as a consequence. Like I said the kids have been on task. I also have some kids that are working elsewhere (music room, art room, library), so I didn’t like giving ten points when I was not able to observe their work. They still have to fill out their exit slip for ten points at the end of each work period. This is worth ten points.  I have changed the exit slip a bit. Here is the updated document 20Time exit slip. The third page is my newest revision. Last week the kids did not fill out the form completely enough for my liking. I reworked it a bit and hopefully they will be more specific. At this point I can say that 20 Time is definitely something that I will do again next year. I love the intrinsic motivation that I’ve been seeing. Many kids will tell me that they worked all weekend on their project. I love this quote by Albert Einstein:

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

I would say this completely sums up what I have seen so far with 20 Time!

 

 

20 Time: First Work Day

Last week was our first 20 Time work day. One day a week, usually Monday, we will devote the entire class time to 20T. We will do this for eight weeks. Right now I don’t have too many rules. I wanted to leave things fairly open ended, because part of the objective is that they are self directed. I told the class that I reserve the right to make rules as necessary. However, I did give them a few guidelines.

1. They need to be 99.9% on task. They receive ten points for working in class. If I have to talk to them or ask them to get to work I take points off of that.
2. At the end of each 20T day they have to fill out an exit slip. This brings in a writing component, as well as informing me of what they are doing. They receive ten points for completing that. (You can find that here 20Time Exit Slip).
3. They are allowed to talk and move seats. Most of them didn’t do this. In the beginning a few of them talked, but after five minutes they all got down to work.

I am absolutely floored with how they are working. So far  they are on task and engaged with what the are doing. This shouldn’t really be a surprise. They were allowed to work on whatever they wanted. This is a project completely of their choosing. If this is not high interest, well….I don’t know what would be. They are talking to me about their blogs and websites, and I have to say that overall they seem really excited with what they are doing.

 

20 Time

Today is the day I will introduce 20 Time to my students. I have been researching and working on this as part of my professional development this year. I have to admit I am really nervous! I think 20T has the potential to be really, really awesome; but for some kids, it may be a complete flop. I have gotten a lot of inspiration from Laura Randazzo. She blogs about 20T in her classroom and also offers a lot of free resources. These things really helped me in the planning stages. I am going to use her Prezi (which you can find on her site) to introduce the concept to the kids. I tweaked it a little to suit my needs. I also created a FAQ handout for the kids. I think this concept is going to be a bit radical for them. Therefore, I wanted something for them to refer to (here is the handout 20T Project). The kids will have the next few days to figure out what they want to work on. Monday we will start the 60 second project pitch. They need to address the following in their pitch:

• What you want to create
• Why you chose this project
• What materials/resources you’ll need
• What obstacle you anticipate and our plan to navigate those obstacles
• Why this project is worthy of a significant investment of time

Again, I must give credit to Laura Randazzo. I am definitely using this part of her idea. I love the project pitch. They must verbalize what they have chosen and why. They also must present it to the class for their approval. I think that this will get them to take it more seriously. Moreover, I think it will lend more authenticity to the project having their peers approve it and not me. I am going to give my project pitch on Friday as an example. Indeed, I will experience 20T myself. I will try to write a children’s book. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but I have not had the discipline/motivation/will power to actually sit down and do it. I must admit that I am a tad nervous to put myself out there in front of all my students. However, I think that it is important for me to experience and model this for them.

I love the idea of 20T. It brings creativity and freedom to the classroom. Teachers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We have to cover the standards and content within our classroom. We also must assess what is covered. We must be held accountable and we must hold our students accountable. This is done through grades. However, with grades and points a lot of the intrinsic motivation to learn is taken out of the equation. I regularly watch this Ted talk by Sir Ken Robinson for inspiration. 20 Time has the potential to inspire creativity. We can let our students go and see what they come up with!