Learn More about What You’ll Find in The Genius Hour Guidebook

Promote your students’ creativity and get them excited about learning! In this practical new book, early adopters Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi show you how to implement Genius Hour – a special classroom time when students can develop their own passion-driven, inquiry-based projects and take more ownership of their work and their learning.

Brought to you by MiddleWeb and Routledge Eye On Education, the book takes you step by step through planning and facilitating Genius Hour. You’ll learn how to guide your students as they:

• Develop inquiry questions based on their interests;
• Conduct research to learn more about their topic of choice;
• Create presentations to teach their fellow students in creative ways; and
• Present their finished product to the world!

At the end of The Genius Hour Guidebook, you’ll find handy FAQs and ready-made lessons and resources. In addition, this companion website, geniushourguide.org, will offer bonus materials and regular updates to support you as you implement Genius Hour in your own classroom.

Preview the Book
at Routledge Eye on Education

What Some Early Readers Are Saying

► “In their innovative book, Denise and Gallit have created a must-read for any educator who has been wondering how to foster creativity and increase student engagement within the classroom. With its easy-to-follow ideas and inspirational stories, this book will give you all of the steps you need to implement Genius Hour right away, starting you on the path to creating schools that students cannot wait to come to.” – Pernille Ripp, Teacher and Author of Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Students

► “The concept of Genius Hour — a portion of time that students can use independently for their own projects and passions — has taken the world of education by storm. The Genius Hour Guidebook is full of practical suggestions for helping you and your students get the most out of this precious hour of autonomy. If you take the authors’ advice, you’ll be amazed at the change in your classroom.” – Daniel H. Pink, Author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

► “The Genius Hour Guidebook is a must-have manual for the 21st-century educator. Want to improve student engagement? Need more STEM in your classroom? Don’t have time to waste? This book makes Genius Hour something any school can implement successfully.” – Vicki Davis, @coolcatteacher, Blogger, Host of the Every Classroom Matters Show, and Author of Reinventing Writing (2014)

► “What Gallit and Denise do so well is simply share their story, not as researchers or experts but as teachers who saw a need and took advantage of an innovative idea to change how students learn. The best part, the part that wasn’t possible in the past, is you get to stay connected and learn from them beyond the reading of this book. If you’ve heard of Genius Hour or have been thinking about it, you’ve come to the right place. –Dean Shareski, Community Manager, Discovery Education Canada and Former Classroom Teacher and Technology Consultant

Meet the Authors

Denise Krebs (@mrsdkrebs) and Gallit Zvi (@gallit_z) are co-moderators of the Twitter chat group #geniushour. They met on Twitter in 2011 and have been an integral part of each other’s PLN since. They’ve had the joy of meeting face-to-face a few times (including in 2018 at a wedding), but most of their collaboration has taken place across many miles.

Denise (on left) is a connected educator, leader and learner. In fact, she is the chief learner in her classroom, whether she’s teaching kindergarten or col­lege. Denise has over 20 years’ experience in K-8 public and private schools and recreation centers in California, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona and Bahrain. Denise’s teaching evolved as she began to embrace connected learning for herself and her students. She was teaching junior high when she dove into Genius Hour. Her smart and intrepid middle level students helped her find her way in Genius Hour. Of course, she couldn’t have done it without the help of her online PLN and #geniushour community. Today, Denise is teach­ing English to elementary-aged geniuses in a bilingual Arabic–English school in Bahrain. Denise tweets at @mrsdkrebs and blogs at Dare to Care.

Gallit is a passionate, connected educator in Surrey, BC with expe­rience teaching fourth through seventh grade in the public school system. She is currently the vice principal, as well as a classroom teacher in a multi-age class (4th – 7th grade students) at the Surrey Academy of Innovative Learning (SAIL) program.  Gallit has also worked as a Faculty Associate in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University where she taught and supervised teacher candidates.  Gallit has many years of experience mentoring both teacher candidates as well as experienced teach­ers and has coached many educators as they implement Genius Hour. Gallit is passionate about helping her students find their passions. She enjoys learn­ing alongside her students and embraces a philosophy of student-centered, inquiry-based and passion-based learning. Gallit tweets at @gallit_z and blogs at Integrating Technology & Genius Hour: My Journey as a Teacher and Learner.