Genius Hour Reflection

July 22nd, 2019

The process was not a straight line! It was bumpy and took a while until it was going where I can keep my routines at a consistent pace.Sometimes the process can be frustrating because I thought I was not doing well or it was hard  to keep up it consistently. I had to remind myself to keep doing this because I live by myself so no one around me to say keep doing it! I am happy I did this project and I will continue on with it because it does not work to keep working on hearing better. I have to remind myself that my brain is like a year old listening to new sounds on my left ear and it needs time to practice being exposed to new sounds. I learned that I needed to pick a time and place to practice my listening and that was on my couch in the living in the evening. The process make me look for resources on how to better my hearing and I am so glad that I did. Other people did not know about tunity and ab sound success app so it was great to use them and to share them with others. I liked doing this because sharing my journey with my classmates held me accountable. If I did not have accountability, I am not sure the process would have worked as well. Knowing I had to blog about my project kept me accountable and motivated.
     As far as incorporating genius hour in my classroom, I would have to remind myself to give them time to brainstorm on their topic. Number 2: to keep them accountable on their journey. They can do a blog post on google classroom much like we did here and then they have to visit another classmates blog post. I can use padlet too as an option for this too. Third, I need to remember to give them encouragement so they do not feel like giving up. I would share with them my genius hour projects and examples of other genius hour projects to give them an idea of what I mean by genius hour. I would share with them how I felt like giving up but I didn't. I want them to feel accomplished about their work. Fourth, I need to remember to give them PLENTY OF TIME to work and finish their projects. I just need to figure out how to incorporate time into my curriculum for genius hour projects. Sometimes, I see classes twice a week so maybe the second time I see them they can work on their projects.
     Ohhh...I totally forgot to tell you what I know now that I didn't know before. My friend and I went to visit the Hamilton exhibition on Northerly Island. We had both seen the musical already. We were curious as to the accommodations they offer to the hearing impaired. We knew they offered something but was not sure how they worked. We got in line and the guy was passing out headphones to everyone that was attached to a small box with a neck loop. We both thought oh no we cannot hear through the headphones and we said to the guy we have cochlear implants. He said you just have to turn on your telecoil and you can hear it. WE WERE AMAZED! The audio came straight to our cochlear implants! It was the best listening exercise ever. I heard pretty well and the exhibition was amazing. I learned so much about Hamilton and Burr. I recommend it to everyone.

This is the link that shows people putting on the headphones. We forgot to take one of ourselves. Hamilton Exhibition

One of my favorite pix from Hamilton Exhibition :