All teachers at some point in their career have experienced a group of students who simply hate to learn the material that you have selected for the year. Those are the students that are incredibly hard to reach because they are only interested in learning if it relates to their passions. As we all know, it can be difficult to connect math, language arts, social studies, and science to all students' interests.
This project was created to reach all students and get them to do solid, meaningful work. This project originates from companies like Google and 3M. These companies give their employees 15-20% of their work week to start projects of any kind as long as it is somehow connected to the company. An employee at 3M created Sticky Notes based on this program. YES TEACHERS. STICKY NOTES.
I first saw this idea of 20 Time on Pinterest, so I decided that I wanted to create my own version of this project to best fit my classroom. During my first year of Passion Projects, I was calling it 20 Time; however, I changed the name this year to truly show the students what this project was all about - their passions. We connect this project to our class by requiring all students to have all of the 6 language arts in their PROCESS of creating their project. (Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, Viewing, Visually Representing). No one is allowed to use their presentation as a speaking requirement - it must be in the process, not the product.
I have created a unit on TPT to help you recreate this project in your classroom. These are resources that I have created to fit best in my classroom. This product is ELA specific, but can easily be altered to fit the needs of your classroom - in any grade level!
The project works like this:
Every Wednesday (or whatever day you choose) is designated Passion Project day. This means that no matter what you are doing that week, you stop and work on Passion Projects. It is important to follow that schedule to show students that their passions matter and are not more important than school work. Now, this clearly takes planning and a little flexibility. I understand as a teacher who has students taking state tests that it can be hard to fit in all of that material before the test, but if we really take a step back, we realize that we can incorporate those skills into our students' passions.
On these Wednesdays, it may seem like chaos. Students are working on all types projects. I've had kids painting, playing videos games, watching a movie, reading books, researching, and doing yoga all at the same time. What is important for classroom management on these days is that it is quiet. No matter what students are working on, they shouldn't be talking. They can't work on their own passions efficiently if they are talking to their friends.
Every single Wednesday, my students turn in an exit ticket which evaluates their progress and feelings toward their project. This allows me to see what they are struggling with or if they need anything to be successful.
The most important element of these projects are the presentations. This is a time where students can share their work with their peers. It allows them to show off a little bit - they may be the only person in the room who can complete a Rubik's cube in under a minute (an actual project I've had - the kid went from never touching a Rubik's cube to finishing it in 57 seconds). The presentations can be time-consuming because some kids have a 30-minute video they have created and some have a short story to share for 5 minutes. I suggest allowing your students to take up as much time as they want for these (as long as they are engaging and on topic). Don't squash their passions.
All of the pictures in this post are of projects by students (minus the podium). These projects ranged from carpentry to poetry. The bookshelf came with a Prezi explaining all of the techniques that he used during the project. His project included Visually Representing, Viewing, and Writing. The student who created the WWII D-Day model used Visually Representing, Writing, and Viewing in his project. The picture of the screenshot from Google Slides is a digital children's book that a student illustrated and wrote. The blackout poem was from a Pride and Prejudice book full of blackout poetry. Finally, the poster about Animal Abuse was most definitely the most detailed poster I have ever seen with meaningful information and facts on Animal Abuse. She visited the shelters during her project and talked to experts about Animal Abuse.
If you decide to use Passion Projects in your classroom, please tag me on Instagram so I can see what your students have come up with! I hope you all have enjoyed this blog post. Any questions, just leave them below in the comments.
-- Amanda