Final Genius Hour Reflection

I have never done a genius hour before, and after going through the process of it in the past five weeks I have seen the benefits of it and how it can be used in the classroom. I will admit that I was skeptical about this project because it required us to use a lot of different resources and applications to show what we were doing and what we had learned. There were many different applications that I had not used before, so this definitely put me out of my comfort zone. We had moved through the project in steps each week as a class, which I found helpful because we could consult with our peers if we were having "technical trouble" or if we needed to bounce off ideas with each other regarding our topics.

I am glad we were required to use so many different applications and methods to communicate because it showed me how these can be used in a larger context in terms of teaching. I found that because we were communicating information in various ways, the information that I was looking at seemed to be embedded better than it would be if I was simply writing an essay about my findings. Genius Hour let us all chose our own topics, which I liked because I had the freedom to do something that I was interested and found that I was a lot more engaged. I believe I have grown in terms of using technology because I was trying new applications and social media tools as part of the learning process. Although it was intimidating at first to be using these new applications, my knowledge of more applications and tech tools has made me more open-minded about trying new tech tools and also seek out these tools.

I would definitely recommend doing a genius hour, whether it is for yourself or in a classroom setting because there can be a lot of flexibility of how you structure it in terms of what you want your students to get out of it. Focusing on the tech aspect of it, and the different ways that you can incorporate tech allows students the freedom and maybe challenge of finding non traditional ways of communicating their findings.

If there is anything that I have learned from the whole process, it is that it's important to step outside your comfort zone sometimes, and that people/students will be more engaged when they have the freedom to choose what they're learning. I plan on using a genius hour with one of the students I tutor with, and will focus on utilizing his comprehension and writing skills for a topic of his interest.

My Genius Hour Reflection 3

For the research aspect of my question I tried to use a variety of sources and types of media. I found that the videos and interviews that I found were the most beneficial because it gave a first hand look at the challenges coaches have with coaching in general, as well as the different approaches that they found worked best depending on age and sex. A lot of the information I found correlated with my own experiences coaching, and forced me to reflect and consider the types of approaches I took with coaching and how my coaching style altered slightly depending who I was coaching.

After completing my research for my genius hour I have begun working on my final presentation, which I have decided to use Emaze. Emaze is a great website, it is similar to Prezi presentations but in my opinion I find Emaze easier to use. Emaze has a wide variety of layouts and templates to use for various type of presentations, and they also have multiple types of presentations(slides, movies, games). I wanted to use Emaze to present my information because there is a lot of compare and contrast between coaching males and females and thought that this would be the best way to present the information. I have also been debating whether or not to incorporate an interactive game as part of the presentation to review information and engage the audience.

The last thing that I need to do for my genius hour project is my TED talk, this will be completed by the weeks end and that will conclude my genius hour project!

My Genus Hour Reflection 2

In this week's research I continued to look at the different ways female and male athletes differed in terms of psychology. In terms of psychological differences I found Women In Sport to have a good article examining the differences in brain make up and psychological responses. Their article gave tips for coaches to approach certain aspects a particular way in regards to emotional responses for female athletes. The article acts as a factsheet for coaches and is a great resource. The facts found in this article support previous information found in other sources I have looked at. Here are some ways female's actions and reactions differ from males:

• Their brain has a high level of sensitivity to stress and conflict 
• Women use different areas of the brain to solve problems, or experience and store strong emotions 
• Women have a bigger brain centres for language, hearing, emotion, and memory formation
• Men have larger processors in more primitive areas of the brain that register fear and trigger aggression 

Area of Differnce	Men	Women
Intellectual function	Analytical, focused, linear, logical perspective	‘Whole-brained’ perspective
Base reaction	Action	Feeling
Stress response	Fight or flight	Tend and befriend
Innate interest	Things	People
Survival strategy	Through self-interest, hierarchy, power and competition	Through relationships, empathy and connections
Mental preferences	Hard-wired to systemise	Hard-wired to empathise

I also expanded my search to include videos of interviews done by various coaches who have had experience coaching both male and females. One video I really enjoyed was an interview with Anson Dorrance, who is a soccer coach at the University of North Carolina. Dorrance is well known for his soccer program at the university, and working with soccer stars like Mia Hamm.He originally began as a coach for the men's soccer team at the university, but when they introduced a female team he became the head coach for both. In the interview he explains how he learned the various differences between coaching male and female's through a lot of error. His major message in the interview is that a coach needed a different platform for each sex. Dorrance found that he couldn't implement the same coaching practices, strategies, and game plans for both teams. He found that women lacked confidence, and therefore as a coach he had to alter the way he coached in order to foster their confidence. This meant that he would not show game footage to highlight mistakes, but instead show a high light reel. The opposite was true for the men's team, in that they were over confident, and as a coach he needed to highlight the areas or ways in which they could improve as players. I highly suggest anyone interested in coaching or sports watch the video, it is fairly short, but very interesting.

Moving forward, I believe I have collected sufficient information to do a TED talk and make my final presentation.

Here is a video of Anson Dorrance (University of North Carolina, Soccer Programs)