To foster intrinsic motivation, companies like Google and 3M have instituted “20% time”, where employees can use that amount of their work week exploring whatever project they’re interested in to benefit the company. Most of their best products have come out of this time (Gmail! Post-it notes!), and their employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity are famously high. Why not transfer this idea to the classroom?
Last year we did just that, piloting our own 20% Time in English III: we suspended all normal curricular activity each Tuesday so that students could explore whatever tickled their fancy. They still needed to benefit my classroom "company" as Google employees do, so they had to link in 1 reading and 1 writing standard at their grade level (mastery) and were encouraged to seek real audiences to share their projects with (purpose). The result: some road blocks and frustration, but plenty of innovation. Students raised money for charities of choice, created stellar original works of fiction/music/art, organized a study trip to Costa Rica, and planted seeds of ideas that grew into their Senior Experience projects for this year.The experiment continues this year as the class of 2013 embarks on their own projects, but with some changes, including this blog. This is the public space for the Baltic Juniors to show us their stuff-- to give us a glimpse into what drives them. Students will be posting progress every three weeks (at least), so check back often, and comment away.
