Sixth-grade students at CHSD170's Roosevelt School recently embarked upon a "20 Time Project" modeled upon concepts commissioned by the 3M Corporation in the 1950s with its 15% Project, and Google's ongoing 20% Project.
The activities emanated from beliefs by both company's that the use of 15% or 20% of an employee's time in the workplace would allow innovative ideas and projects to either flourish or fail outside of the structured corporate environment and the bureaucracy of committees and budgets.
As part of the company projects, both 3M and Google provided employees with time during the workday (totaling 15% or 20% of the work week) to spend occupied on a project that was a passion of theirs, but that didn't necessarily fit into their job descriptions. Great things resulted from those activities including Post-It notes, masking tape, G-Mail, and the Google Teacher Academy.
"As teachers, we know that there are things that our students are required to learn, but many of those things fail to capture their interest," said teacher Denise Lira.
"Because of that fact we decided that while they were completing state assessments in the morning, we would provide students with time each afternoon to pursue activities that were of interest to them."
"The results of the students' efforts were wondrous to behold with a great number of different things that the students learned by themselves and from each other," Lira concluded.
Chosen topics included things like making candles, learning to create digital drawings, juggling, making facial masks and slime and bracelets to market, creating video games, recording music, creating stop motion films, painting, and learning to bake.
The activity required that students learn something new as a result of their endeavors and would then share what they had learned with their class.
The members of the sixth-grade teaching and support staff lauded the students' presentations and were most impressed by the depth of knowledge gained and how well they shared the new learning experiences with others.