It’s a story many high school and higher education educators are all too familiar with.
A student figures out the formula for excelling in grade school. They may naturally pick up new concepts quickly and rarely have to put in effort to succeed. Then they get to university and struggle to keep up with the pace and don’t already have their own self-governed study practices to learn challenging concepts.
That’s the personal story that motivated today’s podcast guest, Ryan McGinnis, an account executive at WeVideo who came from an education career of 16 years. After spending time as both a technologist and a school principal, Ryan’s experience shows just how much partnership with school leadership can lead to better outcomes, where students can gain the experience of using and applying technology to complex problems.
Listen to the full episode now:
Focusing on what students learned misses the point
“Life kind of punched me in the face. I realized school hadn’t prepared me the way I thought it had.”
That’s what Ryan McGinnis recalled feeling when he went off to college, planning to study medicine. The system had prepared him to complete assignments and pass tests, but not necessarily to understand how he learned best or how to take ownership of that learning.
As he shifted gears and studied to become a teacher, he used this experience to inform how he approached teaching, adopting a personalized learning approach that encouraged students to own their own learning. His goal was to make sure future generations of students didn’t experience the kind of shock he did by investing in something radical: teaching students how to learn rather than what to learn.
Enter: Genius Hour
As Ryan’s career progressed, he looked for ways to scale this concept across an entire school. When he became a principal, he implemented a strategy he called “Genius Hour,” a structured opportunity for students to pursue their own interests, investigate problems, and create projects that mattered to them.
“When I came into education, my goal was to make sure students were prepared, they were ready, they were empowered and that they knew how to be the best student that they were and knew how to showcase their strengths…” - Ryan McGinnis
By dedicating time for student-driven projects, his school allowed learners to investigate real problems, build solutions, and present their work to the community. But the real beauty of it was the soft skills students learned – critical skills like communication, collaboration, and research – that can’t be measured by a standardized test.
Using purposeful play to create experiential learning
As Ryan noted, “Teachers teach for the joy of seeing students learn.” And part of that is in purposeful play. By creating structured classes (and even professional development sessions) that allow students to learn a concept, then apply it with some sort of experimentation, teachers can help make things click for students. “I'm a great thinker when I have time to sit back and not be talked to the entire time,” Ryan put it.
The perfect education juggling act
Meaningful learning happens when educators balance what’s expected of them (i.e. required curriculum) with incorporating opportunities for curiosity, creativity, and student-driven exploration.
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