Review of Pure Genius by Don Wettrick

Pure Genius from Don Wettrick is a great orientation text for anyone new to Innovation time in the middle to high school classroom.  I love the fact that he mentions important factors, but doesn’t write a step by step guide. Pure Genius talks about what innovation is and why if is a great learning context, but Wettrick leaves the heavy lifting to Daniel Pink, encouraging the reader to watch the

video referenced in the text. This type of learning and teaching requires customization.  Wettrick trusts his readers to find outside information, infact he provides a great guide to social media in the mid chapters of the book.  This is another awesome book for teachers written by a teacher and published by Dave Burgess Consulting.

Don writes from his own experience and shares his best practices.  Personally, I would lift up the knowledge that many small projects work better than one big project.  The text holds a great deal of context, Wettrick reveals his own missteps, like inadvertently alienating other teachers when he started teaching innovation class.

Don Wettrick’s Pure Genius (Dave Burgess Consulting 2014) is a great balance of inspiration and best practices for supporting a community of innovation at your school.Wettrick’s honest evaluation of his own learning models the process honestly, and makes this work accessible even for teachers who have not yet begun to dream about a choice based learning environment.