This newsletter is full of great information on Gizmos®, Reflex, and the latest happenings at ExploreLearning:

Awards for Reflex and Gizmos

End-of-Year Review with Gizmos

Summer of Gizmos

Successful Math Interventions

Updated Math Gizmos

Reflex Teacher Guide Updated

Awards for Reflex and Gizmos

Reflex was named Best K-12 Instructional Solution in the 2012 CODiE awards. This is one of the highest of the prestigious awards given by the Software & Information Industry Association. This award honors the best overall education technology solution for curriculum and content for students in K-12 learning environments.

We are delighted to have this validation of what educators are telling us and what the data is showing us: Reflex is making a big difference for children.

Gizmos had been awarded the very same best-of-the-best CODiE accolade in 2009. Now Gizmos have been named a finalist for another prestigious honor: the Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Awards.

This is the 8th year in a row Gizmos have been AEP finalists. This year, Math Gizmos are a finalist for a Distinguished Achievement Award: Supplemental Resources in Mathematics. Winners will be announced June 5th at the AEP Awards Banquet in Washington, D.C.

End-of-Year Review with Gizmos

As the year starts to wind down and end-of-year tests approach, don't forget how useful Gizmos can be for review and skill practice!

Gizmos can be used for specific skills from interpreting graphs to balancing chemical equations. Other Gizmos are helpful for reviewing larger concepts such as Mendelian inheritance or the Pythagorean theorem.

Here are some of the many Gizmos that may be helpful for test prep:

Unit Conversions
Graphing Skills
Oder of Operations
Solving Two-Step Equations
Stoichiometry

Summer of Gizmos

When you return to school in the fall, it's always nice to come back and start fresh with a clean slate. So, you may want to think ahead about your Gizmo lists. You can delete classes and Gizmos you won't need and add more for your fall classes.

Before next fall, you will also need to delete current students from your classes and add your new students. However, if you do it now, you will not be able to access your students' information (any student currently on your class roster(s) will still be able to access Gizmos over the summer). Consider leaving this year's students in your classes until fall and even adding some special "summer review" Gizmos. That way, you and your students can fight the summer slide.

Before the end of the school year, hand out sheets with students' login information as a reminder that they can log in over the summer. You can remind them of Gizmos they found particularly fun and let them know that that new ones are awaiting them in your class tab.

For more details on getting set for next fall, check out this helpful "Year to Year Gizmo Account Considerations" video on Youtube.

Successful Math Interventions

“Response to Intervention,” or RTI, is a multi-tiered educational approach that seeks to identify and provide early assistance to struggling students experiencing learning difficulties.

ExploreLearning Reflex meets the key requirements of RTI and can serve students at all levels. Reflex’s core design provides just what RTI students need — adaptive and individualized instruction, motivation for students to learn and retain knowledge, and detailed reports for educators to continually monitor and support that progress.

At the Tier 1 level, Reflex can be implemented school-wide for all students to develop and maintain automaticity with math facts.

As a Tier 2 intervention, Reflex can be targeted towards those students who have not yet developed the fluency reached by their peers. The program offers explicit instruction and coaching, a practice environment to maximize understanding, and customized games aimed at helping students retain knowledge.

At the Tier 3 level, Reflex can be used as an intensive intervention for students who have fallen behind by two or more grade levels. Reflex provides intuitive reports for educators to monitor and support student progress.

Beyond its multi-tiered instructional model, Reflex also meets other key requirements for RTI (pdf file). Reflex universally screens students via initial and ongoing assessments, and it continuously monitors progress and adapts accordingly. A multitude of individual and group reports enable data-based decisions on student progress and mastery. Associated training helps teachers monitor progress and coach effectively.

The US Department of Education, through the Institute of Educational Services (IES), has established recommendations for implementing RTI. Learn more about how many of these recommendations are directly supported by Reflex's core design elements (pdf file).

Reflex is an essential part of an RTI program focused on helping students build basic math fact fluency and success in higher-level mathematics. As students use Reflex, they raise game scores, grow Progress Trees, and adorn avatars, while they grow more confident and ultimately successful in mathematics.

Updated Math Gizmos

Three more Math Gizmos now have updated Lesson Materials.

Using Algebraic Expressions, Finding Factors with Area Models, and Isosceles and Equilateral Triangles now feature a Student Exploration sheet, Exploration Sheet Answer Key, Teacher Guide, and Vocabulary sheet.

This brings us up to 32 math Gizmos with new Lesson Materials now, as part of our Math Update project! Lots of outlines and drafts are in progress, so stay tuned for more updated Lesson Materials to come.

Reflex Teacher Guide Updated

The Reflex Teacher Guide has been updated to reflect all the improvements to Reflex that have been added in its first year.

The revised Teacher Guide discusses new features such as the Progress Tree and Spanish Language option. It also goes into greater detail on topics such as logging in, enrolling students via CSV file, changing student assignments, and more.

We hope the new guide will make it even easier to get started with Reflex, but if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact our wonderful Customer Support team!

The guide is a PDF file, which you can download with this link, or get from the Reflex Support page.

Stay in Touch

If you want to comment on any of the information in this newsletter, be sociable and post your insights on the Facebook pages for Gizmos and Reflex.

And as always, if you have a question or comment about Gizmos or Reflex, don't hesitate to contact our Customer Support team using the support form for either Gizmos or Reflex. We would love to hear from you.