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Start the Year with Measurement
Six New Gizmos As you plan your middle and high school science lessons for this year, our new science Gizmos should come in handy. Over the past year we have published six new Gizmos: Equilibrium and Concentration, Equilibrium and Pressure, Dichotomous Keys, Measuring Volume, Unit Conversions, and Digestive System. For math teachers out there, we've been hard at work updating the math curriculum materials as well. We are developing full suites of lesson materials that include Student Exploration sheets, Answer Keys, Teacher Guides, and Vocabulary sheets. All of these are available in both PDF and Word, so they are ready to use or customize. The full set of lesson materials will make math teaching a breeze this school year!
Start the Year with Measurement The beginning of the school year is a great time to review the basics: scientific practices, lab skills, and measurement. When it comes to these topics, we have you covered! Try some of the following Gizmos, which are great for those essential skills:
Laboratory Skills For example, with the new Measuring Volume Gizmo, students can practice using graduated cylinders, beakers, overflow cups, and rulers to measure both liquids and solids. The deep understanding students get of measurement and volume with this Gizmo is a great foundation for future lab scenarios and real life applications.
Henrico’s Success Story Henrico County, Virginia teachers love using Gizmos and have been using them for the past eight years. From the very beginning, Henrico found that Gizmos were a perfect fit for their technology initiative. Today students and teachers in Henrico schools are some of our most avid Gizmo users. In just March and April of 2012, there were 124,269 student logins! “Science teachers are always willing to try new things and experiment, and we are very open to using Gizmos,” explains Kim Fields, a former eLearning Coordinator who was involved with the original implementation. “The tides—how do you do a lab with that? A teacher can talk about the tides and the Moon with the kids, but until the kids actually see it and analyze the data—that’s when they begin to understand.” “Gizmos has really increased the learning of some of the more difficult concepts,” says Amy Moore, Biology teacher and Science Department Chair at Deep Run High School. “The students enjoy the manipulation, and get more out of the lab.” She has found Gizmos particularly successful in teaching photosynthesis and cellular respiration, concepts that are normally difficult for students to understand. Henrico’s focus on math and science has resulted in strong scores on Virginia’s Standards of Learning tests, or SOLs. Henrico students consistently beat state averages in science and math SOLs. For example, in the 2009-2010 school year, 88% of Henrico high school students passed the mathematics SOL and 97% passed the science SOL, well over the state averages of 80% and 88%, respectively. A big part of Henrico’s success story is teacher training. All new teachers experience a full-day Gizmo training session as well as several after-school follow-up sessions. Experienced teachers share their favorite Gizmos and teaching tips with colleagues, helping to ensure that Gizmos are a central component of the science and math curriculum. We look forward to continuing to work with Henrico County to support their ongoing success with Gizmos.
Reflex Enhancements We’re always improving and enhancing our programs, and this summer we made some changes to Reflex that we think you’ll like: New Usage Reports Reflex has made it even easier to track the progress of your class. You can view fluency growth reports for your class for the current school year to find out the total number of facts mastered in Reflex, average student gain, average usage days, and percentage of sessions that resulted in a green light. You can also see that data in several convenient formats such as a bar graph, pie chart or histogram.
Game Unlocking We like to keep kids motivated and focused on learning their math facts, so now as kids gain fluency they can “unlock” new games. When new students first log on to Reflex and go to the island, they will have access to two games with broad appeal. After four “Green Light” days on Reflex, kids will be able to unlock another game to play as a reward for all their hard work. Students will be able to unlock more games as they continue to progress and learn more facts. School Year Support Reflex has reset the calendar at the estimated beginning of your school year. From now on, administrators and teachers will only see what’s happening in the current school year in the group reports. But if you’d like to check how students did last year, their individual usage reports from previous years will still be available. You can find more about our new Reflex enhancements at reflexmath.com.
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. For information on bringing Gizmos and Reflex to schools in your area, contact your ExploreLearning Account Representative:
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