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

Back to School with ExploreLearning

Reflex Enhancements

Educator of the Month: Jonte Lee

Race to the Top funding brings Reflex to Miami-Dade middle schools

SETDA Case Study: Gizmos Improve Teaching and Learning

Back to School with ExploreLearning

We hope you had an enjoyable summer and that you’re off to a great start this school year! Whether you’re using Gizmos or Reflex — or both — this newsletter will help you get up and running with both ExploreLearning products.

As you settle into the new school year, you may find that you need to update your Gizmos account. We've provided some links for you in the sidebar that will help you get your new classes set up and your Gizmos lists organized.

Reflex Enhancements

We’re always improving and enhancing our programs, and this summer was no exception! A new Reflex game, Blok Bot, debuted! And now when all students log in, they visit “Crabby’s Fact Fair,” a fun-filled park run by Dwight the Bunny. In the Fact Fair, students will play a variety of carnival games while the system assesses both their typing speed and their fact fluency. Students can earn tokens and a “ticket” to go to the island where they will learn new facts and play games to work on their fluency, as they have always done in Reflex.

Teachers can also keep parents involved, allowing them to monitor and support their children’s journey to math fact fluency with our new “Parent Reporting Accounts.” Signing up is easy. Parents can go to reflexmath.com/parents and just follow the directions to set up an account. Parents will need the teacher’s username, the name of the class, and their child’s password. We have a handy letter available for teachers with all the information parents will need. The letter can be found in Reflex on the Classes tab. Just click “Print Login Handouts” at the bottom of the screen.

Reflex has also just added closed captioning (in English and Spanish). We know this will be a big help, both for students with hearing impairments and for kids working in noisy computer labs. When students are logged into Reflex, they can turn on closed captioning by clicking the "CC" button at the top of the screen.

Educator of the Month: Jonte Lee

Jonte Lee is a science teacher at a high school in Washington, DC. He graduated from Texas A&M University. Mr. Lee has been a student advocate for over ten years, including volunteering with the Big Sisters and Big Brothers.

Jonte Lee just finished his first year of teaching high school in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and is off to a running start. He is engaging his students in innovative ways by using Gizmos as the platform for virtual science fairs. Mr. Lee thinks it’s important for students to conduct independent experiments and investigations, but they often lack the resources and the controlled environments to do so. Having the students use Gizmos allows his students to have real-life data and experiments.

When planning for the science fair, Mr. Lee asked his students to choose from a list of Gizmos. Mr. Lee explained that, "this is key in helping students take ownership of their own learning. With the use of Gizmos, learning became student-driven. They were asking more questions, asking each other questions, and I became the facilitator of their learning experience." Students even began using scientific vocabulary with more frequency during class.

For the science fair, students had to display the purpose, material, hypothesis, data table, and conclusions based on the Gizmo they chose to use for their investigation. One student chose to investigate how the relative humidity and dew point changed over the course of a day. Using the Relative Humidity Gizmo elapsed time feature, the student measured the temperature on wet and dry bulb thermometers to determine relative humidity throughout the day. The Gizmo also allowed the student to measure the dew point by cooling a bucket of water until condensation forms on the surface.

Local community members were invited in to participate as judges for the science fair. Judges were given a few minutes with each group (or individual) for presentations and a short question and answer period. They were amazed with the Gizmo experiments. One judge commented, “I loved the concept and I was impressed with what the students did. I think using Gizmos is a fantastic way to help students understand the scientific process.”

Mr. Lee looks forward to the new school year and finding new opportunities for his students to explore science concepts more deeply with Gizmos.

Race to the Top funding brings Reflex to Miami-Dade middle schools

Race to the Top is a federally funded program designed to spur innovation and key reforms in teaching and learning in U.S. public schools. Miami-Dade County Public Schools was awarded Race to the Top funding, with a goal of improving the way they teach mathematics in middle school. With a focus on data-driven, personalized learning, they hope to help their students prepare more effectively for Algebra.

The grant makes it possible for students in all 49 middle schools in the district to use Reflex. The system helps students develop fluency with their basic math facts, which is critical in elementary mathematics and beyond. Research shows that fact retrieval speed also influences student performance on math concept problems, word problems, data interpretation problems, and mathematical reasoning items.

With Reflex, they will be building on the success Miami-Dade has had over the years with Gizmos. “As Miami schools have used Gizmos in math and science to supplement the K-12 curriculum, the understanding and test scores of math and science have increased overall in the district,” says Ms. Milagros Fornell, the Chief Academic Officer.

With the district’s new focus on mathematics and student engagement, and with tools like Reflex and Gizmos at their fingertips, Miami-Dade is off to a successful school year.

To find out more about Reflex, go to www.reflexmath.com.

SETDA Case Study: Gizmos Improve Teaching and Learning

SETDA, a non-profit group representing state and national education technology leaders, recently published a series of case studies to demonstrate how ARRA EETT grant funds have impacted teaching and learning.

Some of the case studies highlight how Gizmos have contributed to more successful teaching and learning. For example, a SETDA case study of over 3,000 Arkansas classrooms found that Gizmos, in combination with effective training and ongoing professional development, had a positive impact on student understanding and engagement, according to teacher reports.

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:

866-882-4141, Option 2 sales@explorelearning.com