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

Expert Corner: Laura Chervenak

Educator of the Month: Tanya Phillips

Texas Proclamation 2014 Gizmos Adoption

Warm Up to Gizmos' New Lesson Materials

Three and a Half Billion Facts Answered—and Counting!

Expert Corner: Laura Chervenak

Laura Chervenak has been with ExploreLearning since 2010 as the VP of Professional Development. She has taught high school science, and is the founder and former director of GOAL Digital Academy. Laura is National Board Certified in Science/Adolescence and Young Adulthood, with a B.A. in Zoology and an M.S. in Anthropology.

In the last two EL newsletters, we presented ideas for how to plan Whole Group Instruction. Here’s a video of a teacher using some of these techniques:

With the Mineral Identification Gizmo, students are engaged in learning as they test various mineral properties and analyze data using a key. The teacher models best practice by asking students to verbalize their thinking, justify answers, and explain their thought processes to other students in the class. These types of questioning techniques lead to a deeper understanding of the science content and practices.

In January, we’ll be back to talk about how to make your lessons student-centric.

Have a great winter break!

Educator of the Month: Tanya Phillips

Tanya Phillips is a Biology Teacher at a high school in Coral Gables, Florida. She teaches pre IB, honors, and inclusion classes. She has been with the district for eight years and held several roles including science department chair, instructional coach, and middle school science teacher.

Ms. Phillips has been using Gizmos for as long as she’s been teaching. It all started with an ExploreLearning professional development workshop she attended years ago. It was there that she met Miami-Dade’s Gizmo Project Manager Mario Junco. After hearing what Mario had to say about the program, she decided to start using Gizmos in her classroom right away. She explains, “Watching Mario model the sample lessons, I just knew that I could have done the same.” About two years later, she was recognized for being one of the top Gizmo users in the district!

According to Ms. Phillips, one of the more challenging science concepts for students to understand is periodic trends. “Even though they see the atomic number increase on the periodic table, they still struggle with the concept of the atomic number determining what type of atom we are talking about. The Element Builder Gizmo is a great way to provide a visual and hands-on approach to such an abstract concept. Kids get to see the atom of the particular element come together and then change to another atom when subatomic particles are added or removed. They usually understand the concept really well after using the Gizmo.”

Students learn with Gizmos in numerous ways in Ms. Phillips’ classroom. She usually uses them to engage students when introducing a new concept. During whole class instruction, she asks students to come to the interactive whiteboard to manipulate the Gizmo, while other students assist in providing responses. Ms. Phillips also likes how Gizmos so naturally support varying student learning needs. She explains, “I use Gizmos to differentiate instruction by having the students interact with different activities within the Student Exploration sheets based on their levels or needs. Sometimes I use the exploration as enrichment or remediation for the students that need it.” At the end of the lessons, Ms. Phillips uses the built-in assessment to gauge student understanding and participation in the activities.

Texas Proclamation 2014 Gizmos Adoption

Great news! ExploreLearning Gizmos has been adopted by Texas as part of Proclamation 2014. For more information on Texas publisher material adoptions visit the Texas Education Agency.

Warm Up to Gizmos' New Lesson Materials

Winter weather got you stuck indoors? Have some fun and explore some of our exciting new Gizmo Lesson Materials.

• Geometric Probability

• Inscribed Angles

• Finding Patterns

• Roots of a Quadratic

• Stem-and-Leaf Plots

• Box-and-Whisker Plots

You can find more about these and other Lesson Material updates on the
ExploreLearning Blog.

Three and a Half Billion Facts Answered—and Counting!

Reflex usage continues to grow, and we have now passed the 3.5 billion mark in number of math facts answered! We look forward to seeing even more kids reach 100% fluency in the New Year.

We love hearing from teachers about how they have successfully implemented Reflex in their classrooms. Send photos of your bulletin boards, photos of your students, or quotes to ELsuccess@explorelearning.com for a chance to be published on our blog. We would love to help you celebrate your students’ progress!

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