ExploreLearning Gizmos
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Academics' Choice Award™ Winner

ExploreLearning Gizmos

Ages: 8 - 18
Price: Varies
Type: Website, Software, App
By ExploreLearning



Description

Get hands-on with math and science!

Gizmos are online simulations that excite curiosity and invite interaction. We've got more than 400 Gizmos in our library covering topics and concepts in math and science for U.S. grades 3-12. Gizmos help students dig deeper into subjects and really understand challenging concepts.

Gizmos give everyone something to visualize, manipulate, and compare. That's hundreds of opportunities where students don't just act like scientists and mathematicians. They are.

Gizmos help students to make connections and draw conclusions with an interactive design that supports manipulation of variables and "what-if" experimentation. Every Gizmo comes with extensive teaching resources that help make planning and teaching easy. Whole group, small group, or 1:1 lessons, Gizmos has you covered.

Play, explore, and experience the "ah-ha" moment with Gizmos.
• Discover concepts. Interactive design allows for extensive manipulation of variables and "what-if" experimentation.
• Analyze data. Visualizations and graphing tools help capture and compare results from experiments.
• Go deeper. In-depth activities create more moments to explore, discover and apply new concepts.

Our new interactive STEM Cases take Gizmos a step farther. STEM Cases put students in the role of STEM professionals tasked with solving real-world problems. Via interactive case studies, students form and test ideas to find solutions — just like real scientists.

Gizmos offer both math and science simulations that, between the two, cover the entire STEM education spectrum. They also provide students with hands-on experience using computers to experiment and learn.

"Gizmos are an effective and engaging way to move students to inquiry science and math. We show examples in the book of the nine categories of effective instructional strategies that are enhanced by this excellent resource."

"We include Gizmos as examples because they embody what research points to as characteristics of effective simulations. Gizmos are content focused, encourage inquiry instruction and actively engage students in learning."

Review Highlights:

Gizmos by Explore Learning provides interactive simulations for math and science. Students in grades 3-12 are able to manipulate variables and see how the changes affect the end results. Visualization and graphing tools also help students analyze data during experiments. Gizmos is a very interactive product that allows students to really visualize what is taking place in a math problem or a science experiment. It is also pretty easy for a student to learn to use. The website is easy to navigate and organized very well. There are opportunities to search for new gizmos by academic standard, grade and topic, or textbook. Each gizmo offers a student exploration sheet, exploration sheet answer key, vocabulary sheet, teacher guide, and assessment questions to accompany it. Gizmos is a great tool for anyone teaching a new topic to a student or trying to reinforce a topic that a student is struggling with. I also believe this product would be a great supplement for a school teacher that is teaching a class virtually. I think this is a great product to help students visualize how to work out a math problem or what takes place in a science experiment. It is also great for teaching new information or reinforcing skills for struggling students.

It's easy to find Gizmos based on grade, subject, or to integrate them with a specific textbook. The vocabulary sheets are useful. The cartoonish characters are fun for children. The learning objectives are clear for each class. Lesson plans and additional resources are included, as well as student worksheets and vocabulary. You can submit your own lessons plans to share with other teachers. And it's easy to see students' assessment scores, right down to which question they had correct/incorrect.

The graphics and text were engaging; students would immediately be interested in the assignments and engaged with the problems to be solved. Teachers have a wealth of resources already produced to make teaching the lesson easy to prepare. Students can learn vocabulary, problem-solving, testing, and application in one easy package. Teachers also have an answer key available that thoughtfully and carefully explains each problem. For teachers, this program would be wonderful for lesson planning and teaching. Everything is laid out for the students. Teachers can easily pick and choose which topics students need to focus on, and they have all the materials they should need to teach the lesson immediately at their disposal. Assessments are also provided to make sure students have understood the lesson. Students will quickly feel engaged in the topic and enjoy the interactive Gizmos project.

The simulations are interactive, so it's a great way for students to explore demonstrations to understand different science topics. Teachers (or homeschool parents) can browse topics by grade or academic standards. Educators can assign the topics to the kids to explore and better understand the science and math concepts through the simulations without manipulatives or mess.

Gizmos is an unbelievable tool for any science or math teacher. My two boys could not get enough of it. We are at home learning so I decided to let them explore. They were so engaged. It was all about logic, problem-solving, and trial and error -> scientific thinking! They loved all of the simulation and interactions that are available on the website. This tool is packed with content that is aligned to standards as well as your textbook. I have never seen a tech learning tool that makes it so easy to cross over from your textbook to the virtual simulation, and then back to the textbook. Fantastic product for any math or science teacher!

Gizmos is perfect for learning math and science virtually--especially if you understand the importance of using manipulatives and inquiry in your classroom. The website made it simple to start. I watched the Quick Start Video, clicked on Tour This Page and was ready to start lesson planning. Much like Google Classroom you can do all planning, lesson plan delivering, and assessment in one place. What I thought made it stand out from other learning platforms was the fact that Gizmos had an option to plan by by each CCS strand. I clicked on 7th grade science, each strand came up next to an interactive Gizmo for the child to learn from. Amazing!

I respect the fact Gizmos has strong empirical evidence about the benefits of their product and online manipulatives and simulations in general. The white paper validated the product and the end result was a 34% increase in learning when using Gizmos. I'm sold! As a veteran K-8 teacher and administrator, I highly recommend this platform for learning science or math.

I loved the fact that it's an experiential learning platform. The interactive simulations add a tremendous depth of understanding for variety of learning styles. The lessons come to life in the form of gizmos that allow students to adjust certain elements and see what happens. For example, in the lunar and solar eclipse gizmo (lesson) the student could change the distance of the moon from the earth and watch what happens as the moon rotates around the earth from different vantages. In a gravity lesson the gizmo allowed students to change the velocity of a giant pitcher's throw (standing on the earth) and see escape and orbital velocity in action, and how no matter where you stand on the earth the ball is subject to the same gravitational pull.

'Online simulations that power inquiry and understanding' - and they certainly do! The ability to manipulate settings in the gizmos (lessons) allows for greater understanding and meaningful connection to the material being learned.

The program teaches and brings to life a bonanza of math subjects including Number & Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, Data Analysis & Probability. The Science gizmos address Earth and space science, Life science, Physical science, Measurement skills, Nature of science, and more. Students practiced life-long thinking skills such as visual perceptual/spatial reasoning, deductive and inductive thinking skills, computation, observation, and inference.

ExploreLearning Gizmos is a simulated scientific laboratory where students learn through reflection on doing (experiential learning) and gain tremendous conceptual understanding of real-world problems. The Gizmos are a real time-saver for teachers. They bring to life often difficult concepts for students in a way that makes them easy to understand. The fact that students can manipulate the gizmos to see what happens makes the learning exploratory and retention is definitely increased.

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