Good things take time, and the classroom is no exception. Creating something truly impactful for teachers and students takes testing, collaboration, and a deep understanding of how learning works, something the product development team behind Gizmos Investigations is closely familiar with.
The need for high-quality science solutions
Most state standards now emphasize learning experiences that allow students to actively integrate the practices of doing science with the core ideas of science as they solve real-world problems. This shift toward scientific sensemaking highlights the need for extensive and high-quality inquiry-based learning tools.
While nice in theory, these more advanced standards and learning expectations don’t change the fact that teachers have a finite amount of time in the day to plan and teach new content (in addition to the 298 other things on their to-do lists).
With a focus on sensemaking, the product designers at ExploreLearning wanted to create more engaging STEM education tools for all levels of teachers, allowing them to readily get the most out of Gizmos virtual labs and simulations while delivering high-quality instruction to all students.
What are Gizmos Investigations?
Coming fall 2025, new Gizmos Investigations will elevate existing Gizmos science simulations and support grades 6-8 with highly scaffolded, engaging, and pre-made lessons that engage students in science practices.
- Gizmos Simulations: A vast library of over 550 math and science virtual simulations designed for flexibility and open-ended exploration.
- Gizmos STEM Cases: Immerse students in real-world, in-depth case studies that allow them to solve problems from the lens of a STEM professional.
- Gizmos Investigations: Coming this fall, new Gizmos Investigations facilitate deeper scientific sensemaking practices by leveraging Gizmos within engaging, ready-made investigations driven by student inquiry.
The development journey: Insights from the Gizmos team
A few dedicated members of the Gizmos Science Solutions team led the planning, development, and design of Gizmos Investigations.
Product Designers Suzanne Kehret and Kurt Rosenkrantz worked for over one year to bring Gizmos Investigations from concept to reality. They became the subject-matter experts for all things Investigations-related, from lesson designing and student testing to collaborating with internal teams across ExploreLearning, including professional development, marketing, and sales. Dr. David Kanter, Vice President of Product, helped provide strategic vision and direction for these science investigations for students.
Suzanne Kehret, Product Designer and LX Researcher
Kurt Rosenkrantz, Product Designer
Dr. David Kanter, VP of Product
“Gizmos Investigations consist of short, modular HQIM (high-quality instructional material) lessons, each with a storyline and real-world problem to solve. They always include an interactive Gizmo simulation (or two) and have been designed with student-facing interactivity to support students designing their own experiments, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting their own data, and ultimately solving and communicating their solution to the real-world problem,” said Dr. David Kanter.
Kehret, a former science teacher and district curriculum coordinator in Texas, now uses her real-life insights to write and develop learning experiences, including Gizmos Investigations. “Investigations allow us to bridge the gap. It’s this beautiful blend of allowing the investigative piece of Gizmos [simulations] where the kids can do labs that aren't always available in a traditional hands-on lab setting, but you have that immersive, built-in scaffolding within the platform where everything's available on the same page.”
Learn about the Gizmos Investigations development process from Suzanne Kehret!
Thanks to his high school science teacher and ski coach, Rosenkrantz discovered his love for science at a young age. He’s now been with ExploreLearning for over 20 years, designing Gizmos simulations and related student materials, including Gizmos Investigations. “My role has been to come up with ideas for Gizmos Investigations, draft and publish lessons, develop art assets to illustrate the lessons, and edit lessons written by others on the project,” said Rosenkrantz.
“In addition, I've worked closely with the software development team to develop the platform where Gizmos Investigations are published. We are building a system that will allow authors to publish lessons with all kinds of new inputs, such as tables, graphs, fill-ins, drag and drops, and so forth. We also have extensive mechanisms for delivering feedback to students as they are proceeding through the lesson. All of these features have required extensive design and testing, so a big part of my job has been to help make sure all of these features are working seamlessly and intuitively.”
Why these grade levels & standards
For the initial launch of Gizmos Investigations, the team focused on critical middle school science standards, particularly on experiences that allowed students to engage directly with science and engineering practices.
“We begin with the end in mind, and we start with our standards. Because we design Investigations based on Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), we actually look at the performance expectations. We look to see what the students are expected to do for middle school-level understanding. From there, we have a team called Content Steering. We talk through what we're going to design the lesson around, as far as what topic we're going to ask the students to solve in a real-world design kind of way,” said Kehret.
How beta testing shaped Gizmos Investigations
When it comes to building effective and interactive STEM learning solutions, the Gizmos team knows the best insights come straight from the classroom. They wanted Gizmos Investigations to be a tool that teachers would actually use and students would genuinely enjoy.
A group of teachers who frequently used Gizmos simulations and STEM Cases participated in classroom beta testing to experience Investigations firsthand. 33 teachers and 2,648 students across 93 classes participated in the initial classroom testing, where they had an opportunity to complete lessons and share their real-life user experiences. The team gathered feedback using teacher and student surveys and student performance data.
The Gizmos team also conducted 1:1 testing to get a closer look at students’ experiences as they interacted with the product themselves.
“We have done several rounds of student testing and internal feedback, so one of my jobs has been to help run 1:1 student testing sessions and analyze student data to identify areas of our Investigations that can be improved,” said Rosenkrantz. “This is a whole new concept for us, so the more data we have, the better we can calibrate our lessons so they are challenging yet doable and rewarding for the vast majority of students.”
Learning from beta testers
“By far the most nerve-wracking but also satisfying part of this process has been watching students interact with the Investigations,” said Rosenkrantz. “We have learned so much from these interactions that will help us better design these lessons going forward, but mostly, it has been very satisfying to see how these tools we've imagined and developed are really working with live students. I can't wait to get these launched for the general public!”
Enhancing STEM learning through Investigations
How do Gizmos Investigations help deepen students’ understanding of concepts? “For teachers, Gizmos Investigations will provide three huge benefits,” said Rosenkrantz.
“First of all, they are written specifically with 3D alignment to science standards in mind. Investigations will target specific disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs), and cross-cutting concepts (CCCs). We are especially proud of how we are supporting SEPs. For example, many of our Investigations feature something we call the ‘Evidence Picker.’ This will allow students to choose evidence from earlier in the lesson (such as data tables, graphs, etc.) to support their conclusions at the end of the lesson.
The second advantage of Gizmos Investigations is the interface itself. Because everything is done online, we can take advantage of autoscoring, provide helpful hints and feedback to struggling students, and ensure that students are using the Gizmos in helpful ways. Teachers will be provided with a heat map similar to STEM Cases that will show student progress in real time and help teachers quickly identify students who might need help. The interface will also provide a smooth interface for teachers to quickly score student work.
The third advantage is the immersive storytelling found in Gizmos Investigations. Students are introduced to characters and their real-world problems, then use Gizmos and other sources of data to help the characters arrive at a solution or a better understanding. In our testing, we have seen how this form of lesson writing engages students and gives them motivation to learn and problem-solve.”
Offering support for all teachers
Whether you’re a veteran teacher or diving into a subject or grade level for the first time, Gizmos Investigations support all teachers and students. “Investigations are easy for somebody who wants to build and customize things, or for somebody who just needs to be able to plug and play,” said Kehret.
“Any school or district administrator looking for an extremely easy-to-use, turnkey solution that’s easy for all their teachers to use to help students practice the (science sensemaking) practices that are now a part of state science standards and being assessed, this is the product for you,” said Kanter. “Using Gizmos Investigations will boost scores on state assessments while also boosting student engagement. Students have the opportunity to do their own guided inquiry without requiring the teachers to generate a ton of worksheets or set up.”
Get ready to bring Gizmos Investigations to your classroom
“It looks effortless when we put it out there. But there's a lot of behind-the-scenes and a lot of people that it takes to do this, and to do it well,” said Suzanne Kehret. “We get feedback from our customers, our sales reps, our professional development folks as they hear things from our customers, and feedback from what we see in our data. We're always looking for how we can make it better.”
Gizmos Investigations are almost here! Start a free Gizmos trial today to uncover the power of interactive and engaging science learning in your classroom.