Ms. Stacey Phelps teaches science at an independent study charter school in California, and has used Gizmos for two years. “Gizmos has provided a way to allow students to do their investigations on their own time and at their own pace. The Lesson Materials are great for students to work through the interactives, especially because our students are doing this independently for the most part. I also like having the ability to edit the handouts to either focus my students onto a specific topic or change the level for different grades. This accessibility makes this program great for a K-12 school like ours.”
Her school “serves a population of students and families who have not found a good fit in a traditional school. Many of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch, are behind in academic skills and have life situations that do not support school. We have populations that come to us as a homeschool resource, as well a students who have children of their own and need an independent setting.”
Gizmos are a great fit for their curriculum, and are popular with students, teachers and parents. “The students look forward to the Gizmos, which translates to more work being done and more opportunities for engaged learning. Parents can work with their students without having to buy supplies or have a lot of setup or clean up. They can get right to the investigation part. My teachers and parents appreciate the Teacher Guides, since many of them are not experts in every science topic and like to refresh themselves before they present the lesson to the student. Teachers also get a good understanding of what students understand by listening to them talk through the exploration sheet.”
Ms. Phelps adds, “I like that when I use Gizmos I know that the kids will get good results. How many times have you grown beans and half of them don’t grow? Or you are trying to get 3rd graders to visualize how the sun, earth and moon move around each other in space and their spatial skills are not up to the task? With Gizmos, all the plants will grow. They can see how the planets look in space and observe patterns.” Everything that would normally take weeks, months or even years can be done in a Gizmo in just a few minutes.
She appreciates that ExploreLearning continues to grow their library, as well as update current Gizmos. As her school gets farther along into their implementation of the Next Genration Science Standards, she will continue to look for ways to use Gizmos “for performance tasks and inquiry based learning.” She also plans to use “Gizmos to help prep my students for the pilot of the California Science Test (CAST).”
Stacey Phelps has taught for 9 years in the LA/Inland Empire in Southern California. She teaches at Mojave River Academy in San Bernardino at an independent study charter school (starting in 2011). She has been designing the science curriculum for grades K-12 for3 years.