The Use of Gizmos in the Classroom

Gizmos is a website with online simulations that power inquiry and understanding.  Surrey School District #36 has purchased licenses for science teachers to explore this area and manner of learning and the Sullivan Heights Science Department has taken up the challenge with a number of their people taking the lead, namely the department heads of the Science Warren Edwards and Lisa Leonard.  Lisa explains in this blog entry:

   

The use of Gizmos in our department is for inquiry and to provide a better understanding for students with interactive simulations.  It is used to supplement our existing curriculum.  It has a reputation of being engaging, easy to use, and helps students develop a deeper understanding of challenging concepts through inquirey and exploration.  

Gizmos are assisting our department with one of our goals in science:  The use of technology in both the classroom and the labs in all grade levels, as a tool to further improve achievement scores and engagement.

Below is a reflection of a Gizmo that was used in a senior class, illustrating its effectiveness:

•  The gizmo was user friendly, for teacher and student
• The passwords were easy to generate and pass on to the students.
• Used as a summary at the end of the chapter

The simulation was easy to use; it did not need any instructions to give to the student, as there was an option on the activity to look at hints while working through the interactive activity.

As a teacher I found the supplement sheets were helpful:

• pre-questions to generate background information on the subject matter
• -interactive questions which guided them through the process

The assessment quiz was very easy to use for students and teachers:

• students only had to answer the questions and check their results with one click, at the same time the results were sent to teacher, without any copy and paste needed to email the teacher.
• As a teacher all class data showed up in one document, easy to read and do a cross comparison of answers.

 The Gizmo activities are just starting to be shared amongst the department with conversations, some members have already set future lesson plans to use the gizmos.  In the future we plan to get together as a department and share lessons we have implemented in class.  We are hoping this will allow us to explore other areas for the use of gizmos, to enhance its effectiveness with the students.