The last piece of your puzzle

What to expect:

6 min read

Before we begin, we have a favor to ask. We’re trying to reach and support as many teachers as possible. If you like what you’ve been reading so far, tell your teacher besties about us 🙂

This week, we take a peek at how to tackle our rapidly dropping science scores. Here’s how you’ll solve it after today:

• Tech Talk: Virtual labs = less setup and WAY less smell

• Brainy Bits: When to go virtual and when to keep it physical

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world before we get started. Click each link to learn more:

• As if first days back aren’t hard enough - this teacher had to deal with a bear breaking into her classroom 🐻 

• Meditation breaks are becoming more common in US schools - but are these programs working? 🧘‍♂️ 

• ChatGPT “accidently” started speaking in a user’s voice - all without permission 😨 

Tech Talk

This week’s tool: Gizmos

The Problem:

If you’re new here, we’ve spent the last few weeks diving into global scores in literacy, math, and science. This week, we’ll complete that puzzle by looking at science score trends across the globe.

Engagement wise, science has always sat in a unique spot. It can be insanely interesting but also polarizing due to difficult and abstract concepts. One reason that more students might prefer science class to their math class though is because there are more interactive elements - like labs.

However, not every school is equipped to run full labs. Materials are very expensive, some equipment requires special certifications, and just because a lab is cool, doesn’t mean that the curriculum goals will be reached. 

There is also an enormous amount of prep that goes into each lab, they can be messy, contain smelly (potentially dangerous) chemicals, and tear down can take even more time. So what can we do?

The Solution:

Gizmos are about to be your best friend if they aren’t already. They are one of the world’s largest libraries of math and science simulations.

With over 550 completely virtual labs to choose from, finding one that works for each class is very possible. Each simulation contains a fillable PDF that contains a full guide and series of questions, solving the need for assessments with your lab as well.

The real learning in any kind of lab comes from the hands on approach of solving a problem. Gizmos let students do this with no messy set up. Many of their labs include realistic storylines for your students to follow along with; they’re not just inputting data and clicking virtual test tubes. They actually have to experiment.

How about YOUR classroom:

Gizmos go from grade 3-12. They also separate their labs by country, region, and subject area strands to make it easy to find a lab that may work for your students.

The included question sheets and data tracking abilities can help you gather student data too without losing out on the lab experience if your school is lacking in equipment or funding.

Set-up is fairly straightforward. Teachers can generate their class right in Gizmo. This lets you track the progress of each individual student. It’s as simple as sending your students your custom Gizmo link for each lab.

Teachers can nab a 30-day free trial. After this, pricing is very dependent and so you will need to use their contact form for a quote. Check with your admin first though - you may be surprised to find that your school/board has already paid for a license.

Are Gizmos 1000% the same as a real lab? Of course not. Some research might say that a hands-on physical lab will always be better. But, when those labs aren’t always possible, or if the time to run many different labs just isn’t there, then Gizmos can be a great tool to add to your arsenal. 

Brainy Bits

Are virtual labs worse?

The Study:

We can’t talk about virtual labs without looking at some research on their success. To do so, we dive into a very recent paper published this year.

This week’s study is a quasi-experimental quantitative study that took 75 post-secondary students in a Health and Fitness course, and divided them between in-person labs and virtual ones.

41 students attended the virtual options while 34 took the in-person route. All students attended the same live lectures and were given the same material. Both sets of labs ran through the entire semester and were focused on the same concepts.

Students were given multiple questionnaires throughout in addition to unique demographic surveys. This, combined with final course scores (which were predominantly coming from these labs), allowed for some comparison between both groups to take place.

The Results:

Let’s talk final grades first. At the end of the semester, the in-person group’s average was about 4% higher than the virtual lab group.

Demographics were interesting here as previous research has shown that age and gender can impact preference for virtual labs. However, this study found there was no significant difference. This is most likely a sign of the times, as many students are now used to using technology in their classrooms.

The virtual group, according to the survey data, was slightly more primed for independent learning. Since most virtual labs are completed independently, this actually makes a lot of sense.

Where the virtual group excelled the most was in motivation. In this survey category, they scored significantly higher than the in person group. But as the final grades show, higher levels of motivation do not always equal higher scores.

How about YOUR classroom:

Don’t let the fact that these are post-secondary students fool you; we see very similar trends across K-12 as well, especially post-pandemic, where virtual learning was made quite common. 

These students entered college at the height of virtual learning - just as many of your students may have entered school as well. This has lead to a higher level of comfort and confidence with technology than previous generations.

This means that motivation with virtual elements can be quite high. But as this study showed, this does not always translate to higher levels of academic success.

So what can you do?

Research like this shows us the importance of balance when it comes to STEM. Yes, virtual labs can be a great time saver for us teachers. But if every single activity is virtual, just like we saw with gamification last week, the novelty can wear off quickly. 

Virtual and physical alike, a present teacher guidance has been shown to improve results; notice that in this study the lessons themselves did not change, just the mode of practice.

We recommend trying to go virtual for smaller labs, but try to still include at least one physical lab or demo per unit, especially when tackling a completely new curriculum item for your learners.

Do your students have a preference for virtual or physical labs? Hit reply and let us know!

Interested in growing with us? Want us to feature your tech tool, resource, or research? Hit reply to start a conversation.

Like what you’ve seen? Forward us to your friends and colleagues so y’all have something to talk about next week. 😎

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References

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Explore Learning (2024). Meet Gizmos. Retrieved from https://gizmos.explorelearning.com/

Brainy Bits:

Dancey, E., & Williams-Bell, M. (2024). The effects of virtual lab delivery on motivation, learning, and academic success. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotlrcacea.2024.1.15193