Located nearly 25 minutes outside of Atlanta, in Marietta, GA, the Walker School is a college-preparatory independent school for families seeking an engaging educational experience within an intimately scaled, caring, and diverse community. At the Walker School, a recent goal was to improve their students’ science ACT scores and continue to ensure 100% of their students go on to college. Denice Esterly, the AP Biology teacher, was looking for a tool that would help address the new requirements of her redesigned AP Biology course, which focused on problem solving and critical thinking.
Real-Time Interactivity
She found that tool in Gizmos STEM Cases. In the Osmosis case, students take on the role of a veterinarian who must help a young calf named Clark. Clark is having seizures secondary to over-hydration. To determine what is causing the seizures, students “?y into” Clark’s brain to explore key elements of the environment. Students must predict which treatment option will work best, with three possible treatments: hypotonic saline, isotonic saline, or hypertonic saline.
Esterly says, “The high-quality graphics and real-world stories used to design the cases make them much more thought-provoking for the students than traditional teaching materials. I have found that my students become much more personally invested in the lessons and feel a sense of accomplishment that they don’t typically display in the classroom. They re-energize my interest in teaching the concepts as well. It’s the most engaging program that I’ve ever seen!”
Monitoring Students’ Critical Thinking Skills in Real Time
Esterly uses the cases after she teaches a concept to review and ensure they really understand the topic. Every time she uses Gizmos STEM Cases, she says each student is engaged and excited about learning. She is able to rely on instant feedback through the SABLE (Skills and Assessment Based Learning Environment) classroom monitoring analysis tool. Seeing the dashboard of green, yellow, and red helps her immediately identify who is struggling and she can immediately apply the data and address the situation in real-time.
“The interactive cases are teaching the skills to take content knowledge and apply it to an actual real-world problem and that’s what I need,” says Esterly.
And her students seem to agree: “I thought I wanted to be a vet,” says one student. “Now I know for sure!”