SimInsights for Teachers

Andrea Charbonnel

School: Exeter Township Senior High School, Reading, Pennsylvania

Notables: Knowles Science Teaching Fellow, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Allegheny College.

Andrea was excited to try out a momentum and collisions module with her students. She built a comparative exercise that allowed her students to interact with several different cases of momentum conservation and integrated energy conservation as well. She found that her students’ ability to understand and explain a series of questions about collisions was greatly enhanced when they had the opportunity to play with simulations. Andrea is a firm believer that simulations can enable students to become independent learners, thinkers and self starters, instead of just scoring correct answers on standardized tests.

View Andrea's collisions simulation here.

Jim Town

School: Accelerated Achievement Academy

Notables: Jim has led his districts teacher Professional Learning Community, started an engineering academy, and run an interactive Math workshop at the national conference for NCTM.

Jim is a math teacher on a mission: to ensure that students leave his classroom with the ability to take on tough problems. He is also a firm believer that science teachers shouldn't be the ones who get to have all the fun! Jim feels that SimInsights can help his students get away from drill and kill and help his students see the why behind the math. He set up a pendulum activity for his precalculus students, in order for them to observe the relationship between graphs of periodic functions and simple harmonic motion in physical objects. Jim's background as an electrical engineer has helped him realize that students need to make explicit connections between mathematics and the physical sciences. Problem based learning with a product like SimInsights can facilitate this process. We are truly thankful to have a creative math teacher like Jim who pushes the envelope for ALL learners.

Laura Darnall

School: GoodPasture Christian School, Madison TN

Notables: Knowles Science Teaching Fellow 2009, Goodlettsville Chamber of Commerce teacher of the year in 2009, Leader of school Professional Learning Community

Laura Darnall has some innovative ideas about how technology should be meshed with inquiry based instruction methods in order to drive learning for students. Laura used SimOhm in conjunction with a POGIL structure to introduce students to an Electricity classic: Ohm's Law and Series and Parallel circuits. We salute Laura's tenacity and willingness to take risks in the classroom. She believes that simulation based lessons can help students to take charge of their own scientific process, challenge their assumptions and develop as critical thinkers. She sees SimInsights as helping her to facilitate, rather than dictate learning experiences for students. In her own words, that is what the 21st century classroom should be all about.

View Laura's portfolio here.

London Jenks

School: Hot Springs County School, Thermopolis, WY

Notables: London is a Google Certified teacher and has run professional developments on the Paperless Classroom. He is a big proponent of in-class technologies

When you think 21st Century educator, you think of London Jenks. He teaches physics, chemistry, earth science and astronomy and has maximized the use of mobile technologies in his classroom. He was recently one of only 50 teachers selected by Google to attend the Google Teaching Academy in Australia. London wanted to use SimMotion to create an interactive quiz where students had to analyze the motion of two cyclists at the end of a race. Within three weeks, SimInsights responded by building in a quiz feature that allowed him to set up a sim-based quiz and collect data on student responses. Simulations allowed the quiz to come alive for his students and engage them in exploration even in an assessment situation. We take all our teachers’ feedback to heart and are happy to add in new features upon request when they benefit students’ learning. Our only regret is that we can’t be students in London’s classroom!

See London’s interactive quiz here.

Michael Amarillas

School: Fremont High School, Sunnyvale, California

Mike Amarillas studied physics at Stanford University, earning a bachelor's degree before turning his attention to education and entering the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP). While working towards his master's degree, Mike student-taught at Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, CA. After completing STEP, Mike accepted a full time position at Fremont and is in his second year of full-time instruction. Fremont High School is highly diverse ethnically and socio-economically, which has lead Mike to specialize in physics for English-learning students. As he continues to build and solidify his curriculum, Mike’s goal is to make STEM education accessible and enjoyable for all learners.

Michael Town

School: University Prep, Seattle

Notables: Knowles Science Teaching Fellow, MS, PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from University of Washington, MS in Teaching from Seattle University

Michael is teacher and person who goes against the grain. While most teachers are leaving the classroom, Michael brings a 10-year career in research with a PhD in atmospheric sciences to the K-12 space because he wants to encourage students to become adaptive thinkers. He set an ambitious goal for his project with simulations: every student was assigned to build their own simulations to challenge each other’s understanding of constant velocity and acceleration in 1 and 2 dimensions. The experience was deep, rich and open-ended, resulting in a greater variety of responses from students relative to a traditional activity. We value teachers like Mike who use simulations to tap into their students' creativity.

View Michael's portfolio here.

Professor Arun Srinivasa

School: Texas A&M University, Doha, Qatar

Notables: Arun Srinivasa is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Since joining the department in 1997, Professor Srinivasa has focused his research on measuring and modeling the dissipative response of single and multiconstituent materials and applying the results to a range of industrially important processes and materials. These applications include polymer and metal processing, ballistic impact problems, flows of particle laden slurries, diffusion and swelling of polymers with application to biomaterials and novel magneto and electroactive gels that show promise as components in active structures and devices.

View Professor Srinivasa's portfolio here and Youtube channel here.

Professor Robert G. Parker

School: University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute in Shanghai

Robert G. Parker is Distinguished Professor Chair and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Prof. Parker is Fellow of the ASME and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers(PECASE) in 1999. This award is "the highest honor bestowed by the US government to scientists and engineers early in their independent research careers." He also received the US Army Young Investigator and National Science Foundation CAREER Awards as well as the ASME Gustus Larson Award, SAE Ralph Teetor Educational Award, and ASEE Outstanding Faculty Award. He was invited by the US National Academy of Engineering to four Frontiers.

View Professor Parker's portfolio here.