By Kristin Straumann
Technology Integration Specialist and Science Instructor
Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School District
Grove City, MN

My school district recently purchased several SMART accredited resources from New Path Learning, including a chemistry review game that I use in my high school classroom.

The software provides hundreds of questions covering a variety of topics. The questions are well written, and the software interface is colorful and engaging for even my most reluctant participants!

We have used this software with our SMART Board interactive whiteboard for whole class games, as well as small group review sessions.

In addition to providing instant feedback for the students as they progress through the game, data is produced at the end of the session detailing time spent, percent correct, and questions remaining.

I can use this as formative assessment data and plan my next teaching steps based on their performance with the software.

In a time in education where many of my colleagues complain about how engrossed today’s students are in media and video related activities, I instead try to embrace their digital tendencies and incorporate similar activities into my chemistry class.

By taking chemistry content and presenting it in a game-based, digital format on the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, I am able to capture the attention of my students and engage them in meaningful, learning experiences.

I love it when my kids think they are “just” playing a game, instead of working through complex chemical concepts.

Students preform much better on mastery assessments in chemistry after using the New Path Learning software with our SMART Board interactive whiteboard during our in-class learning sessions, since they have put much effort and practice into the concepts during class time.