Simulations are continually running in your brain to plan actions and predict outcomes for anticipated situations. Simulations are also running in businesses to predict demand for products and services and in science to predict complex phenomena like weather reports. Within these broad examples, simulations fall naturally into two rough categories: simulations of well-known and predictable phenomena like making a cup of coffee, and simulations of complex or emergent phenomena whose outcomes fall into a range of predictions like will my first grader like his first day at school and will the eye of the hurricane pass over my town. This hands-on introduction to simulation will look at the first category in which, given starting values of the variables, the outcome can be confidently predicted.
PhET Simulations Widely Used in Classrooms
There are many producers of computer-based simulations that target curricular needs from elementary through university and across disciplines from science to social studies. This activity will introduce you to the PhET library of over 150 free science and math simulations developed at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Each simulation is available in HTML5 format so it can be used in any web browser on Chromebooks, Macs, Windows, and iPads. It can be freely used at school and home, and no student information is collected; they don’t even have to register or create an account to use the sims!
The development and empirical validation of PhET’s simulations have been supported over 20 years by grants from government agencies like the National Science Foundation and donations from charitable foundations. The PhET website provides a wealth of information on how to use the simulations, partly through thousands of teacher-created lesson plans. The simulations are available in 95 different languages. It’s a massive resource used by teachers at all levels across the globe. The 8-minute video below introduces you to the PhET website and guides you through one particularly popular simulation:
Watch PhET Simulations Into for Educators (8-min): https://youtu.be/1sCLNLqT8zc
You may want to follow along in the PhET website at: https://phet.colorado.edu
Try A PhET Simulation Now!
Each PhET simulation is designed to help students learn a specific topic or concept. You can’t build your own simulation in PhET, and you can’t modify the PhET simulations. Each has been carefully developed and tested with real students to maximize engagement, exploration, learning, and fun. Filter the simulations by grade level and topic to find one that may fit your students. You may want to review the teacher PDF for the sim, or maybe you’d rather just launch it and explore. If you like the sim, check out the teacher-contributed lesson plans to see how others use it with their students.
Teaching Note: The sims are designed to be explored by the student. A brief teacher demo to the class is enough to get them going. Teachers can pose questions or problems that student can try to answer through the sim. Note that many of the sims have playgrounds where kids can play with the concepts to develop intuitive understanding. I think you and they will like working with PhET!
Experience and Reflection
You learn something by DOING it, not reading and thinking you understand it. You should have tried a simulation related to your grade level and subject (even distantly related). You should have explored the modules of that simulation to see how a student’s understanding is fostered through an introduction, a playground, control of variables, graphic animated feedback, and numeric/graphing quantification, ultimately gaining insight into the relationship of the variables. Using the PhET sims is a process for the teacher and the student. You can’t “look at it” or make a few clicks and understand it. You need to engage in an exploration of the built-in relationships.
Based on your experience, how would you use it in a class? What assignments might you make? What would be your expectations? Would you evaluate your students’ understanding in some way? Would you and your curriculum have the time to devote to an un-graded or minimally graded activity? Could you ask students to include a screenshot of the sim that documents their experimenting? Could you ask them to explain what the screenshot demonstrates about their process and understanding?