SimInsights nominated for 100kin10.org

Three weeks ago, SimInsights was nominated as a potential 100kin10 partner. This is a national effort to galvanize 80+ organizations in the private and public sectors for one purpose: to attract and retain 100,000 STEM teachers over the next 10 years. We're proud to have been nominated by Donorschoose.org!

Why are we so excited?

This nomination reflects the focus of our company. We see teaching as a challenging, worthwhile endeavor. Great teachers give students the ability to explore while channeling their focus and energy, they create pathways for learning and make critical instructional choices that no computer program could ever fully replicate. Over the past year or so, we've realized that our platform is only great when its in the hands of a great teacher.

We've made some attempts to unearth some of these great teachers and see how they re-imagine the simulation-centric classroom. The past few weeks have been nothing short of astonishing. Take a look at the profiles and work of teachers who recently used our software to have their students do some incredible work.

But back to SimInsights and 100kin10.

How do we think we can help motivate the best teachers to remain in the classroom?

1. By making them content authors/app developers: Now when a teacher has a cool idea for a simulation based lesson or inquiry, they can find it in our repository or build it by themselves in a few minutes, instead of working for hours trying to pigeonhole existing resources to fit their student needs. We hope to crowdsource the efforts of thousands of teachers, creating the world's number 1 database of 100% INTERACTIVE science and math problems, activities and assessments. Goodbye, boring textbooks. Hello, learning through exploration.

2. By increasing their impact: You know how every school has that great teacher whose class everyone wants to be in? Now more students can have access to content developed by those teachers through our repository. We hope that when these great teachers see how many people respect and use their work, they will be more motivated to keep producing it. Also, we just might be able to figure out some creative ways to reward these teachers, like providing them gift cards on Donorschoose.org, or paying for them to get some awesome professional development to that they can build even more cool lessons... If you have ideas, drop us a line at info@siminsights.com

3. By creating an intellectual community: Now instead of plowing a lonely furrow in their STEM classroom, every new teacher has an online network that will provide them with resources and critical feedback as they learn the ropes. Our community consists of engineers, scientists, educators and students, who can all work together to help teachers test and refine their cool ideas. We need to show them that they are needed and that we appreciate them!