Overview of PHET

PHET Simulations is a website that has numerous virtual labs. These labs can be in physics, general science, chemistry, earth and space science, biology, and in math. This website is great for not only science classrooms,  but math classrooms as well. Math can be hard to picture in your brain sometimes, this website can help students visualize math problems with ease.

Classroom Examples

I will use this as classwork and more than likely group work. I will put the students into groups and they will work on their virtual lab with their group members. There will be a separate sheet of paper with instructions on which lab to pick, why, and what information to put in. 

ISTE Standards Relation

PHET Simulations follow ISTE Standards 1.3.d and 1.5.b. PHET follows 1.3.d by putting math into real world scenarios. They will use the simulations to explore each scenario with and without my instructions. PHET follows 1.5.b because the students will be using my instructions in the virtual lab to collect the data they need to find the answer to the problem. 

Instructions

Below is a video that I created to teach you how to use PHET Simulations effectively!

Differentiation

These virtual labs are a differentiation tool in and of itself. A further way to differentiate would be to give some students more detailed instructions and other students less detailed instructions. Letting students figure it out on their own or aiding in their knowledge of the topics.

Considerations & Benefits

There is not much to consider about this program. I think it's great for math and science teachers. I think hands-on learning is important in sciences though, so I would urge science teachers to use real labs instead of only using this website. There are so many benefits to this program for math students. The ability to understand through visualization and remember how to execute problems from virtual labs on PHET are prominent.