Educators who want serious fun learning experiences that produce serious results count on ExploreLearning. This school year was one to celebrate – new research, product updates, and features that made our resources even better for teachers and students. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the year and break down the exciting things to come.
What’s new and what’s next for 2025
The best learning solutions do more than just enable or empower their users. They bring teachers and students into the learning process! Collab Crew members worked with the Gizmos team to develop Gizmos Investigations. We partnered with STEM professionals, like the James River Association, to develop new STEM Cases. Teachers and students were instrumental in testing the new competition feature for both Reflex and Frax. Our research team gathered and analyzed data highlighting real classroom results. That’s only a fraction of the work, and we’re not stopping for the next school year.
What’s coming up for 2025? Plenty! There’s more research coming to share data. The new Frax Sector 3 will take classroom experiences to the next level with teaching fractions. Gizmos Investigations will bridge gaps in science instruction. New STEM Cases are launching. The serious fun keeps coming!
Reflex Competitions: Building math fluency through fun
The launch of Reflex Competitions, which promotes math fact fluency practice, has brought healthy rivalry to the class. Teachers can host competitions among different classrooms in the same school building. Students are naturally motivated to earn the Green Light as they compete, building critical math fact fluency while having fun.
“Competitions are very engaging and exciting. Students are able to enjoy learning while building fluency.”
— Teacher
The launch of Frax classroom Competitions
Frax Competitions launched in 2025. Like Reflex Competitions, students in one classroom can face off against other classes in a school for amped-up fractions engagement, fun rivalry, and increased motivation! Tracking student progress during a competition is an added benefit for teachers and school leaders. The new administrator dashboard tool makes it easy to celebrate school-wide math success.
“My students lost the first competition. That loss created a new fire to win. They have focused on the second time and are determined to win.”
— Teacher
Students who are determined to win are also determined to learn!
Frax Sector 3 is coming
Frax students complete space-themed missions grouped by Sectors on the Frax Galaxy Map. Sector 1 helps students develop a strong conceptual understanding of fractions as numbers. In Sector 2, they build on that foundation and apply deep fraction number sense to more difficult topics such as equivalence, addition and subtraction, and comparison.
Guess what’s coming in 2025? Sector 3! This Sector is focused on understanding and mastering arithmetic with fractions using the foundations built in Sectors 1 and 2. Sector 3 targets topics typically addressed in grade 5.
Take a look at the areas of focus in Sector 3. Which ones do your students need the most?
- Adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators
- Multiplying fractions
- Dividing fractions
- Simplifying fractions
- Converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions
Gizmos Investigations launching fall 2025
The shift to sensemaking in science education brings a need for instructional materials to help students achieve the next generation of K-12 science learning goals. Get ready for Gizmos Investigations! These turnkey, scaffolded high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) include built-in student questioning and interactive investigations incorporating existing Gizmo Simulations. Just-in-time feedback helps to engage students with sensemaking practices at their individual levels of understanding.
Gizmos Investigations wraps fully guided lessons for grades 6-8 around one or several of our interactive science simulations, scaffolding the sensemaking practices, and guiding and assessing students as they solve real-world problems. Students learn like scientists through CER (claim, evidence, reasoning), active experimentation, and inquiry, deepening their understanding and building connections across science disciplines.
“I was very satisfied with the Gizmos Investigations overall. The students understood the concepts in a way they had not understood before. I was surprised at how easy it was for my students to explore independently in pairs. I was also surprised that they looked for the positive reinforcement the Gizmo Investigation had built into it.”
— Teacher and beta tester for Gizmos Investigations
Building better learning with security and research
It’s critical for edtech features and resources to keep the focus on security and research when developing and updating tools for teachers and students. ExploreLearning takes information security seriously and works proactively to ensure our resources are built with high-standard data management security measures.
We also conduct continual efficacy research with district partners to support outcomes-based decision-making, providing accountability and shared insight into our products’ impacts on student learning and learning outcomes. Both are crucial to providing safe, effective learning environments.
Ongoing investment in student data security
Educators can rely on ExploreLearning STEM solutions for robust student data privacy and security protection. With the increasing use of digital tools in schools, safeguarding sensitive student information is more critical than ever. ExploreLearning takes this responsibility seriously, aligning our programs with stringent privacy policies to ensure a safe online learning environment.
We earned ISO 27001:2013 certification for our Information Security Management System (ISMS), demonstrating compliance with internationally recognized standards for managing and protecting sensitive data. This certification reflects our commitment to implementing strong security practices, safeguarding K–12 educational data from cyber threats and privacy breaches.
In addition to prioritizing data security, ExploreLearning is committed to delivering measurable educational impact. Our programs—Frax, Reflex, and Gizmos—have all received efficacy badges from the International Certification of Evidence of Impact in Education (ICEIE). These certifications validate the effectiveness of ExploreLearning’s tools in improving student outcomes, backed by high-quality, peer-reviewed research. The ICEIE badges for Efficacy and Effectiveness specifically recognize products that demonstrate enhanced student learning through rigorous, third-party validated studies, reinforcing ExploreLearning’s role as a trusted partner in education.
Research-driven design across products
When ExploreLearning updates programs with new features, they are grounded in data and learning science. By leveraging rigorous, third-party research and real-world classroom data, ExploreLearning demonstrates the measurable impact of its STEM solutions on student learning. Studies meet ESSA Tiers of evidence and highlight how data-driven edtech can lead to more effective and engaging educational outcomes. Here are a few examples of our powerful findings.
- Gizmos:
- 92% of teachers reported moderate to large learning gains among students.
- 97% agreed that Gizmos aligned with their state standards and curriculum.
- Teachers observed increased student engagement, curiosity, and confidence.
- Reflex:
- Students using Reflex frequently improved math fact fluency from 28% to 84% over the school year.
- 44% of those students achieved 100% fluency.
- Reflex users were 2x more likely to meet ambitious math growth goals.
- Frax:
- Students using Frax were more likely to meet grade-level math standards on summative assessments.
- Frax students were 2.5x more likely to meet ambitious math growth goals.
- Frax accelerated student math growth compared to previous years.
There are more research results to explore! Dive in to see what ExploreLearning solutions can do for your classes.
Building student success in 2025 and beyond
It’s easier than ever to get answers quickly. Chat is now embedded in all our programs to provide seamless support and faster answers. Helix, our AI chatbot, delivers immediate, round-the-clock assistance with product queries. Teachers can even connect live with a support agent if Helix can't resolve an issue, ensuring speedy resolutions to keep the learning moving without lengthy interruptions.
The new school year will be here soon. Those summer months fly by. Be ready with ExploreLearning math and science solutions. We create experiences that students and teachers are excited to use. Which one will you choose to try with your students? Your free trial is waiting.
