NexGen Inquiry Web App
Van Andel Education Institute
NexGen Inquiry empowers teachers to engage students in thinking and acting like scientists by bringing student-centered, inquiry-based science methods into the classroom.
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Van Andel Education Institute (VAEI) is revolutionizing science education by training teachers in inquiry-based science. The NexGen Inquiry Teaching and Learning platform brings inquiry-based science into the classroom with a personal online journal for each student.
NexGen Inquiry guides students through scientific investigations using the QPOE2 investigation organizer. It helps them collect and analyze data, create graphs using this data, and share results with other students and their teachers. Teachers can create science investigation templates, assign them to students, and respond to student work.
Jim Nicolette, Associate Director
Coordinating Stakeholders
Technical Specs
Atomic designed the system architecture and wrote software and firmware for:
Jim Nicolette, Associate Director
Taste-testing the Product in the Field
Tools to Get More Done
The science journal has a custom-built spreadsheet tool for creating tables, charts, and graphs. It was designed to be accessible to kids as young as kindergarten, with built-in formulas and an easy-to-use interface.
NexGen Inquiry includes a rapidly-growing online teacher community, where teachers can connect to share tips and advice. It also includes a resource library with professional development materials and support documentation in the form of quick-start videos and classroom materials.
Results
- At the start of the 2016-2017 school year, the system was being used by more than 500 school districts.
- More than 2,500 teacher accounts and 15,000 student accounts have been created.
- Teachers have created over 7,000 experiment templates.
The Atomic team took a genuine interest in what VAEI is doing. They took our teacher training, and developed a solid understanding of our instructional model and the vision of what we’re trying to accomplish. They cared about the project, and that came through in their zeal.
Coordinating Stakeholders
A Partnership with a Storybook Ending
The team’s careful project management, client communication, cutting-edge architecture, and cohesive design strategy helped the team ship the product on time and on budget.
Reflecting back on the multi-year, high-profile project, Robinson said Atomic helped his company arrive at a special moment in time.
“We'd never done anything this big. Ever,” he said. “We’re live across all the major pillars Atomic said they would deliver on. It was delivered on time, on budget, to expectation, live. Not three or four milestones late with people leaving and the platform half-baked and full of bugs.”
StoryLoom began open-beta in December 2022. A global launch is scheduled for the spring of 2023.
“We’ve been given a rare opportunity," said Robinson, "to find success by chasing opportunities Starship Enterprise-style: going where people aren’t—pushing boundaries.”
Jim Nicolette, Associate Director
Atomic provided web application development and visual design for NexGen Inquiry, a tablet-friendly web app with a rich front end built in Ember.js with a PostGRES database. Atomic also created the NexGen Inquiry marketing website in Craft CMS.
The Atomic Team
Here are some of our current Atoms who worked on this project. Click their photo to read their bios!
Project domain(s)
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