Legends of Learning is looking for elementary school ambassadors. Grades 3-5 teachers who are willing to review our science for Life, Earth and Space, and Physical sciences. Ambassadors who sign up by February 12 will get early access to games.

This is your opportunity to shape the Legends of Learning platform and games from the ground floor. When you sign up for our community, let your voice be heard and make a difference not only in your classroom, but for educators across America!

Impact how kids learn through games and join forces with like-minded heroes to review and strengthen the Legends of Learning platform and the individual games. Your input helps improve our collective offering.

Earn Rewards

We reward teachers who are active in our network. Participation in our community garners you access to challenges where you can earn more credits to continue playing. You can also earn some crazy rewards, too. Not that a hero needs more motivation, but those whose exploits are truly legendary will receive t-shirts, Pez heads, or other Legends of Learning swag.

So what are you waiting for, Legend? Sign up today, and help make game based learning even better in our community today!

P.S. Interested teachers who are looking for a little lighter interaction with Legendary peers can join our private Facebook group, The Hall of Legends.

After launching 800 science games for grades 6-8, we heard from numerous educators requesting games for younger grade levels. Ten months later, elementary school teachers can now sign up for first access to Legends of Learning’s new grades 3-5 offering!

Here are the details:

* More than 300 titles
* 56 lessons covered
* Topics span Earth and Space, Life, and Physical Science, including the scientific method
* Based on the NGSS curriculum
* Select state standards coming, including GSE, SOL, and TEKS
* Designed for grades 3-5 with accessibility for select 2nd graders
* Works in tandem with existing suite for grades 6-8

Early Access to Grades 3-5 Games

As with grades 6-8, an elementary teacher’s Legends of Learning account is free with no financial obligations. Just sign up to be notified when the product goes live, then create your account and go.

Be one of the first teachers to access Legends of Learning’s elementary school suite, and help shape the future of science game-based learning for grades 3-5.

Sign up here.

NSTA teachers met in Washington, DC yesterday afternoon to participate in an historic March for Science. Though it rained, our heroic teachers rallied at the Washington monument, then walked down the national mall to Congress. Legends of Learning participated, giving teachers capes, and then walking and tweeting with the NSTA along the way.

Here are scenes from the March for Science Washington, DC edition. Photos were taken by DC-based photographer Joe Newman and our own CMO Geoff Livingston.

Legends of Learning has decided to support the March for Science this weekend in Washington, DC by providing science teachers capes to march in. We will be at the NSTA rally handing out capes to interested science teachers. Our stance is that while science research has become politicized (and arguably has been since the days of Copernicus), it should not be political.

We believe in questioning, curiosity, and using data to guide decision making. This discipline of research to explore new ideas is the foundation of the human spirit, of learning, and yes, scientific progress.

Our founder, Vadim Polikov, Ph.D., was a research scientist at Duke University and has many scientific publications to his name. His first business was an academic editing business helping researchers around the world publish their research in peer reviewed science journals. He started Legends of Learning only after conducting a rigorous study to determine the efficacy of curricula games.

Our first cohort of customers are science teachers. These are the very people who seek to inspire their students — America’s Youth — with that same sense of curiosity, and a commitment to find truth through data and facts. How can we not support the spirit of science this Earth Day?

If you are attending the march in Washington, DC, our CMO Geoff Livingston will be out and about with a backpack full of capes looking for Legends of Learning and NSTA science teachers who want to have a little fun with their science support activities. He will be manning the @legendlearning Twitter handle that day. Tweet at him to meet up and get your own Legends of Learning cape for the march.

We are thrilled to launch our game-based learning platform with more than 700 curriculum-based games for middle school earth and space science, life sciences, and physical science curricula. The science games, created by over 300 games developers, are based on rigorous academic research conducted in partnership with Vanderbilt University.

In preparation for the platform launch, Legends of Learning involved more than 500 teacher ambassadors from across the country. Their participation will ultimately build a library of 700 games by the end of spring, with more games in different subjects and grades underway. The games and platform have benefitted from direct feedback by Legends of Learning’s teacher ambassador community, resulting in games ideally suited for the challenges of today’s learning environments.

Teachers communicated directly with and provided recommendations to game developers from such well-known game studios as Schell Games, Filament Games, North South Studios, Second Avenue Learning, and Intellijoy. Legends of Learning will continue to engage with educators about their needs and insights in an effort to keep games fresh and exciting for students.

“I have been teaching science for 14 years and never have I seen a company listen to teachers and incorporate feedback like Legends of Learning has,” said Scott Beiter, a veteran science teacher from Rensselaer, New York, and Legends of Learning teacher ambassador. “It is hard to find a platform that is easy-to-use and integrates into what I am already teaching, but Legends of Learning has created one for middle school science.”

Legends of Learning founder and CEO Vadim Polikov, a research scientist, believes that research is the foundation for successful game-based learning and long-term educational reform. The soon-to-be-released controlled study in partnership with Vanderbilt University, “Substantial Integration of Typical Educational Games into Extended Curricula,” measured the performance of more than 1,000 students in seven states and in schools with differing student bodies, socioeconomic factors, and geographical locations. The study demonstrated statistically significant success, showing that academic performance and engagement increase with curriculum aligned game-based learning.

Some unique aspects of the Legends of Learning game-based learning platform include:

• Short games (5-15 minutes) that align to middle school science curriculum standards to ensure content engages and helps students succeed in their studies;
• An intuitive platform similar to Netflix and Amazon that makes games easy and natural to use in classrooms; and
• A dashboard that allows teachers to observe student comprehension in real time, create game playlists for classes and individual students, and assess content mastery.

“I firmly believe in using original academic research to test the efficacy of new education products while at the same time making sure the classroom implementation is incredibly easy for educators,” said our CEO Vadim Polikov. “Working with a wide range of teachers and game developers has allowed us to build a unique platform that will be easy for educators to integrate and use in their classrooms.”

Teachers interested in being part of the Legends of Learning Ambassador program should visit legendsoflearning.com/teachers. We are showcasing our platform and games at booth #2217 at the National Science Teachers Association’s National Conference in Los Angeles, March 30-April 2.

A version of this story was issued as a press release on PRWeb this morning. Interested parties can see the games on the Legends of Learning platform.

Two of our strongest ambassadors in the community are Rebecca and Scott Beiter. This husband and wife tandem teach at two different school districts in upstate New York.

They share their insights on game based learning and what it is like to help Legends of Learning build its games and platforms from ground zero to market launch. In addition, Rebecca and Scott share the story of how they both got into teaching science, and the teacher conference life. Enjoy this super fun podcast!