Getting administrators to sign off on new tools for the classroom can be challenging. Funding is short, and your time to research is limited. To help you advocate for needed resources, we’ve gathered five tips based on previous Labster teachers’ successes.

1. Share reasons for decision-makers to say “yes” to Labster

1. Effects of teachers feeling stressed- Virtual lab modules align easily with your curriculum, and there’s tech support available to you seven days a week. Grading is automatic, and grades auto-sync to the LMS grade book, leaving you more time for 1:1 interaction with students and creating the space for you to plan.
2. Low student engagement - It’s becoming more and more challenging to maintain your students’ attention and help them succeed. Teaching science with gamification is a great way to keep their interest while learning.
3. Difficulty scaling - Labster provides opportunities you may not otherwise afford to have in the classroom. Beyond science simulations, there are animations, images, theory pages, lab reports & manuals, a community campus, and more.
4. COVID-induced learning gaps - Labster allows teachers to see what questions and parts of the simulations students got stuck on, allowing you to address pandemic-related gaps.
5. Students having trouble understanding - Labster simulations teach content more effectively than traditional lecture-based instruction and enhance student performance on assessments.
6. Accessibility challenges - Students learn in different ways. The more methods we offer them, the better chance of their success. Labster offers simulations in other languages like Spanish, helping ESL learners, and Labster is accessible as we're in the process of complying with all applicable WCAG 2.1 criteria.

2. Show the peer-reviewed research

Labster has had success that BMC Medical Education and Nature Biotechnology have captured. Share the stats!

• Learning outcomes increase by 101%when virtual labs supplement traditional teaching.
• 97% of students surveyed felt the course content wasmore interesting when working with gamified simulations.
• 93% of students surveyed agreed that learning through a Labster virtual lab that resembles work in the field increased their motivation in the course.

3. Demonstrate that it aligns with curriculum standards

Labster has built out its rich offering of virtual science lab simulations to align with the curriculum and standards of paramount importance to K-12 educators preparing students for university education and future careers, including the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the Advanced Placement (AP) Curriculum and Exam, and the Career Technical Education (CTE) Model Curriculum Standards. We’ll even map our virtual labs to your course specifically.

4. Get other teachers on board

There’s power in numbers! If you and your colleagues can make a case for multiple disciplines to use Labster, there’s a better chance that administrators will sign off on it. Labster has been redesigned for high school, so we have simulations and supplements for Chemistry, Biology, Earth Science, Physics, A&P, and more.

5. Support with statistics & facts from your classroom

It’s always helpful to have data to back up requests. Here are some questions you could ask yourself to gather some of this data:

• What would be the cost of doing some expensive labs in the classroom?
• How many simulations could you see yourself using?
• How many teachers at your school will it be a useful tool for?
• How many ESL learners do you have? Labster is available in 5 languages.
• Do you have students with accessibility needs that could benefit from virtual labs?