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S1-05: How does coding fit in the science classroom? A conversation with Aryanna Trejo of Code.org

Podcast cover titled "Science Connections" featuring Aryanna Trejo, Season 1, Episode 5. It includes abstract illustrations of a globe and telescope, discussing coding in the science classroom.

In this episode, Eric sits down with Aryanna Trejo, a professional learning specialist of Code.org. Aryanna shares her journey from working as an elementary teacher in New York City and Los Angeles to teaching other educators at Code.org. Eric and Aryanna chat about computer literacy within the science classroom, problem-solving skills, and ways to model productive struggle for students. Aryanna also shares ways to teach coding and computer literacy in schools, no matter the classroom’s technology level. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

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Aryanna Trejo (00:00):

I would hear teachers saying things like, “Well, I just can’t do coding; this is too hard for me; the time has passed.” And I would ask them, “Would you say that to your student about math or English?” And they would always sheepishly go, “No.” And I’d say, “Well, be as kind to yourself as you would be to your student.”

Eric Cross (00:19):

Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host, Eric Cross. My guest today is Aryanna Trejo. Aryanna is a member of the professional learning team at Code.org. Before joining Code.org, Aryanna led computer science professional development for elementary school teachers, and served as an instructional coach for new educators. She also taught fourth and fifth grade in both New York City and in Los Angeles. In this episode, we discuss Aryanna’s journey to Code.org, where she helps educators connect coding to real life, how to use a rubber duck to solve problems, and how coding and computer science principles can be taught to students in areas without access to the internet…or even a computer. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Aryanna Trejo. So I was born and raised here, and I saw that you went to UC San Diego.

Aryanna Trejo (01:11):

I did, I did. I actually just put a deposit down on an apartment in University Heights, ’cause I’m moving back.

Eric Cross (01:16):

You’re coming back?

Aryanna Trejo (01:17):

I’m coming back. Yeah.

Eric Cross (01:19):

So if you need a classroom to visit….

Aryanna Trejo (01:21):

I would love to do more classroom observations!

Eric Cross (01:24):

Are we doing this? Let’s do—we’re making this happen.

Aryanna Trejo (01:26):

We are. Yeah. So I’ll be there. I’m moving there in April. I actually grew up in Orange County too, so I’m like a very diehard SoCal person.

Eric Cross (01:35):

So I feel like I know the answer to, hopefully—Tupac or Biggie? ‘Cause you’re on the East Coast, and you’re on the West Coast.

Aryanna Trejo (01:40):

Yeah. I like Tupac, but I have more Biggie songs committed to memory. Which is not a lot. I have “Juicy” and “Hypnotized” memorized.

Eric Cross (01:53):

All right. So you’re just memorizing, and you have the Biggie songs memorized, but not the Tupac ones.

Aryanna Trejo (01:58):

No, but I do love Tupac songs. You know, it’s like, Biggie has the flow, but Tupac has the lyrics. Nobody’s—they both have something really amazing about them.

Eric Cross (02:06):

You know, I can respect that you broke it down into both of their strengths.

Aryanna Trejo (02:11):

Thanks for buttering me up before this interview. And not….

Eric Cross (02:15):

<laugh> Oh, we already started.

Aryanna Trejo (02:16):

Huh? We already started?

Eric Cross (02:17):

We’re already started. Yeah. We’re already into this.

Aryanna Trejo (02:19):

We’re into it.

Eric Cross (02:21):

You were in the classroom, fourth and fifth grade, and you were doing TFA.

Aryanna Trejo (02:26):

I did. I did Teach For America. I was 2012, New York City Corps. Right after graduation. ‘Cause I graduated UC San Diego in 2012. So graduation was on June 17th, and I touched down at JFK on June 19th.

Eric Cross (02:40):

Even though I wasn’t in TFA, I know a lot of the fellows that are in it. And there’s just some phenomenal teachers in there. How long were you doing elementary school when you were teaching?

Aryanna Trejo (02:49):

Yeah, I taught for—well, I did, three years of teaching fourth grade. Then there happened to be an instructional coach opening in my fourth year. I took that, did some instructional coaching within the same network, and then I moved back to LA and I taught fifth grade for a year.

Eric Cross (03:11):

  1. And what was it like now? Did you go to Code.org right after the classroom?

Aryanna Trejo (03:17):

No, I didn’t. No. I transitioned after teaching fifth grade for a year in downtown Los Angeles, in the Pico-Union neighborhood. I ended up getting this email out of the blue from someone who had actually found me through the Teach for America job site. ‘Cause I was hitting the pavement; I was really looking to transition out of the classroom. And she invited me to interview with this company called 9 Dots. And they taught computer science to kids K–6 throughout Los Angeles and Compton. And I was like, “Sure, no problem. Let’s do it.” So I interviewed, I got the job, and yeah, that’s how I transitioned to 9 Dots. And then after almost four years there, I transitioned to Code.org, with the same person. Actually, she moved over to Code.org first, and then she helped me get this job.

Eric Cross (04:07):

Oh, that’s happened a lot—like, that relationship kinda carries over.

Aryanna Trejo (04:11):

Yeah. We’re meant to be coworkers.

Eric Cross (04:13):

Yeah. Are you still? Is she still there? Are you both still together?

Aryanna Trejo (04:17):

Yeah, we’re on the same team and it’s nice. I saw her last night for Happy Hour, with another coworker who’s in LA. So we’re tight. And she’s a wonderful, wonderful mentor to me.

Eric Cross (04:28):

That’s great. Did you have computer-science background, when you were doing elementary school teaching? Did you have—

Aryanna Trejo (04:34):

No. <laugh> Not at all. When I was teaching in New York City, I had like four desktop computers in my classroom, and we rarely used them. Which was such a shame. And then when I moved to Los Angeles and taught fifth grade there, we were a one-to-one school, and the joys of that are just amazing. It was just really wonderful to, you know, get the students used to typing on the computer, using different software to submit their assignments. Getting creative—as creative as you can get—with Google Slides. You know, to show off what they know. And stuff like that. That’s all I had, though. And you know, when I transitioned to 9 Dots I was like, “Sure, why not? Let’s give a shot.” And I learned a lot. It was really interesting, yeah.

Eric Cross (05:26):

And so now at Code.org you are…well, so my journey with Code.org, I’ve been in the classroom for eight years. Still in the classroom as of…an hour ago, I was there. <Laugh> And I use Code.org, and I feel like I’ve checked it periodically, and I feel like it’s evolved over the gaps. And I’ve seen it. It’s become more robust in the things that they offer, over the years I’ve been an educator. Just to kind of…could you give a thumbnail sketch? Like, what is Code.org? Who’s it for? Who’s the target audience? What resources are there?

Aryanna Trejo (06:00):

Yeah. So it’s for everyone. It is a nonprofit that provides curriculum and training and a platform for teachers and students. We provide curriculum for K through 12. It’s completely free. And it comes with lesson plans, slideshows, all that. We focus specifically on underrepresented groups. So we have targeted measures for Black students, for Native American students, for students who identify as female. That’s a huge part of our mission. But we’re really working to expand access to computer science to as many students as we can.

Eric Cross (06:41):

One of the things I’m hearing in your story is you were teaching in Compton; you were in Bronx, New York. One of the reasons why I got into the classroom is because of educators, and the impact they made on me in exposing me to science and technologies I’d never had access to. And that intentionality, that you’re going about it…are there…not just the code, but how you bring that across to different groups…are there strategies, or are there ways to connect this idea of coding to diverse groups and diverse audiences? Or is it kind of, the curriculum applies for everyone? ‘Cause in science, when I’m teaching, I’m always trying to make what I’m doing relevant to the backgrounds of my students.

Aryanna Trejo (07:28):

Sure.

Eric Cross (07:28):

So I’m teaching biology, and I’m trying to make this kind of connection. Sometimes it’s more organic; sometimes it feels kind of forced. Because it’s just not always a nice fit. But it sounds like Code.org is really about inclusion. And in the numbers that I’ve seen for representation, in especially computer science software engineers, the groups that you’re focusing on are not necessarily represented in the professional workforce. At least disproportionately.

Aryanna Trejo (07:54):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s correct.

Eric Cross (07:57):

And so how do you go about being intentional about reaching groups that we don’t see in, you know, the Silicon Valley software engineers? How do you start that? Like, at a young age, do you look for specific schools in specific areas to say, “We are going to bring this to the school. We’re going out to these populations of the cities”? Because we’re just not seeing…you know, on the map, we’re not seeing anybody really doing anything with coding here. Or we’re not seeing the numbers come out of these areas, out of these cities, of students who are going into STEM or going into computer science fields.

Aryanna Trejo (08:41):

Yeah. I don’t necessarily work on the recruitment side of it, is the issue, in my position. But I do work on the professional learning, that is brought out to teachers. And we have a huge focus on equity throughout the workshops that we create from K–12. It’s something we’re really passionate about. We definitely aim to prepare teachers to teach computer science. That’s a huge part of it. Knowing the content, but also thinking through, “What does recruitment look like at your school to make sure that the demographics of your classroom match the demographics of your entire school?” Also, thinking through, “How can we make sure that female students feel included in your classroom? How can we make sure that we are, giving students creativity to think about, or we are setting students up to be creative and think about the problems that are in their community, and how they can use computer science to solve them, or at least work towards them?”

Eric Cross (09:39):

So solving real-world problems and that inclusion aspect…are there things like…you were saying “female or students who identify as female”…are there things that teachers can do to ensure that they’re being more inclusive? Or to recruit, or encourage more female students to take part? One of the things I was thinking of, that I’ve seen, is I’ve seen coding kind of camps.

Aryanna Trejo (10:06):

Sure.

Eric Cross (10:08):

That were specifically for a female audience. And that seemed to help with recruitment. Is that something that you see on your side?

Aryanna Trejo (10:16):

That’s not something that we set up, no. But the curriculum that I work with is CS Principles. And it’s offered as an Advanced Placement course, as well as an AP class. So that’s a curriculum that’s designed for students who are in grades 10 through 12. And so at that point, we can really talk to teachers and ask them what the recruitment strategy is. But in terms of strategies that teachers can use to recruit those students…I mean, I’ve heard over and over from lots of different teachers who identify as female that they didn’t think that computer science was for them, until they saw a role model in that position. And so just being a role model for those students is really wonderful.

Eric Cross (11:00):

And I see it too, with—like, we do “Draw a Scientist” activity, which is like a popular science thing—

Aryanna Trejo (11:05):

Sure, yeah, I’m familiar.

Eric Cross (11:05):

But it’s the same thing, right? Like, it fleshes out. My students don’t draw themselves as scientists. They draw what they perceive, based on what television says. I imagine with computer science, it’s probably really similar, when you think about “What’s a software engineer look like?” Do students tend to draw themselves? Or is it even a mystery? Because I don’t even know what a software engineer looks like.

Aryanna Trejo (11:28):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, one of the things we love to do with our professional learning workshops is talk about understanding yourself, your identities, how they show up in the classroom as biases. And, you know, things like stereotype threat. We see that as really important to understand, and think through, and consider, before you step into the classroom. So that you’re not, you know, coddling certain groups of students because you don’t believe that they are able to be successful in computer science. Holding all the students to the same expectations and believing that they can succeed. And computer science, I think a lot of the times people have this conception of it being this utopian, bias-less, technocratic field. When in reality, everything has bias. And people talk about algorithmic bias and facial recognition, but also the people who created computers and computer languages have their own bias that comes through. And I think it’s really important to show students that. So that they can, one, know what they’re working with, and two, make sure that they can create products that reduce that bias.

Eric Cross (12:50):

It’s like…it’s not objective, just because we’re creating software. Like, once it gets to a point of being so sophisticated…I think, like, AI software, right? With facial recognition? And we’re seeing more and more articles come out about, you know, predicting trends based on historical data.

Aryanna Trejo (13:12):

Sure.

Eric Cross (13:13):

But then, the trends and things that they’re seeing tend to target things that have happened in the past. But it also doesn’t take into consideration a lot of other factors that can lead to certain groups or populations being identified. And I’ve seen some articles lately about how your code is really just representation of what you put into it. And like you just said, your bias—if you have that, conscious or unconscious—you’re gonna put that into your code. And the input is gonna be an impact, is gonna impact the output.

Aryanna Trejo (13:44):

Yeah, absolutely. Or even just—and I’m ashamed to say this, ’cause this is an idea that came to me just recently, through an article that I read—but computers themselves have bias. The hardware assumes that you have vision, that you can see the screen, that you are able-bodied, that you can use your hands to work the keyboard, the mouse, et cetera, and that you don’t have to use assistive technology. You know, there are small things like that, where we think that technology, like I said, is this utopian, futuristic science…but there are biases throughout.

Eric Cross (14:19):

You’re absolutely right. I’ve never even—I’ve never even considered that. Even though I do use assistive tech, and figure it out, I’ve never thought from the ground up, the process is built for an able-bodied, sighted, hearing person.

Aryanna Trejo (14:31):

Exactly.

Eric Cross (14:32):

To be able to engage with the hardware. And then these other things, these tertiary things that we kind of add on, so that you can do this, but it’s not designed from the ground up for people who are, you know, different audiences, physically. So I’m glad you brought that up, though. Now I’ve seen—and I haven’t done this—but I know Hour of Code is a big thing. And this is something that’s ongoing. Can you talk a little bit about what Hour of Code is? I know it’s, it’s a big thing for the classroom teachers.

Aryanna Trejo (15:08):

Yeah. So Hour of Code is really exciting, and it’s just blossomed from something small to something tremendous. This year is gonna be the 10th Hour of Code. So what it is, is it happens during CS Education Week in December, during Grace Hopper’s—or to honor Grace Hopper’s birthday. She was a computer scientist and Navy Admiral. And basically the aim of it is to get as many students on the computer doing an hour of code, and demystify what coding is. You know, to do seed-planting. To show teachers that this is something that you can facilitate for your students. And also to show students like, “Hey, computer science is something you can absolutely do. Not just for an hour, but more if you want.” So, yeah. Now it’s worldwide, and it’s really exciting.

Eric Cross (15:58):

That’s awesome. And I think about teachers and I still hear the apologetic—when I’m helping teachers in the classroom with education technology—the self-deprecating “I’m a dinosaur; I’m not good with tech,” which is never true. Like, they’re better than they even realize. And I feel like sometimes there’s still a stigma, too. It’s like <laugh> The Simpsons’ Comic Book Store Guy. The condescending tech support person—

Aryanna Trejo (16:27):

Sure.

Eric Cross (16:28):

—who has that tone. And so I feel like some people have been so negatively impacted by that person. So I know when I’m helping people, I actually try to go full-spectrum the other side. But I’m thinking about teachers’ barrier to entry. Sometimes code is like, “Whoa.” And I don’t teach computer science. Do you see those barriers to entry, or at least the perception of them? And then, what’s the reality for like someone listening, and going, “I’m a fourth grade teacher,” or “I’m a humanities teacher in ninth grade.” What’s the perception that you see, versus reality, with the teachers that you train? Is it much more accessible than we think? Or is there a level of sophistication that you have to have coming into it?

Aryanna Trejo (17:10):

No, not at all. I know computer science, and that says a lot! <Laugh> You know, I know my own corner of computer science. And you know, that’s me being self-deprecating, too. But I think learning computer science has helped me in so many different ways that I wasn’t expecting. I recently took the GRE in hopes of, you know, getting back into grad school. And I think just the way that computer science teaches you to search for bugs in your code, or errors, and kind of tirelessly look at a problem from multiple different angles, I was able to carry that into the math that I was doing. And I noticed just a huge difference in the way that I approached it, and the way that I was open to it. But you asked a great question, in regards to the barriers to technology. In my position at 9 Dots, I was working directly with teachers to lead professional development with them. Sometimes it would be a full day; sometimes it would be an hour after school. And the one thing that I always had in my back pocket that was really useful is that I would hear teachers saying things like, “Well, I just can’t do coding; this is too hard for me; the time has passed.” And I would ask them, “Would you say that to your student about math or English?” And they would always sheepishly go, “No.” And I’d say, “Well, be as kind to yourself as you would be to your student.” You know, it takes some patience and nobody’s gonna get it perfect 100 percent of the time. Have I banged my head against the wall trying to solve one tiny little syntax error in my code? Absolutely! But it feels absolutely phenomenal to fix that. And I was an English major in undergrad, and I had never done computer science before. So it’s something that becomes really satisfying.

Eric Cross (19:07):

Yeah, I imagine. I had someone—a trainer or a presenter—one time bring up the fact that our students rarely get to see us learn in real time.

Aryanna Trejo (19:19):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (19:19):

So we don’t get to ever really model failure. I mean, unless we’re in a classroom situation <laughs> in our failures, with classroom management. Then they see it, they see it! But they don’t get to see us model learning failure. And I don’t mean like failure—and yes, I know, “first attempt is learning,” and “no such thing as failure”—that’s not what I’m talking about. But just when we’re not successful with our code, and then we experience real-time frustration.

Aryanna Trejo (19:42):

Yep.

Eric Cross (19:42):

And they said that is actually a great learning experience for your students to watch you go through productive struggle. And that was really liberating for me. Because now I’m in the classroom, and I’m trying to go through it with my students, and the beautiful thing was, they started helping me. We were all trying to solve the problem. And then we had this authentic problem-solving experience. I think it was like a Scratch program, where we were trying to solve, trying to embed it somewhere, or something. And then, in the background of the class: “Mr. Cross! I got it! I figured it out!” And it was this really neat bonding experience. And I felt that—your ears get red, and you get hot, ’cause you’re not—

Aryanna Trejo (20:19):

Oh yeah.

Eric Cross (20:20):

You don’t know it! And you’re in front of 36 kids! And I said, “OK, I need to tell them how I feel.”

Aryanna Trejo (20:25):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (20:26):

So I said, “Now I feel really frustrated.” Like, “I want to go through this, and here’s my thoughts.” ‘Cause I knew that it would be helpful if they saw and would hear my thoughts. So I just did a quick think-aloud and I said, “In my head, <laugh> I want to just quit,” I said, “But I realize that this is the part where my learning’s happening. So I just want you all to hear what’s going on in my brain.” And now I feel like when I’m doing coding with my students, and it’s just basic coding, I feel much more comfortable, like, not knowing. But I needed someone to release me from that “I have to be the expert in everything” to do it.

Aryanna Trejo (21:06):

And teachers are used to being the experts. Right? And they should be. And coding is just such a different landscape. But I think once you kind of give over to the power of tinkering, I think it’s really gratifying. I love being able to…you can revise a sentence, and then read your paragraph back to yourself in English, and say, “OK, I get it.” But there’s something so gratifying about changing a line of code or a block and then being able to hit play and watch your program come to life, and say, “Hmm, that’s not quite what I wanted. Let’s try something different.”

Eric Cross (21:39):

I love your connection to tinkering. ‘Cause—I had never thought about it—’cause I love tinkering with my hands. But I always think about physical things. But coding is exactly that. It’s tinkering.

Aryanna Trejo (21:47):

It’s exactly that.

Eric Cross (21:47):

That’s exactly what it is.

Aryanna Trejo (21:49):

And a lot of it is, for me, especially when I’m trying something new, it’s guess-and-check. It’s like, “OK, that didn’t work. What if I add a semicolon here? Will it finally work? Or what if I add a ‘for’ loop? Will this get me what I want?” And it’s wonderful because you have that with students as well. Like, you have that record of their thinking, and you can ask them to go step-by-step and tell you, you know, “First, I added this, because I wanted the program to do this,” and so on and so forth. And so you have that record, but you can always get rid of it. Students often wanna get completely get rid of it. That’s something that I’ve noticed a lot as I’ve taught computer science. But, once you can get them to target the specific parts of the program, tinker with that, and continue, that’s a really wonderful learning space. There was also something you said about modeling failure. I love the fact that in computer science you can model failure for your students. You said to your students, “I’m getting frustrated.” I love that, because I never got that in math. Nobody ever showed me what it was like to be frustrated with graphing a parabola. Right? Like, my math teachers were always like, “Doot, doot, doot, here you go, you’re done!” <Laugh> And I would get so frustrated, because it didn’t come that easily to me. And I think there’s two parts to that. So there’s modeling the learning and the thinking and the productive struggle, but also there’s the identity of being a computer scientist and modeling what that looks like. So for me, when I get really frustrated with a program, I walk away. I take five minutes. I take a deep breath. I say, “I’m not gonna think about it in these five minutes.” And I come back to it. And I think once you start teaching computer science, you can facilitate that for students. And there’s so many different strategies that they can pick up. They can pick up rubber ducking, which is where they pick up a rubber duck or a similar object, and they talk to it as if they were a partner and talk through their code. And oftentimes, as you’re rubber ducking, you’re gonna find that error, because you’re explaining it to someone who’s a stand-in for a novice. And rubber ducking is a well-known strategy for computer scientists who make it their career. You know, there’s pair programming. Some students love pair programming; some students hate it. But the students start to build this identity about how they problem-solve. And how they approach failure. And I just love that.

Eric Cross (24:31):

I’m writing this down. Because the rubber-ducking strategy, I love. I just imagine my seventh graders, a bunch of 13-year-olds with, like, rubber on the desk. And not necessarily in coding, but I was thinking in my science class. And they’re working through a challenge, and they’re all looking at this duck, and they’re talking to it. But I just love the the idea of externalizing your thought process and talking through it yourself so that you can hopefully arrive at a conclusion. But it’s such a great practice, and this is something that’s been around for a long time, apparently. So.

Aryanna Trejo (24:59):

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a real thing. And you know, you can go low-fi. It doesn’t have to be a rubber duck. You can have students talk to their pencils or their imaginary friends. That’s not the issue; the issue is, you know, talking to somebody.

Eric Cross (25:10):

I know you support teachers. But I just wanted to…I was just curious about your typical day, what that’s like. And then what you do, how you support ’em.

Aryanna Trejo (25:15):

So, at my previous job at 9 Dots, I was in there with the teachers in the classrooms. I was coaching our internal staff who went out to co-teach with teachers. And I loved that. And I had such a great impact on a local scale. But now at Code.org, I have a much broader impact. But I don’t get to interface with—that’s such a tech-y word!—I don’t get to interact with—

Eric Cross (25:42):

You work at Code.org! You get to—

Aryanna Trejo (25:42):

I know! But I’m a teacher at heart, forever, right? That’s my identity that I forged when I was 22 years old. And a typical day looks like opening up my computer, taking a look at my calendar. I often have meetings to talk about, different things that we’re doing to support our facilitators who go out to our teachers and lead their workshops for them. I recently worked on a product that was designed for CS principles, teachers, to onboard to the course if they weren’t able to get into an in-person workshop. And it’s completely self-paced, so it gives teachers an on-ramp into the course. And now I’m working on some in-person workshop agendas. So I feel really wonderful that my work is going out to thousands of teachers. But at the same time, I really, really miss talking to teachers. Because that’s something that energizes me so much.

Eric Cross (26:46):

When should students start learning computer science? I feel like we see it in this kind of narrow lane. Like, this is computer science if you make an app. Can it be more than that? As far as like the benefit of computer science? And—I guess two-part question—when should students, one, start being exposed to it? And then two, what are some of the benefits beyond just, “I wanna just make an app”?

Aryanna Trejo (27:08):

I taught coding to kindergartners. It can start as early as you as you want it to. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be on the computer. A lot of students that I worked with didn’t have computers at home, were interacting with computers for the first time. And that’s a huge barrier, of course, to a lot of teachers. But there are so many unplugged lessons that you can do to start to start to have students think about algorithms, which is just a series of steps to complete to solve a problem. As long as a student can use a computer, I think they can do computer science. There are products out there like codeSpark, where students—and Code.org has these products too—where students are moving an avatar around a board, kind of like a quadrant to…you know, they feed the directions to a computer and then the computer enacts it for them. And with that, they can learn algorithms. You know, that is computer science. And a lot of people don’t see it that way, but it really is. And it starts to set students up for more complex thinking as they move on.

Eric Cross (28:13):

One of the biggest underserved communities, geographically, are students in rural areas.

Aryanna Trejo (28:20):

Yep.

Eric Cross (28:21):

They can be reservations; they can be places just not an urban area. Is there a way to serve our communities of students and bring these skills in an unplugged way?

Aryanna Trejo (28:32):

Yeah. Yeah. If you typed in “unplugged computer science lessons” to Google, you’ll have a ton of hits. And there are so many students out there—not just in rural areas. But there’s incarcerated students. It hurts my heart to even say those words, but in urban areas too. Like in my classroom, where I only had four desktop computers. Access is a real struggle. And there’s things, like I said, instead of moving an avatar around a grid on the computer, I used to have an actual mat that I would take out to my kindergarten classrooms, lay it out, and it would have a grid on it. And we’d have one of the students act as the avatar and the rest of the students would give them directions to get to a different point on the grid. And there, you’re building an algorithm or just a series of steps. Like I said, it’s not some fancy term to solve a problem. And there’s multiple ways to solve that problem, too. And I think investigating that can be a really good way to stretch those lessons.

Eric Cross (29:32):

It almost sounds like an oxymoron, but this low-tech computer science strategy. Develop these skills and then transfer that once you have access to the tools.

Aryanna Trejo (29:39):

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it’s a good way for students who need kinesthetic means to start to understand something, or just different learning styles, to start transferring that over.

Eric Cross (29:53):

I probably have students in the classroom where those kinesthetic moving things would help be a great way—or WILL be a great way—for them to learn the principles and the fundamentals of coding. Instead of only giving the option to just do the computer, actually giving them some choice. Or giving them a way to be able to manipulate things. We’re still in the system of education that’s still very siloed. It’s been the same way for a hundred years. We got math and then we got science and we got English. I’m wondering, how can a teacher fit this into their daily lessons? And then, do you have any experiences or stories or things that you’ve seen, just really creative ways that you’ve seen teachers incorporate this? Outside the norm of, “This is a computer science class; we’re just gonna code.” But have you seen it branch out? In the trainings that you’ve done?

Aryanna Trejo (30:40):

I’ve seen examples of that. I’ve seen a teacher use Scratch to demonstrate different climates of California, and show the different climates. This past year for Hour of Code, my friend Amy—the one who helped me move to 9 Dots and at Code.org—she created this incredible tutorial called Poetry Bot. And it was a way to get students to match the mood of the poem to some of the elements that were happening in the stage. So they would have different backgrounds show up at different parts of the poem. When the words would show up, they would have different sprites show up. They would have, sometimes, sounds. Or the text would show up with different animations. So there are cross-curricular opportunities everywhere, if you can be creative enough to find them, or if you beg, borrow, steal from other educators who are doing this incredible work out there.

Eric Cross (31:36):

Yeah. I say this all the time, but I’m an educational DJ, not an MC.

Aryanna Trejo (31:44):

Oh yeah.

Eric Cross (31:45):

So MCs write their lyrics and DJs remix with things that other people have done.

Aryanna Trejo (31:48):

Absolutely.

Eric Cross (31:48):

I was like, I’m a DJ. I was like, all day. Sometimes I’ll write a lyric, once or twice, but most of the time I’m remixing things. So teachers, if you’ve been out there and you got an awesome interdisciplinary thing, or you’ve incorporated coding and it’s something that’s traditionally not seen, please send it to us. Share it with us.

Aryanna Trejo (32:03):

Yeah. And there are so many different places where you can find that. We have a forum for Code.org, but there’s also CSTA, the Computer Science Teachers Association. You can join your local chapter and get to know other computer science teachers out there.

Eric Cross (32:19):

I guess…to wrap up, I’ve been using Scratch programming, the MIT website. My students do the basic animated name, CS First, stuff. But over the years, I’ve noticed that my students are coming in with a higher level of sophistication in Scratch to where now the differentiation…some of my students are just doing very basic…and then I have other students who’ve created full-on video games with complex…like, you look at their Scratch page and it’s just an amazing amount of blocks and integrations and things that they have. Is there anything on Code.org that could be a next step? That takes them beyond, maybe like the visuals? And if so, what would be a good next step, to take students to advance them to another platform? There’s so many coding languages out there, I feel like. Or I might not even be thinking about that the right way.

Aryanna Trejo (33:20):

No, I think you are. You know, we have three different curricula out on our website right now. We have CS Fundamentals, which is probably more in line with what you’re talking about. We have a free CS Discoveries curriculum, and that is designed for, grades, I believe, 6 through 10. And that would be a really good entry point, for both teachers and for students.

Eric Cross (33:44):

There’s a lot of new stuff that I hadn’t seen yet, a few years ago.

Aryanna Trejo (33:49):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (33:49):

So I was really excited.

Aryanna Trejo (33:50):

One thing that I do know is that CS Discovery has just added an artificial intelligence slash machine-learning unit, that you can just pick up and give to your students. You don’t have to go in order with CS Discoveries, like you do with CS Principles. And I’ve gone through some of those lessons. They are really rad. And I would’ve loved to have learned that when I was in middle school or high school. So yeah, we’re constantly thinking of how we can make things one, relevant to our students, and two relevant to what’s going on in the world.

Eric Cross (34:20):

So would I be overselling it if I said, “If you go through this, you’ll be able to create an AI or a neural net to do all your homework”?

Aryanna Trejo (34:26):

You would be overselling it.

Eric Cross (34:27):

I would be? OK. So what I’ll do is, I’ll wait until the end of the school year, and then introduce it, and then by the time they’ve realized it’s not true, they’ll be eighth graders.

Aryanna Trejo (34:35):

There you go. Good old bait-and-switch.

Eric Cross (34:37):

You’re amazing. Thank you for serving teachers, and for being part of such a great organization that puts out great stuff. So much free curricula for teachers to be able to use. Especially nowadays we hunt and scour the internet for those types of things. And to be able to bring computer literacy into the classroom, and with your focus of serving communities of underrepresented groups, it feels good to know that not only is it high-quality material, but it’s also trying to raise everyone up. Because ultimately when we have more people trying to solve a common problem, we come up with better solutions. And I was talking to somebody who was a materials engineer somewhere in Europe, and he said one of the things about the U.S., As he was critiquing me on this flight, critiquing the U.S., He said, “One of the things about your country is that you have a heterogeneous group of people who, in a group, when you have multiple perspectives attacking a problem, you come up with more novel solutions.” He says, “That’s one of the great things, is that there’s not necessarily just a hive mind.” And I think that that’s one of the great things. We uplift different communities, and we uplift women, people of color, people who, have backgrounds that parents didn’t go to college but have these amazing qualities and strengths. And we put everybody focusing on the same issue. We come up with novel solutions that we wouldn’t have come up with if only select groups were trying to look at it and solve it. And so—.

Aryanna Trejo (36:22):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (36:23):

And we couldn’t do that without organizations like yours, that help empower teachers. So.

Aryanna Trejo (36:27):

Yeah! You really said it.

Eric Cross (36:29):

You’re coming to my classroom when you’re back in San Diego?

Aryanna Trejo (36:31):

Yeah! I totally will. Yeah. Let’s make it happen.

Eric Cross (36:34):

Last question. If you think back in your schooling, your own schooling, K through college, is there a person or a teacher that had a big impact on you? Or a learning experience that had an impact on you? And it could be, you know, positive or negative. But something that impacted you, even to this day, that stands out to you, that you remember?

Aryanna Trejo (36:56):

This is a big diversion from the topics that we’re talking about. But in grades 10 through 12, my drama teacher, Mr. Byler, who I still talk with, was such a huge impression on me. Really wonderful. And I couldn’t tell you the teaching moves that he did that were wonderful. I don’t know much about his management. But I can tell you that he gave me space to be confident, and grow into myself, through drama productions. They were high school productions, so they weren’t amazing. But I just really came into myself in high school, because I had the confidence to get on stage. And he was just such a wonderful mentor to all of us. So, props to Mr. Byler.

Eric Cross (37:39):

Shout out to Mr. Byler for creating space for Aryanna to fly! Thanks for making time, after your workday, to talk with us and to share Code.org with teachers.

Aryanna Trejo (37:54):

Of course. Happy to.

Eric Cross (37:59):

Thanks so much for joining me and Aryanna today. We want to hear more about you. If you have any great lessons or ways to keep student engagement high, please email us at stem@amplify.com. Make sure to click subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And join our brand new Facebook group, Science Connections: The Community for some extra content.

Stay connected!

Join our community and get new episodes every other Tuesday!

We’ll also share new and exciting free resources for your classroom every month.

What Aryanna Trejo says about science

“I would hear teachers saying things like, ‘Well I just can’t do coding, it’s just too hard for me.’ And I would ask them…Would you say that to your student about math or English? Be as kind to yourself as you would be to your student.”

– Aryanna Trejo

Professional Learning Specialist, Code.org

Meet the guest

Aryanna is a member of the Code.org Professional Learning Team. Before joining Code.org, Aryanna led computer science professional development for K-6 teachers and served as an instructional coach for new educators. She also taught fourth and fifth grade in New York City and Los Angeles. In her spare time, Aryanna loves taking advantage of the California sunshine, creating wheel-thrown pottery, and hanging out with her dog Lola.

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About Science Connections

Welcome to Science Connections! Science is changing before our eyes, now more than ever. So…how do we help kids figure that out? We will bring on educators, scientists, and more to discuss the importance of high-quality science instruction. In this episode, hear from our host Eric Cross about his work engaging students as a K-8 science teacher. Listen here!

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Integrating Code-to-Learn Experiences in Middle School Science Classrooms

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Math Teacher Lounge

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USBE Data Analysis for K-3 Reading Assessment Program

Introduction

mCLASS Assessment: Acadience™ Reading

How it works: Quickly identify the needs of each student and inform next steps with instant analysis, reports, and instructional planning tools included in the only licensed mobile version of the research-based Acadience Reading assessment.

  • Use short, 1-minute fluency measures for foundational reading skills.
  • Replace manual calculations with instant results and recommended activities.
  • Compare student progress with predictive, research-based benchmark goals.
  • Track progress and target instruction to individual student needs.
  • Support decision-making at every level using aggregate reports.
  • Translate class- and student-level reports into individualized instruction using the Now What?Tools.
  • Get a more complete view of early literacy skills with the new mCLASS:Early Literacy Measures (ELM).
Enrollment for mClass

Please review the Utah Enrollment for mCLASS document for important information about the rostering process for LEAs in Utah.

Benchmark Windows

The USBE has required that each Acadience Reading testing benchmark window occur within the below dates:

BOY — the first benchmark before October 14
MOY — the second benchmark between December 1 and February 5
EOY — the third benchmark between the middle of April and June 15

Benchmark windows for LEAs are set to the state benchmark window dates in mCLASS. Each LEA is to have 2-4 week benchmark period that is within the state benchmark window dates and LEA leaders are to share those dates with staff. The benchmark windows in mCLASS are set to the state benchmark window dates; not the LEA benchmark window dates and this can not be changed in mCLASS. If a student moves into your LEA and your benchmark window is closed, but the state benchmark period is still open, the student must be benchmarked. Should your LEA need an extension of a benchmark window beyond the close of the state benchmark windows, that must be approved by the USBE Assessment Department. Once the benchmark window closes, do not give the benchmark to a student, instead, educators can progress monitor the student on the measures they would have received a benchmark in order to get the students current instructional levels.

If you have questions regarding your current benchmark window dates, feel free to reach out to Amplify Customer Services at help@amplify.com.

Acadience Reading Benchmark Invalidations

Before you invalidate a benchmark probe, review the USBE’s list of acceptable reasons for invalidating on the Frequently Asked Questions: Acadience Reading Invalidations document. If a district/charter has a significant percentage of invalidations, contact and further action will be deployed. If you believe an invalidation is required, please contact your District/Charter Literacy Director. If they need support, they can contact Sara Wiebke, sara.wiebke@schools.utah.gov, to request an invalidation.

Progress Monitoring

The impact of progress monitoring

Progress monitoring is the most powerful tool we offer with regards to student achievement.

“Scores for Daze increase more slowly than they do for other Acadience Reading measures, so more frequent monitoring may not be as informative. For students who need to be monitored on Daze, we recommend monitoring once per month.”
Progress Monitoring with Acadience Reading 
© Acadience Learning
October 2012

The Acadience Reading authors recommend progress monitoring students in the Well Below Benchmark category once every 7-10 days (and once every 10-12 days for students in the Below Benchmark category).

Progress monitoring is the practice of testing students briefly but frequently on the skill areas in which they are receiving instruction, to ensure that they are making adequate progress. When students are identified as at risk for reading difficulties, they can receive progress monitoring testing more frequently to ensure that the instruction they are receiving is helping them make progress. (Acadience Learning/October 2012, Progress Monitoring Guide)

The purposes of progress monitoring are:

  • to provide ongoing feedback about the effectiveness of instruction,
  • to determine students’ progress toward important and meaningful goals, and
  • to make timely decisions about changes to instruction so that students will meet those goals.

How to progress monitor?

  • Select students for progress monitoring
  • Select Acadience Reading materials for progress monitoring
  • Set progress monitoring goals
  • Determine the frequency of progress monitoring
  • Conduct progress monitoring assessment
  • Access data through class and student reports
  • Evaluate progress and modify instruction.

The key to progress monitoring: Instruction should link to progress monitoring and progress monitoring should link to instruction. They should run parallel and merge as one to confirm student growth in reading.

Check your progress monitoring fidelity report in mCLASS to ensure you are on track with these students. For more information regarding progress monitoring guidelines, visit the official progress monitoring guidelines.

Support Team

Amplify Customer Services

(800) 823-1969
Monday to Friday, 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. MT
help@amplify.com

Educational Support Team

Pedagogical Questions
(800) 823-1969
Monday to Friday, 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. MT
edsupport@amplify.com

For more information, please contact:

Sarah McCarty
Associate Director, Educational Partnership
(812) 593-5776
smccarty@amplify.com

Donna Bright
Educational Partnership Manager
(303) 960-3772
dbright@amplify.com

Robert McCarty
Regional Director of Educational Partnership
(435) 655-1731
rmccarty@amplify.com

Cydnee Carter
Assessment Development Coordinator
(801) 538-7654
cydnee.carter@schools.utah.gov

Liz Williams
Elementary ELA Assessment Specialist
(801) 538-7542
Liz.williams@schools.utah.gov

Sara Wiebke
Literacy Coordinator
(801) 538-7935
sara.wiebke@schools.utah.gov

Krista Hotelling
K-3 Literacy Specialist
(801) 538-7794
krista.hotelling@schools.utah.gov

Christine Elegante
K-3 Literacy Specialist
(801) 538-7551
christine.elegante@schools.utah.gov

Julie Clark
K-3 Literacy Specialist
801-499-2515
julie.clark@schools.utah.gov

Melissa Preziosi
Assessment Data Specialist
(801) 538-7949
melissa.preziosi@schools.utah.gov

Resources

Helpful tips and guides
mCLASS:Acadience Reading tutorials
Technical resources

Amplify Enrollment This guide walks you through the necessary steps to complete enrollment using the manual enrollment tools on Amplify Home. It shows you how to manage staff, student, and class assignment information, and maintain the accuracy of your staff, student, and class assignments.

Devices & Requirements Ensure mCLASS is compatible with your devices and systems for optimal performance and support.

Remote Assessing

Videos:

Remote Assessment Guidance from the Acadience Team:  
mCLASS®: Acadience® Reading (formerly known as DIBELS Next)

Key Points:

Before you assess:

1. Determine how you will show student materials and score in mCLASS at the same time. 

  Description

Description

Recommended set up
  • One computer for video conferencing and sharing student materials.
  • One touchscreen device for scoring in mCLASS.
Modified set up
  • One computer.

Note: mCLASS app is optimized for touchscreen; scoring with a mouse may need more practice.

2. Familiarize yourself with the digital copies of student materials.

3. Schedule virtual meetings with students. To communicate with English-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email or video. To communicate with Spanish-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email or video.

4. Determine how you will handle scenarios where there’s a lag:

  Description
Record the meeting
  • Before the assessment begins, press the recording button on your video conferencing tool.
  • After the virtual meeting, listen to recording and rescore in mCLASS if needed.
  • Pick a decision rule for how to score ambiguous items and be consistent. For example, if you decide that you will give a student the benefit of the doubt and mark ambiguous similar sounding items correct when you can’t quite hear their answer, do this for all students you assess.
Use a phone
  • Before the assessment begins, call caregiver’s phone using your phone (type *67 before your number if you want your number to be hidden).
  • Ask the caregiver to press the speaker button. 
  • Mute yourself and your student on the virtual learning platform.

While you assess: 

1. Take the opportunity to connect individually with your students as they experience so much change. Don’t make the session solely about testing, and remind caregivers and students that the assessment is a way to see how you can best tailor instruction.

2. Make student materials visible to your student.

For Maze, choose the model that works best for you:

Enter results into the mCLASS web reports

  • Students complete online Maze during a video conference
    • Put a link to the student assessment site (mclass.amplify.com/student) and the student’s credentials into the chat box (learn how to generate student credentials in this video)
    • Ask your student to complete Maze.
  • Students complete online Maze outside of a video conference (caregiver support is needed with log-in)
    • To provide student credentials and instructions to English-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email and video. To provide student credentials and instructions to Spanish-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email and video.
  • Students complete Maze on paper
    • Locate the benchmark Maze Acadience Learning’s site.
    • Print a copy of the form you need (e.g. BOY) for each student in your class.
    • Send the form home in a sealed envelope with students, mail the form to caregivers, or have caregivers get forms via school-based pick-up. Provide instructions not to open the envelope until the student is ready to take the assessment.
    • Provide parents with instructions on how to proctor the assessment for their child. They need to:
      • Give the form to their child
      • Sit with their child and read the instructions and practice items
      • Tell their child to stop when 3 minutes has elapsed
      • Send screenshots of their child’s work via email or text, or return the completed form to the school in a sealed envelope provided by the school.
  Guidance
Acadience:Reading 

Use the share screen feature to display student materials on your screen.

Optional next step for measures that have student materials:

Zoom users: grant your student control of your screen so you can see their cursor as they read:

  • Click “Remote Control” and select your student’s name in the dropdown.
  • Ask your student to use their cursor to point to words as they read.

Note: For Mac OSX, you will need to give Zoom access in the Accessibility tab in the Privacy and Security preferences of your Mac. For more information on giving Zoom access in Security and Privacy, click here.

3. Score in mCLASS.

Student materials

  Benchmark Progress monitoring
Acadience Reading (formerly known as DIBELS Next) Available for free download on the Acadience Learning website

Utah – USBE Data Analysis for K-3 Reading Assessment Program – New

To view this protected page, enter the password below:



The curriculum effect

Research shows that students learn primarily through their interactions with teachers and content. Materials influence students directly, and they influence the way teachers teach. They are an essential part of the equation, with a proven and direct impact on outcomes. According to the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy report Hiding in Plain Sight, “Research suggests that, in the aggregate and for specific instructional programs, changing from ‘business-as-usual’ to a high-quality curriculum, or from a low-quality to a high-quality curriculum, can boost student achievement.” The report calls this overall impact “the curriculum effect.” 

Individual studies cited in Hiding in Plain Sight also show that: 

  • High-quality curricula increased student achievement in reading, math, and science from the 50th to the 60th percentile and higher: “a potentially transformative impact if aggregated across an entire class, grade, or school.” (Data from David M. Steiner et al., “StandardsWork: A Narrative Research Review,” Center for Research and Reform in Education; Institute for Education Policy, Johns Hopkins University, January 2017.)
  • Access to rigorous materials increased achievement for Black and Latino students (Card & Giuliano, 2016).
  • English Language Learners acquire knowledge and vocabulary faster when using grade-level content (with supports) (Zwiers, 2008; Walqui & Heritage, 2012).
  • Math textbook choice has a significant effect on test scores (Bhatt & Koedel, 2012 & 2013; Agodini et al, 2010).

A cost-effective approach

And high-quality materials don’t have to come with sticker shock. Early evidence suggests that switching to a high-quality curriculum is not only more effective, but also more cost-effective, than other familiar school-led approaches to boosting student success.

For example, a 2015 study from the Center for American Progress found that the average cost-effectiveness ratio of switching curriculum “was almost 40 times that of class-size reduction in a well-known randomized experiment” (Boser, Chingos, and Straus, 2015). 

High quality is not defined in a vacuum—it’s all about curriculum that supports teachers in the classroom. When teachers have high-quality instructional materials, they don’t have to spend their valuable time searching for resources and creating their own materials. They know they are using materials that have been developed and reviewed by researchers, academic experts, and teachers like them. They have curriculum that works harder so they can do what they do best: teach. 

S3-01: Science as the underdog, and the research behind it

A graphic with the text "Science Connections" and "Amplify" features colorful circles and curved lines on a dark gray background.

Get ready for season 3 of Science Connections: The Podcast!

In our first episode, we unpack the research around our season theme of science as the underdog with Horizon Research, Inc. Vice President Eric R. Banilower and  Senior Researcher Courtney Plumley. Eric and Courtney dive into the research they’ve found and their experiences as former educators to show how science is often overlooked in K–12 classrooms. We discuss how the science classroom compares to other subjects in terms of time and resources, how schools are a reflection of society, and what’s needed to change science and its impact on a larger scale.

We hope you enjoy this episode and explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page!

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Courtney Plumley (00:00):

We asked teachers how much science, professional development, they’ve had in the last three years, and nearly half of elementary teachers said none.

Eric Cross (00:10):

Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host, Eric Cross. I am super-excited to be kicking off the third season with the show. This entire season will be exploring the theme of science as the underdog. And we’re gonna make the case for science, by showing how and why it can be used more effectively. In the coming episodes, we’re gonna talk about how science can be better integrated into other content areas like literacy and math, and explore some of the benefits that you might not be thinking about good science instruction. But first, science as the underdog. I bet some of you out there feel like science is the underdog in your community at school. I know I have at times. To kick off this season, I’m gonna talk to two people who really studied this question by looking at the state of science instruction across the US. Eric Banilower is Vice President of Horizon Research and Courtney Plumley is Senior Researcher at Horizon Research. Eric was the principal investigator and Courtney an author of the latest in a series of studies called “The National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education.” We’re gonna dive into the findings of their most recent report to see what the data’s showing us. Please enjoy my discussion with Eric Banilower and Courtney Plumley. Courtney, hello. And thank you so much for joining us.

Courtney Plumley (01:25):

Hi Eric. It’s nice to be here.

Eric Cross (01:26):

And Eric, welcome.

Eric R. Banilower (01:27):

We’re thrilled to be here, so thank you for having us.

Eric Cross (01:30):

I was reading through the report. Four hundred…a very thorough report, 471 pages, I think, as I got it?

Eric R. Banilower (01:37):

And that’s only one of the many reports from that study.

Eric Cross (01:40):

Yeah. You all have done your work, so I’m really excited to to talk to you about this. And on this season of the show, we’re exploring the theme of science as the underdog. And I think a lot of our listeners, we feel like science is an underdog either in their school or in their district. But you’ve actually done some research on this, in a 2018 study, “The National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education.” So I wanna talk about this report. But first I was hoping you can kind of set the stage. How did you come to work on this report, and then, big picture, what were you hoping to find out?

Eric R. Banilower (02:10):

So the 2018 study that you just mentioned was actually the sixth iteration of a series of studies dating back to 1977. And we collect data every decade or so—you know, plus or minus a few years. And really, what we’re trying to do is get a snapshot of what the science and math education system looks like in in the nation. So my role grew. I started working at Horizon in about 1998, after teaching high school for five years in California. And then going to graduate school. And right about that time, the company was doing the 2000 iteration of the survey. And I worked on it with the team here at Horizon. And then we did it again in 2012. And I had a much more prominent role in that study, and became the kind of leader of the study. And in 2018, the most recent version, we just did it again. So the goal of this study is really to kind of examine key aspects of the K–12 STEM education system. And the main audience of the work has traditionally been policy makers, researchers, and practitioners who work at the federal, state, and district level.

Eric Cross (03:30):

So this study, you took kind of a sample size, but it’s reflective of trends that we tend to see across the nation as a whole. Would that be fair to say?

Eric R. Banilower (03:38):

Yes, definitely it is. It is a random sample of schools in the country. So we start with a list of all the public and private schools in the nation, and then do a random sample of those schools, and then work really, really hard to recruit schools to agree to be in the study. And that has gotten harder every time we’ve done the study, for many understandable reasons. And then once we have schools on board, we sample teachers within schools. So we don’t even survey every teacher in a school. It’s really a sub-sample. So that we can make inferences about the nation as a whole.

Eric Cross (04:14):

Makes sense. And so Courtney, what did you find out about the time spent on science instruction in US schools?

Courtney Plumley (04:22):

So, I’m gonna talk about elementary teachers to begin with.

Eric Cross (04:26):

Because that was your past life, right?

Courtney Plumley (04:28):

I am a former elementary teacher, yeah. So that’s kind of where my head is. And that’s relatable for me. Right? So we asked teachers, like, how many days of the week or weeks of the year that they teach elementary school. And fewer than 20% teach science every day of the school year. They kind of do one or two things, for the most part. They teach a couple days a week or they teach every day of the week, but only for, like, maybe six weeks, and then they swap with social studies and they kind of do that across the school year. Which is really different from, like, math, right? We also asked elementary teachers, how often do they teach math, and it’s every day of the year. Then we also asked them how many minutes they teach when they’re teaching, and we kind of did the math to figure out, all right, if they taught science every day of the school year, how many minutes would it be in a single day, so that we could make a more comparable comparison with math and ELA. If you were to work it out, how many minutes of science an elementary teacher teaches across the year, and break it down to per day, it’s like 18 minutes for the lower elementary grades, 27 for the upper elementary grades. Which is not a lot. But it’s pretty much an hour a day in math, and 80 plus minutes in ELA. So, a lot less. And then, you know, when I was teaching, the first thing to go was always science, right? If there was an assembly, if there was early release or whatever, that was the first thing to go. So those numbers might even be higher. Just because they aren’t factoring that kind of thing in, too.

Eric Cross (06:05):

So, now I’m curious. That is something that I’ve seen just anecdotally, science being the first thing to go. I feel like I’ve seen that almost…it’s almost become a meme, that I’ve heard that so often. Just in your experience, why do you think that is that huge disparity between the two?

Courtney Plumley (06:26):

Well, I mean, when I was teaching, I was teaching third grade. I had an end-of-grade test in math and ELA for my kids. I didn’t have one in science. So the administration said, “Hey, if you’re gonna drop something, drop something that’s not tested.”

Eric Cross (06:41):

Simple as that. And Eric, you, past life: physics teacher. High school. What did you see? ‘Cause our listeners run the gamut from elementary all the way up to high school. What did you see, as far as relative science instruction in the secondary level?

Eric R. Banilower (07:00):

Sure. You know, secondary is just a whole different situation than elementary. Rght? Because you have departmentalization. I taught science. I didn’t have to teach other subjects. And students had periods, and they still do, sorry, they still have periods, even though it’s been a long time since I taught. And you know, they rotate from one class to another. So all the classes were essentially the same length. So, you know, when I was teaching, it was about 50-minute periods. So in terms of minutes of a class or minutes on a subject, it’s not really different. But what is different is what students are required to take in order to graduate high school. One of the things we asked schools about in this study was how many years of a subject do students have to take in order to graduate? And what we saw was in mathematics, over half the schools in the nation require students to take four years of mathematics to graduate. OK? And the vast majority of the rest, about 44%, require three years in science. Most schools require three years. Very few require four years. And many, or a fair number, still only require two years to graduate. So the expectation of what students are taking is lower in science than it is in mathematics.

Eric Cross (08:20):

So you were seeing the same trend in secondary, essentially.

Eric R. Banilower (08:24):

Yes.

Eric Cross (08:24):

The amount of time devoted to the instruction of science…we’re kind of seeing it mirrored just across K–12 across the board.

Eric R. Banilower (08:33):

That’s correct.

Eric Cross (08:34):

And that’s across the country. ‘Cause the sample size represents teachers from Alaska, Hawaii, the South, SoCal, everywhere. So what’s been the reaction to that number? Like 18 to 20 minutes is…I mean, it’s, it’s half of my lunch at our school. What’s been the reaction to that number since this data has been published?

Eric R. Banilower (08:58):

I don’t know, Courtney, if you want to take that…

Courtney Plumley (09:00):

It’s a lot of what you just did. Like, what??? Like, how is it possible to teach all the things you need to teach in such a little amount of time?

Eric R. Banilower (09:08):

What’s really kind of surprising to me, though — though now that I’ve worked on three iterations of the study, it no longer surprises me, but it did at first — is that these numbers really aren’t changing since we’ve started doing this study. You know, people thought maybe with No Child Left Behind and the increase in accountability, time on science might actually go down, because there was more testing in math and English Language Arts. It didn’t happen. It was pretty much constant, that this has been kind of the state of science education for a long time.

Eric Cross (09:44):

So Eric, if I’m hearing you right: The past studies, we’re not seeing an increase or a decline. This has been this way for how many years, roughly, would you say? Since it’s been studied?

Eric R. Banilower (09:54):

You know, I’d have to go back to the 1977 report to get the numbers, but I’m gonna say since then, it has not changed much, if at all.

Eric Cross (10:03):

So this has kind of been entrenched. This has been the norm for almost for the career of a teacher, almost generationally. We’re looking at anyone who’s been in the highest levels of leadership to someone just entering the classroom, this has been the way it’s always been. This is kind of for many people what they’ve only known.

Eric R. Banilower (10:20):

Right.

Eric Cross (10:21):

Kind of become the norm.

Courtney Plumley (10:21):

We didn’t even have science when I was in elementary school. We had science on a cart that came by, you know, every other week.

Eric Cross (10:28):

Was that like a food truck, but like the science version of it? It shows up and does quick science and takes off?

Courtney Plumley (10:35):

And New York was, I mean — we always watched Voyage of the Mimi. I don’t know if you ever watched that. But that’s what we watched every single time the Science on the Cart came. So it’s like a marine biology show. Ben Affleck was on it when he was a kid.

Eric Cross (10:48):

<laugh> Really? For me it was, Mr. Wizard. For some of my students, even now, Bill Nye. You know, the Bill Nye show or something would come on. So what happens when you look at less wealthy districts? Is there a relationship between community resources and science instruction, or is it pretty much equal no matter what the district resources are, the school’s resources are? Did you see any data there?

Eric R. Banilower (11:12):

Yes. We actually did a lot of disaggregating the data by community type, student demographics in the schools, to look to see whether there were areas of inequities across the country. And, you know, one of the factors we looked at was kind of a measure of socioeconomic status. You know, wealth in the community. By looking at percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. And interestingly, in terms of time on science instruction, there is actually not a relationship between income level and how much time is spent at the elementary level on science, which actually surprised us.

Eric Cross (11:54):

Because you might have expected it to be the other way now. And granted, it’s 18 to 20 minutes, there isn’t much more to shave off off of that. But were there other differences, like when you compared those communities? Maybe it wasn’t the amount of science instruction, but was there anything else, like teacher preparedness, resources? Were there anything else that you did see discrepancies in? Or was it equal across the board?

Eric R. Banilower (12:13):

No, unfortunately there, there have been, and still are, a number of areas where community resources are related to pretty substantial differences in educational opportunities that students have. So, you know, we’re talking about the high school science requirements. One of the things that we saw was that high schools in less wealthy communities tend to offer less rigorous science courses than high schools in better-off-financially communities. So they may not be AP courses or second year advanced courses to the same extent that there are in the wealthier communities. That’s one big difference that we saw. Another one was what you were just saying about, sort of, the teachers who teach in these communities. You know, I think that for many years people have had a feeling that the best teachers go to the better off schools because it’s easier to teach there. Well, we see that the schools with the most poverty, they tend to have the newer teachers, who are just starting their career. They tend to have teachers who are less well prepared to teach their subject. And there’s a host of other differences we found. And you know, you mentioned the report being 400 pages. This other report that looks at these differences is also quite long, and, you know, identified a number of areas where there are these disparities in the system.

Eric Cross (13:43):

Well, we appreciate you synthesizing this for us, because this is super-important. And you’ve fleshed out a lot of things. And the fact that it’s driven by data, we as science teachers, we as scientists, being objective, really, really value that. Because this is actually validating a lot of the things that our listeners and myself, we experience anecdotally. But you don’t have a lot of things to network you. And sometimes, when you see this, you wonder if it’s just you, or is are other people experiencing this? And so as you start talking about this data, realizing, oh wow, this is not something in isolation. This is systemic. This is something that’s impacted. And then Eric, what you said about schools that were lower-income, that were under-resourced, and didn’t offer those advanced classes, what are some of the impacts of that, maybe downstream, of doing that? Not having those AP classes? I just kind of wanted to put that out there and ask you.

Eric R. Banilower (14:31):

You know, this is a really…this is a current debate right now, about what the goals of schooling K–12 should be. You know, are all kids meant to go to college? Should there be alternative paths? And you know, I know when I was teaching, I would have students say, “Why do I need to know this? I’m not gonna go into science. I’m not gonna study physics. Why do I need to take this?” And, you know, the answer I used to give them was, “You never know where your life is gonna end up and what opportunities you’ll have. And by having these educational experiences, you have more opportunities available to you. Whether or not you choose to go down those paths, you have opportunities. And when you don’t take this kind of coursework, you know, even if you don’t want to go to college, you limit your potential careers. Because so many careers nowadays require some technical knowledge, some knowledge of science, even if it’s not explicitly a science job. It is embedded in our society now. We are a technological and science-based society.”

Eric Cross (15:37):

It reminds me of something that I’ve told my students, that if you become a scientist, that’s awesome. I love that. But if you don’t, and you want to be a dancer or an actor or a lawyer or anything that may not be directly related to STEM, I want you to choose it because it was a choice, and not a lack of options. So as long as you’re choosing not to go in STEM, and you don’t make that decision because you can’t, or because you weren’t given the opportunity. So that’s how I’ve always had this mindset as a teacher. And I’ve explained it to my students. So if you say, “Cross, you know what I want to do, I wanna be an awesome chef,” which, you know, low-key that’s science, right? <laugh> Molecular gastronomy, we know that. But like, you be the best chef. But as long as you’re being a chef because you choose that, and you’re like, “I love science, but I don’t wanna go that direction,” we’re good.

Eric R. Banilower (16:26):

Right. And if you think about, a lot of social justice issues with pollution and climate change, and you look at which communities are more affected by some of these larger environmental problems and challenges, it tends to be the lower socioeconomic communities, the more poverty-stricken communities have worse water, have worse air quality. And so if, if people from these communities are going to make informed decisions about who they’re gonna vote for, about what policies they’re gonna support, those are science topics that you have to have some understanding in order to make informed decisions in your life.

Eric Cross (17:09):

Courtney, you were one of the Swiss Army Knife teachers. This is how I perceive it for elementary. You had to teach everything. And shout out to all of my elementary school teachers that have to be mathematicians and grammar whizzes and scientists and PE instructors and social emotional, all of those different things. you also looked at teacher preparedness. How did teachers feel about teaching science compared to other subjects like language arts and math? Did you see anything there?

Courtney Plumley (17:39):

We did, we did. And I’m glad you said, “How did they feel about it?” Because one thing that, you know, in a survey you can’t really do is capture how someone actually…how good someone actually…the quality of someone’s instruction. But you can ask them how prepared they feel. And you can even ask them like stats, like, “What did you major in in college?” You know. But you really are going on based on what what they say. So we ask them how prepared they feel to teach all the core subjects. And two-thirds of elementary teachers felt very well prepared to teach reading. They felt very well prepared to teach math. But when it comes to science, it’s less than a third felt very well prepared. And you know, like you said, when you’re teaching elementary school, you’re teaching all the subjects. But also in science, there’s usually four main instructional units in a school year. And they’re all from different science disciplines. So not only are you going on, like, “Maybe in college took a lot of bio classes, but I didn’t take any physics classes, and now I have to teach physics to my kids and I have no experience there.” So, you know, we also ask them how well-prepared they felt in these different disciplines. And the numbers are even smaller, you know. Fewer than a quarter felt very well-prepared in life science. And like 13% felt very well-prepared in physical science. So there’s definitely a big difference between how much teachers feel prepared for ELA and math versus science.

Eric Cross (19:08):

And just from a human perspective, when we don’t feel prepared for something, we’re not really gonna probably lean into it as much as we are into our strengths. Like, that’s just kind of how we are across the board.

Courtney Plumley (19:18):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (19:18):

I’m even like that with my own chores in the house. Or when I have things I need to get done, and I might not be as good at doing those things—it’s gonna be a heavy cognitive load; I’m gonna have to do some background research—I tend to find other areas to excel in. Like, I’m gonna be productive in this other area. I’m gonna really crush it here. But this other thing gets put to the back burner.

Courtney Plumley (19:36):

Totally. And the same reason I might skip science today, <laugh> ’cause it’s scary.

Eric Cross (19:41):

Yeah, exactly. But I love this book. <Laugh> Or we could do this math, and let’s really, really dive deep into it. Now, did you also look at professional development and instructional resources that are being provided?

Courtney Plumley (19:53):

We did.

Eric Cross (19:54):

And on the whole, how was the amount—and I’m seeing a trend here, so I’m kind of feeling like I know where this might go—but I wanted to ask it, did the amount of professional development and resources for science, was there much of a difference between that and other subjects?

Eric R. Banilower (20:10):

Well, I’ll start on this, and Courtney, feel free to jump in. You know, one of the things that we asked was how much kind of discretionary funding do schools devote to science and how much to mathematics? So, for consumables or equipment and supplies or computer software for teachers to use in the classroom. And it’s hard to compare, I think, across subjects because the demands for this kind of supplies, et cetera, is very different, I think, in science than it is in mathematics. Right? We have a lot of, you know, equipment for doing investigations, consumable supplies in science. And those things need to be replenished on a regular basis. It turns out, when we look at the data for school discretionary spending on this kind of stuff, the median school spends less than $2 per student at the elementary level on science, compared to over $6 for mathematics. At the high school level, it’s kind of reversed. Schools spend more money on high school science than they do on high school math. but even still, at the high school, it’s less than $7 per student. Which is not a lot of money being devoted to thinking about all the materials, supplies, chemicals, et cetera, that you need to teach science well, at the high school level. More disturbing is the fact that, you know, we were talking about inequities before, schools that serve less well-off communities spend less than schools that serve wealthier communities, by quite a big amount.

Eric Cross (21:46):

So essentially the per-student thing just kind of popped out to me: So, like, an expensive Starbucks drink is what we’re spending on science per student.

Eric R. Banilower (21:57):

At the high school level. Yes.

Eric Cross (21:58):

At the high school level. And I get those catalogs in the mail, from all of those big science companies. You can’t get much for seven bucks. At least, nothing high-level. And I know I do a lot of 99-cent store science. I go down the street, go to the 99-cent store. Thankfully we could do a lot of awesome science with just, you know, cheap things. But a lot of the higher level experiences, they’re pricey. But the experiences are so rich! And $7 at the high school level is nothing. It’s not much at all.

Eric R. Banilower (22:28):

Yeah. It is definitely, you know, kind of shocking to think about what we’re investing in our children’s future.

Eric Cross (22:37):

Now, just to put you both on the spot, ’cause I feel like that we’ve identified some…we’re seeing a trend here, we’re seeing a pattern. We’re talking about, you know, being science teachers. There’s a pattern going on here. Do you think it’s fair to characterize science as the underdog?

Courtney Plumley (22:52):

I think in elementary school, it is a fair statement. Because, like we said before, I mean they’re gonna preference math and ELA almost all the time. I mean, the other thing you’d asked a little bit ago was about professional development, too. And we do have some data on that. And we ask teachers, you know, how much science professional development they’ve had in the last three years. And nearly half of elementary teachers said none. And I know I didn’t have any science professional development. If I was gonna pick from among the catalog, I was picking one that I needed more, like math. Math and ELA. I keep making that statement, but just over and over, it’s the truth.

Eric Cross (23:31):

And going back to what you said earlier, because that’s where the accountability was, right? And that kind of came top-down.

Courtney Plumley (23:38):

Yes.

Eric Cross (23:38):

And influenced everything else.

Eric R. Banilower (23:40):

Yeah. Now, really interesting thing that we did, a year or so ago, ’cause someone asked us, you know, “Hey, could you look at this?” is we compared elementary science instructional time among states where science counted towards accountability versus states where science doesn’t count towards accountability. And at the upper elementary grades, more time was spent on science in schools in states where they had science accountability. Now I’m not arguing for adding science to accountability systems. But that’s a pretty telling piece of data.

Eric Cross (24:19):

What gets measured gets done.

Eric R. Banilower (24:20):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (24:20):

Or what was getting evaluated was getting done. And that raises, that opens up a myriad of other questions about testing, and what that reveals, and all of those different things. But at the end of the day, what you’re finding is that the things that were getting tested were the things that were getting the priority.

Eric R. Banilower (24:36):

That’s right.

Eric Cross (24:37):

How did we get to this point? And Eric, you said it goes back at least to ’77, but we look at society and we’re…I wanna say we’re post-pandemic, but we’re we’re not. but we’re trying to, we’re trying to get past that. But we’re looking at…we had innovations in biology, we have innovations right now in green energy and electric cars and all of these things that are STEM-based. We know that these are things that have moved humanity forward. And we look at the pipeline of people who are in STEM and we, we see the disparities and things like that. Why was science given less of a priority? I’m just curious. Maybe, Courtney, we could start with you, if you have any ideas. Or Eric. Either one. But how did we get here?

Eric R. Banilower (25:22):

<laugh> I think Courtney wants me to take that one. I’m older so I’ve seen more <laugh>. So, you know, I have the gray hair. She doesn’t. I think it’s complicated. And I know this sounds cliche, but but schools are a reflection of society, right? And, and so science education, you know, if you think back when Sputnik was launched, there became this great demand in America to improve and produce more scientists and engineers in response to this Cold War threat. Right? And then in the ’80s there was rising, oh, the gathering storm was an economic argument that we needed to increase science and math, you know, education and people going into those fields in order to compete economically against the global competitors. And I think that America has always produced a fair number, a large number, of high-quality scientists and engineers, you know. And we still lead the world in many ways. But where we’ve identified as a problem is who has those opportunities to go into those fields. You know, it used to be a very select, a very male-dominated, white male-dominated field. Right? And other people didn’t have the opportunity, or they were shown the way out pretty early. And we, I think, have come to realize as a country that, you know, the, the greater the diversity of thought that we can get into these discussions, the more innovative we can be and the more productive as a society we can be. And so I think we’ve had this shift in the country to, instead of thinking about just the quality for the select few, but to be thinking about the quality for everyone. And so that makes it seem like some of these challenges are greater than they used to be. And I think they’re different challenges, right? We’ve evolved as a society and I think schools have evolved.

Eric Cross (27:40):

There is a conversation I was in on a plane with a person who was a materials manager for a company that made the adhesive for sandpaper. And we were flying…I was flying to Denmark and he was flying to some other Scandinavian country. And we were just talking about it. And he came from another industry, and somehow the conversation led to science. I don’t know how that happened. But somehow I just started talking about science and I asked him about, Eric, kind of what you said about the US kind of leading the way in science innovation versus the rest of the world. And I asked him why. And he said one of the reasons why is because the heterogeneous thought. The different groups of people that are coming to a problem actually create more innovative and novel solutions. Versus when it’s more homogeneous. And everyone’s either culturally or just for whatever reason, kind of thinks a certain way. While they might have a more efficient way, the variety of solutions are not as varied and not as novel. I was reminded of that story based on what you just said. So it’s really interesting. So it seems to be that it benefits if we have more heterogeneous groups, more folks who are contributing to STEM, because that’s gonna be solving the next problem more efficiently. Or I guess maybe in my head it seems like the next we need…we do really well when we have a dragon to slay. I mean, it seems like we come together when that’s the case, right? Like, I dunno.

Eric R. Banilower (29:06):

No, I think that’s…I think that’s accurate.

Eric Cross (29:09):

Later on the season of the podcast, we’re gonna explore ways to better integrate science with other subjects like literacy and math. Were you able to study at all any more integrated approaches to science instruction? Does any of your research support that approach?

Courtney Plumley (29:25):

Not on the national survey, we didn’t study that. And it’s something that we’ve talked about before, because it’s difficult to get teachers to…we were talking about instructional time. It’s hard for teachers to put a number on it when they’re integrating, because, you know, it’s not like I have my science block from 3 to 3:30 anymore. Now it’s kind of scattered about. But it’s something that has been in the ether. We’ve been looking at it in a couple of projects. So there’s some evidence that it can be effective, especially for getting more, you know…the idea is you can get more time for science if you are integrating with other subjects. But one thing to kind of caution is like, students need to have opportunities to learn each discipline when they’re doing integrated instruction. So you don’t wanna just have, like, math in your science. Kids already know to just, like, support it. Then it’s hard to take time from math to put it into science when they’re not actually learning anything new. That’s the easy thing to do, though, is say, “Oh, my kids already know how to measure. We did that in a previous unit. So now we’ll we’ll do it as part of our science instruction.” So it’s a lot of work to make it so they’re learning something new, mathematics and science, at the same time. And it’s not really something that we think that teachers should be having to do on their own, with all the other things that teachers have to do. The last thing they need to do is be creating their own, you know, curriculum. Something that’s already…you know, it’s not straightforward. So we’ve been talking about it, we think it’s really something that instructional materials maybe need to be focusing on instead of teachers having to do that on their own,

Eric Cross (31:01):

Teachers would implement it, but asking them to create it is a whole different thing, and it’s a huge ask.

Courtney Plumley (31:08):

Yes.

Eric Cross (31:08):

Yeah. And, did I hear you right? So the ideal situation would’ve been the students learning a newer math concept, but embedded in a science kind of context? Or was that the better way? Versus, “I’m gonna take a math concept they already know and then just put it into the science setting?”

Courtney Plumley (31:26):

Well, if the idea is that you can get more science time if you’re, you know, integrating things, so you can maybe take time away from a specific math block by putting it with science, or whatever, then if the math is something that the kids already know, now you’re just taking away. I think that that has to be new in both cases, in order to justify having more time.

Eric Cross (31:49):

Right. Eric, in the secondary level, any thoughts on that? On integrating these disciplines together?

Eric R. Banilower (31:56):

I think, you know, just like at the elementary level, it can be challenging to do it well. When I taught, I taught my last couple years in a kind of school-within-a-school kind of situation, where our goal was to try to integrate science, mathematics, and language arts. And it’s hard to do that in a meaningful way. And we did not have curriculum materials given to us to help us do this. We were trying to figure out how to do this on our own, while we were teaching 200 kids a day in our subjects. Right? And five preparations. And you know, it’s a big ask of any teacher. And there are teachers who thrive on this and are great at this. And, you know, that’s one thing I wanna, make clear: our data is about the system, and we are former teachers. Almost everyone who works at Horizon is a former teacher. We have the greatest respect for teachers and what they do. And what our data is showing is are kind of like areas where the system isn’t providing teachers and their students the opportunities to do great things. I think at the high school level, there has been this idea of project-based learning where students are bringing together different skills, different ideas from across disciplines. And I think there’s, again, a lot of potential in doing that. But trying to develop those experiences so that they are doing service to the different subjects, so students are learning what they’re supposed to learn in English Language Arts, that they’re learning, important mathematics, and that this is in a science context, where they are getting to do and understand what science is and how science, as a discipline, operates…that’s just a really hard thing to develop.

Eric Cross (33:53):

So what I’m hearing—and I really appreciate the nuance in this, because it’s not a simple “Yes. Integrated is better,”—I’m hearing “Yes. Quality control.” “Yes. It needs to be written not by teachers; they’re the practitioners.” It’s “Yes. And,” not just simply binary. Which…it’s so easy to wanna chunk things and say yes or no on things. But this one seems a much more nuanced approach. And in a future episode, you mentioned project-based learning, we’re gonna try and talk to people who have thoughts on this. And I really appreciate that you talked about project-based learning, because also, how do you evaluate that? How do you evaluate whether or not it is high quality? Is this is something I see? You know, high-quality standards, highest quality science teaching, highly qualified teachers. It’s something that I see often. Now, based on all your research, this is kind of the 30,000-foot view. What advice might you have for people who are thinking about changing the way science is taught in this country? Which hasn’t changed since 1977, at least since we’ve been measuring it. Any advice for people who do want to act? Another way to ask, it might be, if you were given a magic wand, <laugh>, you have all power, what might you do if you can control the entire vertical system?

Eric R. Banilower (35:07):

Yeah, so a clarification, I do think science instruction has changed. It has evolved. I think there’s a lot of really good things going on in different pockets of the country. One of the challenges is bringing those good ideas and good practices to scale. Right? There are approximately 1.2 million teachers of science K–12 in this country. That’s a lot of people. And about 80% of those are elementary teachers who are responsible for teaching other subjects as well. So my thinking is often about, “How do we take what we know and that we’ve learned through decades of research is effective, and impact a large number of teachers, and therefore a large number of students?” And you know, Courtney I think has hinted at this already. And you’ve mentioned it too, Eric, is that teaching is a profession, right? And it’s a craft. But in no other profession do practitioners have the expectation that they’re developing their own tools and methods for their work. I know when I was in my teacher preparation program, and it’s still extremely common, one of the assignments perspective teachers are given is to develop a unit and develop a lesson, right? You don’t have doctors being asked to develop new treatments and new tests to use. Their job is to get to know their patient, assess what’s going on, and then using research-based methods to develop a plan of action, right? And I think that analogy works really well in education and is a way that we could have a scalable approach for kind of raising the floor across the country for the quality of science education. Giving teachers research-based materials, high-quality instructional materials, that they can then use and adapt to meet the needs of their students, would allow them to focus on getting to know their students, seeing what their strengths are, seeing where they have room for growth, and using the materials they’re given to help those students progress. And I think that is definitely a way where we could have a big impact at a large scale.

Eric Cross (37:39):

Courtney, same question: Magic wand, all power. You can change systems from the elementary perspective. What would you do? I’m assuming part of it’s gonna be changing that 18 to 20 minute time. But even for that to happen, what would you do? What would you change?

Courtney Plumley (37:57):

Well, I don’t know. Like, for it to change, I don’t know the answer to that. But yes, increasing the time would be great. And like Eric was saying, giving teachers— ’cause again, I’m coming in, not enough probably background in science—and then, you know, when I was, when I was teaching, we had one set of textbooks for the entire grade. Six classes, right? Like, share them. But third graders aren’t gonna read textbooks anyway, right? So instead I’m going to the teacher store. I’m pulling things off the shelf. And like, “OK, yeah, sure, I’ll use this.” And nowadays, teachers are going to Teachers Pay Teachers or whatever. Because I didn’t have anything good to use. So like Eric is saying, if I had instructional materials that were good instructional materials that were gonna teach my kids, that they were gonna be engaged, that they weren’t sitting and listening to science, but they were doing science, you know, and I had professional development to actually help me do it? That’s what I think we need to have. And I mean, I know there are some people out there that are working on that, but it’s not a lot. I mean, if you look at Ed Reports, they rate how well-aligned science curriculum are to standards. And there are two right now that have Ed Reports green lights. There’s Amplify and there’s OpenSciEd. You know, so there’s not much out there for teachers to use. And, so it’s hard. It’s hard. Where am I gonna go and get this stuff if it doesn’t exist? And so I’m making it up by myself. Which we already said is not the best use of teachers’ time, when they’ve got so many other demands on their time.

Eric Cross (39:27):

Eric and Courtney, listening to both of your responses, it created a visual in my mind. And Eric, I loved your analogy of…I started thinking of a chef, a welder, and a farmer. And I thought about the chef saying like, “You’re a great chef! Now, can you go farm, and make your own food, so that you can cook it?” Or the welder who has to make his own welding tools and go smelting. You know, making the different rods. I’m not a welder. But you know, all those different parts. Or the farmer who has to build his own tractor and innovate all that stuff. You’re absolutely right, the way you articulated that. And then Courtney, you essentially said, “Give them the tools and then teach them how to use it so they can go and actually be effective with it, because you’re in front of kids doing so many different things.” There’s only so much time in the day, and teachers want to do these things; they want to, but you end up having to triage when you’re asked to. Going back to Eric’s analogy, if you’re in the ER, but you’re also creating the vaccines and you’re also doing the research on which types of vaccines are gonna be the most effective, that’s, that’s a lot to ask. And so, I appreciate both your responses on that. Now, last question, what are you both working on now? This report came out in 2018. What’s, what’s next on the horizon? Actually literally, that’s no pun intended. <laugh> What’s next? <laugh> What’s next for, for you both? What are you working on?

Eric R. Banilower (40:42):

Well, you know, we would love to do another national survey, in a few years. We have to get funding to do it. And you know, that’s always something that takes effort and isn’t a guarantee. We’ve written grants to do these studies in the past, and there’s also the dealing with the reality of the situation. I think a lot of schools, still coming off the tail end of dealing with Covid, are overwhelmed. And we’ve had a hard time, I mentioned before, recruiting schools, and it gets harder every time, just ’cause they have so much on their plate. And I couldn’t see going to a school now and saying, “Hey, one more thing. Do you mind?” So I think we have to kind of wait a little bit for things to settle down before we can do another one of these studies. It just doesn’t seem feasible right now. But we’d love to in the not-too-distant future. Other than that, Courtney and I actually work on some projects together and some projects not together. One of the things that we’re working on together is a study of a fifth grade science curriculum that was developed by Okhee Lee at NYU and her colleagues, that is both aligned with the NGSS and purposely designed to support multilingual learners in developing both their science knowledge and skills as well as their language skills. And we’ve been working with the crew at NYU to study this curriculum and try to figure out, how well it’s working and under what circumstances. So that’s been a really interesting project that’s going on right now.

Courtney Plumley (42:26):

I recently worked on a report with the Carnegie Corporation in New York that actually I think, compliments what we’ve been talking about a lot. It’s about the status of K–12 education in the US—or science education in the US! <Laugh>—and so as part of that report we interviewed like 50 science education experts across the country. We surveyed teachers, people in the university settings, researchers, and everything to kind of get a little bit more update of the state of science education right now. And so a lot of the things we’ve been talking about, we still are talking about with the people in this report four years later. So, work in progress. <Laugh>

Eric Cross (43:09):

And again, going back to 1977, based on what Eric was saying earlier, we’re looking at these large systems, these systemic changes don’t happen overnight.

Eric R. Banilower (43:20):

That’s right.

Eric Cross (43:21):

It’s very slow-moving.

Eric R. Banilower (43:22):

That’s right. I would say there is progress. I think we’ve learned a lot. We are getting better. Are we there yet? No, we’re not happy with where we are. But I think, you know, I think it’s important to be hopeful about the direction things are going in.

Eric Cross (43:37):

Well-said. I agree. Courtney. Eric, thank you so much for unpacking that report that speaks to, that validates what so many teachers across the country are experiencing. And thank you for your advocacy for high-quality science education and your passion for supporting teachers and being that voice from a data-driven perspective of what teachers experience and then advocating for solutions for them. It’s super-encouraging for me, and I know it’s gonna be really encouraging for a lot of our listeners. So thank you.

Eric R. Banilower (44:10):

Thank you for having us.

Courtney Plumley (44:12):

Yeah. Thank you, Eric.

Eric Cross (44:15):

Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Eric Banilower, Vice President of Horizon Research, and Courtney Plumley, Senior Researcher at Horizon Research. For much more, check out the show notes for a link to the 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education. And please remember to subscribe to Science Connections wherever you get podcasts, so that you’re not missing any of the upcoming episodes in Season three. Next time on the show, we’re gonna start laying out the road map for using science more effectively. And we’ll start by looking at the how and the why of integrating literacy instruction.

Susan Gomez Zwiep (44:49):

When we look at Science First and build language development around it, the experience tends to be more authentic and organic.

Eric Cross (44:58):

That’s next time on Science Connections: The Podcast. Thanks so much for listening.

Stay connected!

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What Eric R. Banilower says about science

“Our data is showing us places where the system needs to provide teachers and their students the opportunities to do great things.”

– Eric R. Banilower

Vice President of Horizon Research, Inc.

Meet the guests

Eric R. Banilower is a Vice President at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI), and has worked in education for over 30 years. Eric was previously a high school physics and physical science teacher before he joined HRI in 1997, where he has worked on a number of research and evaluation projects. Most recently, he has been the Principal Investigator of the 2012 and 2018 iterations of the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, a nationally representative survey focusing on the status of the K–12 STEM education system.

A middle-aged man with light hair, glasses, and a short beard is smiling, wearing a plaid shirt. The photo has a circular frame with a star and decorative lines.

Courtney Plumley is a Senior Researcher at Horizon Research, Inc. She began her career in education as an elementary school teacher before starting at HRI in 2009. In her time at HRI she has worked on many K-12 STEM research and evaluation projects. Most recently, Ms. Plumley has worked with Carnegie Corporation of New York on mapping the landscape of K-12 science education in the US and is managing the field test for the OpenSciEd elementary materials.

A woman with wavy brown hair and a red top smiles at the camera, framed by a circular graphic with a star and accent lines.
A laptop screen displays the “Science Connections: The Community” private group page, with science-themed icons decorating the background and edges.

About Science Connections

Welcome to Science Connections! Science is changing before our eyes, now more than ever. So…how do we help kids figure that out? We will bring on educators, scientists, and more to discuss the importance of high-quality science instruction. In this episode, hear from our host Eric Cross about his work engaging students as a K-8 science teacher. 

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Amplify’s mCLASS®DIBELS® 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura selected as the early literacy assessment tool for Colorado schools

Brooklyn, NY (February 10, 2023) — Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today that the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has selected mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and the corresponding Spanish-language assessment, mCLASS Lectura, as its K–3 interim and diagnostic assessment. The 2012 Colorado Reading to Ensure Academic Development (READ) Act provides the state with the structure and resources to ensure Colorado’s students are reading at grade level by the time they enter the fourth grade. mCLASS will serve as the state’s READ Early Learning Assessment Tool (ELAT), providing educators with immediate access to the kind of data and analysis they need in order to support their students and provide for intervention where appropriate.

“Amplify is honored to partner with CDE on this important literacy initiative,” said Krista Curran, senior vice president of state partnerships at Amplify. “When teachers are provided with a reliable diagnostic tool, they are equipped with the data to better understand how to support all students in becoming confident readers. Having the kind of data, analysis, and instruction that mCLASS offers in English and Spanish is not only nice to have but also absolutely essential.”

CDE implemented a rigorous review process for this selection. The selection committee for this solicitation included educators and assessment professionals from several districts in Colorado as well as representatives from the Dyslexia Working Group.

mCLASS offers complete parity across languages, reporting, and robust instructional guidance. After each administration of the assessment to students, educators receive granular diagnostic observations, instant targeted groups and lessons for each. With this implementation, CDE educators can be certain they will retain access to all historical and longitudinal data from previous versions of mCLASS.

mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition is an integrated literacy system based on the Science of Reading and validated for universal screening, progress monitoring, and screening for risk of dyslexia. DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), which is automated through the collection of data through the mCLASS platform, is a widely-used series of short tests developed by the University of Oregon that assess K–8 literacy. DIBELS is an observational assessment collected by teachers interacting with students one-on-one, either live or over video. The assessment is typically administered three times per year (beginning, middle, and end of year), and is used to identify reading difficulty, monitor progress, and inform instruction, especially for struggling readers.

About Amplify

A pioneer in K–12 education since 2000, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our core and supplemental programs in ELA, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves. Our formative assessment products help teachers identify the targeted instruction students need to build a strong foundation in early reading and math. All of our programs and services provide educators with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of every student. Today, Amplify serves more than 10 million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.

Media Contact
Kristine Frech
media@amplify.com

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Navigating the shift to three-dimensional science teaching and learning

Students need science. They need it to succeed in school, and they need it to navigate the world around them—whether interpreting a weather forecast, perfecting a recipe, or troubleshooting the Wi-Fi.

But only 22% of high school students are proficient in science, and students in grades K–5 get an average of just 20 minutes of science instruction each day. For middle and high school students, access to advanced science courses is often limited. We’re not giving students all the tools they need to succeed in a world that’s increasingly shaped by science and technology.

Three-dimensional learning can help us solve that. This approach moves science education into the realm of discovery—where students learn to think and act like scientists.

But unlike hot water melting ice, shifting to this approach won’t happen in an instant! Don’t worry—we’re here to help.

Science learning: a pivotal moment

Many of us were taught science the traditional way: learning about the scientific world and how it works. (And many of us did ok!) But we know now that there’s a better way. Students need to figure out science the way scientists do.

This hands-on, problem-solving, three-dimensional approach (sometimes nicknamed “3D learning”) builds critical thinking, collaboration, and curiosity—all skills that are vital across school subjects and in life.

With content and lesson plans that focus on Science and Engineering Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Disciplinary Core Ideas, this model equips students with critical thinking skills and a deep understanding of scientific principles.

This shift started with the 2012 publication of A Framework for K–12 Science Education, which introduced the concept of three-dimensional learning. These principles, now embedded in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), focus on three major changes:

  • Helping students move from simply learning about science to actively figuring it out.
  • Encouraging them to explain natural phenomena.
  • Aligning science learning with English language arts and math goals.

By embracing these changes, educators can help students make meaningful connections across disciplines, setting them up for success in real-world challenges.

Driving and supporting systemic change

Transforming science education isn’t a quick fix—it’s a cultural and systemic change. To make it work and make it last, schools and districts need to focus on three key drivers: process, practice, and people.

  1. Process: Pinpoint challenges, create clear plans, and track progress.
  2. Practice: Build the infrastructure for three-dimensional learning, including aligning curriculum, offering professional development, and updating teaching practices.
  3. People: Communicate effectively, support teachers, and highlight science champions who can inspire others.

Real change takes time and deliberate effort. But with these elements in place, schools can establish lasting improvements and build elementary and middle school programs that benefit every student.

Amplify Science’s playbook to guide you

To help educators navigate this shift, our new Science Change Management Playbook offers practical, evidence-based resources for transitioning over time to three-dimensional learning. Here’s what you’ll find inside:

  • Evidence-based practices: Learn structured approaches to problem-based learning, backed by research that highlights their benefits for students and teachers alike.
  • Practical tips: Explore actionable steps for driving meaningful change, from crafting a shared vision to delivering effective professional learning.
  • Real stories: Read testimonials from students and educators who have experienced the transformative power of curiosity-driven, collaborative learning.

With this playbook, schools can build K–8 and/or middle school science programs that truly engage students, equipping them with skills they’ll use for a lifetime.

The move to three-dimensional science teaching and learning opens the door to deeper understanding, better problem-solving, greater curiosity, and—more and more—a world built by students who know how to think like scientists.

More to explore

  • Dive deeper into the shift to three-dimensional teaching and learning with our Science Change Management Playbook to help you navigate the shift to three-dimensional science teaching and learning.
  • Discover how to be a changemaker for science through additional change management resources.
  • Learn more about Amplify Science.

Inspiring the next generation of California scientists, engineers, and curious citizens

Amplify Science California is an immersive and engaging core curriculum authored by UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and built specifically for the California NGSS.

An illustration of a whale with jellyfish and turtles from Amplify Science

Program overview

Amplify Science California is a brand-new blended science curriculum for grades TK–8 that meets 100 percent of the Next Generation Science Standards and the California Science Framework. With Amplify Science California, students learn to talk, read, write, think, and argue like real scientists and engineers through investigations of real-world problems and scientific phenomena, gaining the skills needed to master the California NGSS.

In Amplify Science, students take on the role of a scientist or engineer and are introduced to a relevant, real-world problem. They engage in investigations using hands-on materials, reading selections, rich media, and more to draft, strengthen, and defend their claims about the unit anchor phenomenon and how to solve the problem.

The Amplify Science assessment system is grounded in the principle that students benefit from regular and varied opportunities to demonstrate understanding through performance. Read more about Amplify assessments in Grades K-5 and 6-8.

A powerful partnership

Amplify Science California was developed by the science education experts at the University of California, Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and the digital learning team at Amplify.

The logo for The Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley, features blue text on a light background and is recognized by educators using Amplify Science for middle school science programs.

The University of California, Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science is a recognized leader in PreK-12 science education, producing groundbreaking curriculum products for more than 40 years, including the international award-winning Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading®. The Hall’s curriculum materials are used in one in four classrooms across the nation.

Read more about The Hall’s research-proven Do, Talk, Read, Write, Visualize multimodal learning model.

The word "Amplify." is written in large, orange serif font on a light gray background.

Amplify has been pioneering digital education products for more than 15 years, empowering teachers across the country to offer more personalized instruction and accelerate the potential of their students to become more active, engaged learners. Amplify has supported more than 200,000 educators and three million students in all 50 states.

Designed in California for California

Since their release in 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have raised the bar for science education. Moving the focus of instruction away from memorization and toward active engagement and critical thinking, the standards teach students to think like scientists and engineers and grapple with core scientific principles, in addition to supporting deep learning of concepts that cut across science domains. Amplify Science has been designed from the ground up to meet 100 percent of the Next Generation Science Standards and respond to the instructional shifts called for by the National Research Council’s Framework for K–12 science education (2012).

Classroom Slides (grades K–8)

Digital collage of various devices displaying educational content about earth’s energy system, including graphs and text explanations.

Science time just got a whole lot easier. With our new Classroom Slides, you can put down the Teacher’s Guide and focus on what matters most—your students. Plus, with Classroom Slides, lesson prep is as quick as a click!

Classroom Slides are:

  • Available for back to school 2020–2021, for grades 6–8. Classroom slides are already rolling out for grades K–5.
  • Downloadable for offline use, which means no more sweating unreliable internet connections.
  • Streamlined for easy lesson delivery, including lesson visuals, activity instructions and transitions, animations, investigation setup videos, technology support, and more.
  • Fully editable, allowing you to incorporate your own flavor, flair, and favorite resources.

Classroom Slides are available as downloadable PowerPoint files to help guide you and your students through the lesson with images, videos, questions, and instructions. Slides for grades 6–8 will be released on a rolling basis over the course of the 2020-2021 school year. Below you’ll find a prototype from the Earth’s Changing Climate unit.

A brochure on K–5 slides can be downloaded here.
A flyer on 6–8 slides can be downloaded here.

Transitional Kindergarten

Amplify Science TK includes three units, one for each science domain: Earth science, life science, and physical science. The physical science unit includes an engineering design challenge.

Three circular icons representing Earth Science (sun over horizon), Life Science (butterfly and leaf), and Physical Science (book and magnet), each labeled below with its respective field.

Units are structured to allow you to make decisions about how best to teach your students and include options for whole-group, small-group, and center-based instruction.

Learn more about the program.

Start your review

If you have received Amplify Science California materials for review, fill out the form and select the course model you are interested in to access the digital Program Guide and supporting materials. For technical questions regarding your review, contact support at (844) 505-4621 or CAreviewersupport@amplify.com.

Welcome, Idaho K-8 Science Reviewers!

Thank you for taking the time to review Amplify Science. On this site, you’ll find all the resources you need to learn more about this engaging and robust NGSS program. Below, you will also have the opportunity experience our program firsthand with a demo account to access the digital platform.

Amplify Science for grades K–8 has been rated all-green by EdReports. Read the review on EdReports.

Collage of educational settings: top left, two young girls using laptop in library; bottom right, middle school science project display on tablet; bottom left, two boys with tablet discussing.

Overview

With Amplify Science, students don’t just passively learn about science concepts. Instead, they take on the roles of scientists and engineers to actively investigate and make sense of real-world phenomena. They do this through a blend of cohesive and compelling storylines, hands-on investigations, collaborative discussions, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools.

Listen to these educators share how the program empowers students to think, read, write, and argue like real scientists and engineers every day.

Grades K–5

Grades 6–8

Amplify Science Grades K-5 Tour for Idaho Educators

Amplify Science Grades 6-8 Tour for Idaho Evaluators

Proven to work

Click here to read about the efficacy and impact of Amplify Science.

Two young girls sit on the floor in a classroom, smiling as they read a book together. Classroom decorations and another student are visible in the background.

Program structure

Our cyclical lesson design ensures students receive multiple exposures to concepts through a variety of modalities. As they progress through the lessons within a unit, students build and deepen their understanding, increasing their ability to develop and refine complex explanations of the unit’s phenomenon. It’s this proven program structure and lesson design that enables Amplify Science to teach less, but achieve more.

Rather than asking teachers to wade through unnecessary content, we designed our program to address 100 percent of the NGSS and Idaho Standards in fewer days than other programs:

  • In just 120 lessons at grades 6–8
  • In just 66 lessons at grades K–2
  • In just 88 lessons at grades 3–5
A four-step process diagram with icons: spark a real-world problem, explore sources, explain and elaborate, and evaluate claims, all linking to engage with cohesive storylines.

Unit types

Each unit delivers three-dimensional learning experiences and engages students in gathering evidence from a rich collection of sources, while also emphasizing a particular science and engineering practice.

A laptop and two screens display educational content about ecosystems, featuring illustrated plants, animals, and experiments with colorful liquids.
Two young students sit at a classroom table, one holding up a clear cup of water while the other observes closely. Papers and pencils are spread out on the table.

Investigation units

Investigation units focus on the process of strategically developing investigations and gathering data to answer questions. Students are first asked to consider questions about what happens in the natural world and why, and are then involved in designing and conducting investigations that produce data to help answer those questions.

Two children play an educational board game at a table with worksheets, plastic cubes, and small containers of colored items.

Modeling units

Modeling units provide extra support to students engaging in the practice of modeling. Students use physical models, investigate with computer models, and create their own diagrams to help them visualize what might be happening on the nanoscale.

Two children sitting at a table with laptops are talking to each other in a classroom setting, with books and baskets in the background.

Engineering Design units

Engineering design units provide opportunities for students to solve complex problems by applying science principles to the design of functional solutions, and iteratively testing those solutions to determine how well they meet preset criteria.

Several open textbooks and notebooks are spread out on a table as a person writes in one of the notebooks with a pencil.

Argumentation units

Argumentation units are introduced at grade 3 and provide students with regular opportunities to explore and discuss available evidence, time and support to consider how evidence may be leveraged in support of claims, and independence that increases as they mount written arguments in support of their claims.

A person points to a photo in a textbook about coral reefs, with a laptop and notebook open on the desk.

Launch units

Launch units are the first units taught in each year of Amplify Science. The goal of the Launch unit is to introduce students to norms, routines, and practices that will be built on throughout the year, including argumentation, active reading, and using the program’s technology. For example, rather than taking the time to explain the process of active reading in every unit in a given year, it is explained thoroughly in the Launch unit, thereby preparing students to read actively in all subsequent units.

Three students at a classroom table examine a sealed plastic bag with food inside, while one looks surprised; another student stands in the background.

Core units

Core units establish the context of the unit by introducing students to a real-world problem. As students move through lessons in a Core unit, they figure out the unit’s anchoring phenomenon, gain an understanding of the unit’s disciplinary core ideas and science and engineering practices, and make linkages across topics through the crosscutting concepts. Each Core unit culminates with a Science Seminar and final writing activity.

Four students sit at a table using laptops, focused on their screens in a classroom setting with one student in the background.

Engineering Internship units

Engineering Internship units invite students to design solutions for real-world problems as interns for a fictional company called Futura. Students figure out how to help those in need, from tsunami victims in Sri Lanka to premature babies, through the application of engineering practices. In the process, they apply and deepen their learning from Core units.

Idaho Science Standards Alignment

Amplify Science was built from the ground up to fully embrace the instructional shifts outlined in A Framework for K-12 Science Education (2012), the same framework on which Idaho Science Content Standards were founded. Most grade levels’ respective set of Amplify Science units therefore fully address the necessary Idaho Science Content Standards (see correlation). Grade 1 teachers should plan to also use the companion mini-lesson provided below to achieve full standards coverage for their grade.

Grade 1 Companion

Standard: 1-LS-1.3 Use classification supported by evidence to differentiate between living and non-living things.

Recommended placement: Following Lesson 1.1 of the Animal and Plant Defenses unit.

Resources: Classroom Slides

Download Correlation

Science (K-2) Evaluation Form

Science (3-5) Evaluation Form

Science (Middle School Physical Science) Evaluation Form

Science (Middle School Life Science) Evaluation Form

Science Evaluation Form Middle School Earth and Space Science

A boy sits on the floor reading a book to a girl beside him in a classroom setting.
A butterfly flies above potted plants next to a watering can and a caterpillar on a milkweed plant under sunlight in a grassy field.

Needs of Plants and Animals

Domains: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Investigation

Student role: Scientists

Phenomenon: There are no monarch caterpillars in the Mariposa Grove community garden since vegetables were planted.  

A hand pulls a white string attached to a pegboard with rubber bands and a white ball hanging from the center.

Pushes and Pulls

Domains: Physical Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering design

Student role: Pinball engineers

Phenomenon: Pinball machines allow people to control the direction and strength of forces on a ball.  

Silhouette of a playground structure and toy train against a blue sky with clouds and two large yellow suns.

Sunlight and Weather

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Life Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Modeling

Student role: Weather scientists

Phenomenon: Students at Carver Elementary School are too cold during morning recess, while students at Woodland Elementary School are too hot during afternoon recess.  

Illustration of sea turtles swimming among underwater plants, with a shark and another turtle visible in the background.

Animal and Plant Defenses

Domain: Life Science

Unit type: Modeling

Student role: Marine scientists

Phenomenon: Spruce the Sea Turtle lives in an aquarium and will soon be released back into the ocean, where she will survive despite ocean predators.  

A hand holds a flashlight and shines it through a transparent sheet with an image, projecting the image onto a wall in a dark room.

Light and Sound

Domains: Physical Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering design

Student role: Light and sound engineers

Phenomenon: A puppet show company uses light and sound to depict realistic scenes in puppet shows.  

A split illustration shows a cityscape at night with a crescent moon and stars on the left, and a cityscape during the day with the sun, clouds, and an airplane on the right.

Spinning Earth

Domain: Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Investigation

Student role: Sky scientists

Phenomenon: The sky looks different to Sai and his grandma when they talk on the phone.  

A grey elephant uses its trunk to pick apples from a tree, with a few apples still hanging on the branches and a small sprout growing nearby.

Plant and Animal Relationships

Domains: Life Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Investigation

Student role: Plant scientists

Phenomenon: No new chalta trees are growing in the fictional Bengal Tiger Reserve in India.  

A hand picks up a red bean from a table scattered with more red beans, spilled white liquid, a cup, and a wooden stick.

Properties of Materials

Domains: Physical Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering design

Student role: Glue engineers

Phenomenon: Different glue recipes result in glues that have different properties.  

A building labeled "Recreation Center" stands near a cliff edge with a blue flag, surrounded by trees and overlooking a beach and water.

Changing Landforms

Domain: Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Modeling

Student role: Geologists

Phenomenon: The cliff that Oceanside Recreation Center is situated on appears to be receding over time.  

Illustration of a high-speed train traveling on an elevated track with a green landscape and blue sky in the background.

Balancing Forces

Domain: Physical Science

Unit type: Modeling

Student role: Engineers

Phenomenon: The town of Faraday is getting a new train that floats above its tracks.  

A group of wolves stands in the foreground, with a bear, elk, and several birds visible in a grassy, hilly landscape with scattered trees.

Inheritance and Traits

strong>Domain: Life Science

Unit type: Investigation

Student role: Wildlife biologists

Phenomenon: An adopted wolf in Graystone National Park (“Wolf 44”) has some traits that appear similar to one wolf pack in the park and other traits that appear to be similar to a different wolf pack. 

A small bird stands on soil, looking closely at a yellow snail, with green blades of grass on the left and a blue sky background.

Environments and Survival

Domains: Life Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering design

Student role: Biomimicry engineers

Phenomenon: Over the last 10 years, a population of grove snails has changed: The number of grove snails with yellow shells has decreased, while the number of snails with banded shells has increased.  

An orangutan hangs from a vine in a dense green forest with the sun visible in the background.

Weather and Climate

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Argumentation

Student role: Meteorologists

Phenomenon: Three different islands, each a contender for becoming an Orangutan reserve, experience different weather patterns.  

Illustration of city buildings at night with illuminated windows, a full moon, visible stars, and a silhouetted figure in one window.

Energy Conversions

Domains: Physical Science, Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering design

Student role: System engineers

Phenomenon: The fictional town of Ergstown experiences frequent blackouts.  

A streetlamp illuminates a cricket, which is watched by a gecko. Yellow arrows indicate the flow of light from the lamp to the cricket and then to the gecko’s eye.

Vision and Light

Domain: Physical Science, Life Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Investigation

Student role: Conservation biologists

Phenomenon: The population of Tokay geckos in a rain forest in the Philippines has decreased since the installation of new highway lights.  

Two dolphins swimming underwater, facing each other against a blue background.

Waves, Energy, and Information

Domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Modeling

Student role: Marine scientists

Phenomenon: Mother dolphins in the fictional Blue Bay National Park seem to be communicating with their calves when they are separated at a distance underwater.

Earth orbits the Sun in space, with dotted blue lines showing the orbital path and a white arrow indicating Earth's rotation direction.

Patterns of Earth and Sky

Domains: Physical Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Investigation

Student role: Astronomers

Phenomenon: An ancient artifact depicts what we see in the sky at different times — the sun during the daytime and different stars during the nighttime — but it is missing a piece.  

Illustration of layered red and brown rocky cliffs beside a flowing blue river under a partly cloudy sky.

Earth’s Features

Domain: Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Argumentation

Student role: Geologists

Phenomenon: A mysterious fossil is discovered in a canyon within the fictional Desert Rocks National Park.  

Red blood cells scattered across a dynamic, abstract red and white background.

Modeling Matter

Domain: Physical Science

Unit type: Modeling

Student role: Food scientists

Phenomenon: Chromatography is a process for separating mixtures. Some solids dissolve in a salad dressing while others do not. Oil and vinegar appear to separate when mixed in a salad dressing.  

Illustration of wind carrying airborne particles over a coastal hill, with arrows indicating the movement up and over the hill toward the sea.

The Earth System

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering Design

Student role: Water resource engineers

Phenomenon: East Ferris, a city on one side of the fictional Ferris Island, is experiencing a water shortage, while West Ferris is not. 

Illustration of a cheetah standing near plants, looking at a sloth hanging from a tree branch, with various foliage and mushrooms in the scene.

Ecosystem Restoration

Domains:Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Argumentation

Student role: Ecologists

Phenomenon: The jaguars, sloths, and cecropia trees in a reforested section of a Costa Rican rain forest are not growing and thriving.  

A rover stands on a rocky, reddish terrain with visible tire tracks leading to it; distant hills are seen under a hazy sky.

Geology on Mars

Domain: Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Launch

Student role: Planetary geologists

Phenomenon: Analyzing data about landforms on Mars can provide evidence that Mars may have once been habitable.  

Illustration of a city skyline at night with a large full moon, a few stars in the sky, and a bridge on the left side.

Earth, Moon, and Sun

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Astronomers

Phenomenon: An astrophotographer can only take pictures of specific features on the Moon at certain times.  

Illustration of a person wearing a red hat and winter coat with fur hood, eyes closed and arms crossed, surrounded by large orange circles.

Thermal Energy

Domain: Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Thermal scientists

Phenomenon: One of two proposed heating systems for Riverdale School will best heat the school.  

Abstract digital artwork featuring a large yellow sun with blue and orange rays over a colorful landscape with green hills and red horizon.

Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Climatologists

Phenomenon: During El Niño years, the air temperature in Christchurch, New Zealand is cooler than usual.  

Illustration of clouds above a small town with fields and mountains, showing wind patterns and atmospheric movement in the sky.

Weather Patterns

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Forensic meteorologists

Phenomenon: In recent years, rainstorms in Galetown have been unusually severe.  

An underwater scene with a large whale, several turtles, jellyfish, and fish swimming surrounded by shafts of light.

Populations and Resources

Domains: Life Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Biologists

Phenomenon: The size of the moon jelly population in Glacier Sea has increased.  

Low-poly illustration of a forest with trees, mushrooms, a rabbit, and a fox catching another animal under a blue sky with mountains and the sun in the background.

Matter and Energy in Ecosystems

Domains: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Ecologists

Phenomenon: The biodome ecosystem has collapsed.

Illustration of six spiders with different colored bodies and legs arranged in a chart-like formation on a dark background.

Traits and Reproduction

Domain: Life Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Biomedical students

Phenomenon: Darwin’s bark spider offspring have different silk flexibility traits, even though they have the same parents.  

Abstract digital artwork featuring vibrant colors, geometric shapes, a yellow human silhouette, and various patterns layered together.

Microbiome

Domain: Life Science

Unit type: Launch

Student role: Microbiological researchers

Phenomenon: The presence of 100 trillion microorganisms living on and in the human body may keep the body healthy.  

Illustration of a person receiving an oral examination with a tongue depressor and light, featuring abstract colorful shapes and an eye chart in the background.

Metabolism

Domain: Life Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Medical researchers

Phenomenon: Elisa, a young patient, feels tired all the time. 

A spacecraft approaches a large modular space station with blue solar panels, orbiting in outer space against a black background.

Force and Motion

Domain: Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Physicists

Phenomenon: The asteroid sample-collecting pod failed to dock at the space station as planned.

Green geometric background with a hexagonal badge displaying a parachute, ruler, letter A, stacked layers, bandage, and a folded paper icon.

Force and Motion Engineering Internship

Domains: Engineering Design, Physical Science

Unit type: Engineering internship

Student role: Mechanical engineering interns

Phenomenon: Designing emergency supply delivery pods with different structures can maintain the integrity of the supply pods and their contents.  

Two prehistoric aquatic reptiles with long snouts swim near the shore of a tropical landscape with rocks, plants, and an island in the distance.

Plate Motion

Domain: Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Geologists

Phenomenon: Mesosaurus fossils have been found on continents separated by thousands of kilometers of ocean, even though the Mesosaurus species once lived all together.  

Illustration of a volcanic landscape with mountains, trees, an ocean, and a cross-section showing tectonic plates beneath the surface.

Rock Transformations

Domain: Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Geologists

Phenomenon: Rock samples from the Great Plains and from the Rocky Mountains — regions hundreds of miles apart — look very different, but have surprisingly similar mineral compositions.  

Four low-poly dinosaurs, three green and one yellow, are walking in a row on grass with rocks and red spots on their bodies under a blue sky.

Natural Selection

Domains: Life Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Biologists

Phenomenon: The newt population in Oregon State Park has become more poisonous over time.  

Two large tortoises are near a river; one is on the riverbank reaching for leaves on a tree, while the other is on the opposite bank among grass and trees.

Evolutionary History

Domains: Life Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Paleontologists

Phenomenon: A mystery fossil at the Natural History Museum has similarities with both wolves and whales.    

Two people stand atop rocky terrain littered with electronic devices; inset illustrations show a boot, a person with electronics in a vest, and a radio.

Harnessing Human Energy

Domains: Physical Science, Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Launch

Student role: Energy scientists

Phenomenon: Rescue workers can use their own human kinetic energy to power the electrical devices they use during rescue missions.  

An orange popsicle melting in four stages from solid to almost fully liquid, set against a plain background.

Phase Change

Domains: Physical Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Chemists

Phenomenon: A methane lake on Titan no longer appears in images taken by a space probe two years apart.  

Green graphic with icons showing a swaddled baby, a thermometer, layers of blankets, a medical symbol, and a heat source within a hexagonal frame.

Phase Change Engineering Internship

Domains: Engineering Design, Physical Science

Unit type: Engineering internship

Student role: Chemical engineering interns

Phenomenon: Designing portable baby incubators with different combinations of phase change materials can keep babies at a healthy temperature.  

Digital illustration showing red and blue molecule-like circles on a blue background, with a boundary dividing two differently shaded sides.

Chemical Reactions

Domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Forensic chemists

Phenomenon: A mysterious brown substance has been detected in the tap water of Westfield.  

Illustration of people riding a roller coaster on a blue day, with arms raised as the car descends a tall loop against a sky with clouds.

Magnetic Fields

Domain: Physical Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Physicists

Phenomenon: During a test launch, a spacecraft traveled much faster than expected.  

Illustration of the Earth with arrows representing radiation or energy entering the atmosphere from space over the Asia-Pacific region.

Light Waves

Domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Spectroscopists

Phenomenon: The rate of skin cancer is higher in Australia than in other parts of the world.  

An illustrated polar bear stands on a small piece of floating ice in the ocean, with icebergs and an orange sun in the background.

Earth’s Changing Climate

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Life Science

Unit type: Core

Student role: Climatologists

Phenomenon: The ice on Earth’s surface is melting.

Hexagonal badge with icons including a wrench, building, sun, molecules, construction materials, screwdriver, paint bucket, and a letter T, all on a geometric blue background.

Earth’s Changing Climate Engineering Internship

Domains: Earth and Space Science, Engineering Design

Unit type: Engineering internship

Student role: Civil engineers

Phenomenon: Designing rooftops with different modifications can reduce a city’s impact on climate change.  

Access program

In addition to the grade-level sample boxes that we provided, we’ve also created custom demo accounts just for Idaho reviewers.

To access the digital portion of the program, click the link below, select “Log In with Amplify,” and then refer to the Start here digital access flyer for your personalized login credentials.

Access digital program
A spiral-bound teacher’s guide and a laptop displaying a digital curriculum, both titled “Balancing Forces: Investigating Floating Trains” from Amplify Science.

Tutorial videos

Check out these videos for support on how to navigate the Amplify Science curriculum website, teacher’s guide, materials kits, and more!

Resources

A teacher stands by a table helping four students who are working together on a board game and writing in notebooks in a classroom.

Course structure for K–5

Take a closer look at how the program is organized.

Two students sit at a classroom table working together with notebooks and a workbook, while other students work in the background.

Course structure for 6–8

Take a closer look at how the program is organized.

Two women sit at a desk; one types on a laptop while the other writes in a spiral-bound notebook. Both appear focused and are smiling.

Idaho Science Standards Alignment

See how we customized our instructional sequence to fully support the Idaho Scie…

A collage with Mars landscape art, three kids conducting a tabletop science experiment, an adult's hand holding a jar, and two people hiking in a bright field, illustrated style.

NGSS Earth Science Standards Map

A collage of four images: underwater animals, two students conducting a science experiment, hands building with plastic rods, and a colorful illustration of dancers.

NGSS Life Science Standards Map

A collage showing: a candle flame amid germs, hands measuring a ping pong ball with calipers and a ruler, hands with magnets and a ruler, and a stylized compass over a map of Earth.

NGSS Physical Science Standards Map

Two children sit at a table with laptops, facing each other and talking animatedly, surrounded by books and classroom supplies.

What’s so phenomenal about phenomena?

Learn actionable strategies that will help you implement 3-D teaching and learni…

Illustration of wind carrying particles from a coastal city up a steep, green mountain under a clear blue sky.

Unit phenomena for K–5

Take a closer look at the elementary unit phenomena featured in each grade level…

Illustration of a roller coaster car filled with people raising their arms as it rolls down a steep track against a blue sky with clouds.

Unit phenomena for 6–8

Take a closer look at the middle school unit phenomena featured in each grade le…

A slide with the title “What do you know about aquariums?” next to an underwater photo showing fish and a person swimming. Other science lesson slides are visible above and below.

Classroom Slides for K–5

Classrooms Slides for elementary are now available! These customizable PowerPoin…

A computer screen displays an educational simulation about Earth's energy system, with diagrams and explanatory text about energy entering and exiting the system.

Classroom Slides for 6–8

Classrooms Slides for middle school are coming soon! These customizable PowerPoi…

A computer screen displays an ecosystem selection menu with options for 3 or 6 animal populations, featuring illustrated creatures and labeled icons for each species.

Sims for 4–8

Take a closer look at the digital Simulations included at each grade level.

Two children sit on the floor in a classroom, with one boy reading aloud from a book titled "Gary’s Sand Journal" while a girl listens attentively beside him.

Literacy-rich instruction in K–5

Scientists do not just get messy. They read and write with purpose too. Explore…

A selection of colorful science-themed books and handbooks with illustrated and photographic covers, arranged diagonally on a green background.

Student Books in K–5

Read a summary of each of our award-winning K–5 student books.

A student reads about rock formations from a spiral-bound book while sitting at a table with a laptop; other students work together in the background.

Active reading in 6–8

Learn how we support students in learning how to interact with scientific texts….

Two children wearing safety goggles use plastic spoons to stir substances in clear cups, conducting a science experiment at a table.

Investigations for K–5

Explore the types of investigations that take place in elementary classrooms.

A person wearing gloves looks into a microscope, with laboratory supplies and bottles on a tray beside them, against a plain blue background.

Investigations for 6–8

Explore the types of investigations that take place in middle school classrooms….

Assorted materials including cardboard sheets, tennis balls, rubber bands, hooks, washers, ping pong balls, sticks, tape, string, and screws arranged on a white surface.

Materials Kits for K–5

See what components come in our materials kits!

Assorted science kit components including motors, batteries, propellers, solar panel, rubber bands, wires, plastic containers, metal fasteners, and spools of thread arranged on a white background.

Materials Kits for 6–8

See what components come in our materials kits!

A teacher stands at the front of a classroom, speaking to students seated at desks, with several students raising their hands to participate.

Approaches to assessment in K–5

Learn about our elementary embedded assessments.

Two students sit at desks, writing in notebooks while using laptops in a classroom setting.

Approaches to assessment in 6–8

Learn about our middle school embedded assessments.

Overview

With the Science of Reading at its core, Boost Reading blends compelling storytelling with research-based instructional practices to offer:

Personalized instruction across 13 different critical skill areas that adapts to each student’s needs while building on their strengths. Explicit practice in comprehension processes, phonics, and vocabulary. Extra support and scaffolds for struggling readers and English learners with demonstrated impact. An immersive game-play design that motivates students to discover that learning to read is fun.

Engagement is in the DNA: Every lesson and activity engages students through compelling storytelling and powerful narrative. Students persist longer and learn more deeply than when they are working on repetitive worksheet-like programs.

Instruction and practice: Boost Reading gives students practice as well as instruction in the key concepts they need to master. Our reading instruction and curriculum is interactive, not passive.

Emphasizes deep conceptual understanding: Backed by the latest research and designed with experts, Boost Reading focuses on ensuring that students have a deep understanding of the concepts. And those skills transfer from the program to the real world.

Boost Reading is a supplemental digital literacy instruction program that provides students with practice and explicit instruction in the underlying phonics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension skills that are essential for fluent reading with good comprehension (e.g., Cartwright, 2010; NICHD, 2000; Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2015).

The overarching goal of the program is to provide engaging individualized instruction and practice in the skills and strategies that have the most impact on literacy, while making it explicit to students that the skills they are practicing are things that good readers do while they are reading. As repetition with variety is an essential part of effective literacy instruction (e.g., Schuele & Boudreau, 2008), after a brief introduction to each activity, students are given repeated opportunities to practice these skills with varied stimuli. They receive immediate feedback for their responses and are given more explicit instruction in areas that are challenging. The instruction provided incorporates documented principles of effective instructional delivery; the activities engage students in multiple opportunities to practice critical skills at an appropriate pace with consistent feedback and prioritize student engagement and motivation, helping students to see their own growth toward reading goals (Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, & Tarver, 2016; Gersten, et. al., 2009; Deci, & Ryan, 2012.).

Activities build on an existing computer-based intervention that has been documented to improve the decoding skills of students in multiple experimental studies (Richardson & Lyytinen, 2014). Since learning is promoted when students use their knowledge across tasks (e.g., Merrill, 2002), generalization is encouraged through ebooks with embedded activities that reinforce skills recently practiced in related games.

Instruction is closely aligned with the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (CSSS) for literary and informational texts and the North Carolina English Language Arts standards. The program was designed to include content that is most effective at building the word reading and comprehension skills of elementary students (e.g., NICHD, 2000; NIFL, 2008), including at-risk and struggling readers (e.g., NICHD, 2000) and English language learners (e.g., August & Shanahan, 2006). The content focuses on foundational reading skills (i.e., phonological awareness and phonics) as well as vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Research also shows that by providing students with contextualized learning experiences and rich engaging stories, narrative-centered interactive learning environments increase student interest, self-efficacy, and feelings of involvement and control in their learning  (McQuiggan, Rowe, Lee, & Lester, 2008).

Over the course of our early efficacy study, kindergarteners using Boost Reading grew an average of 16% more than kindergarteners who didn’t use Boost Reading. First graders using Boost Reading grew 23% more than first graders who didn’t.

We compared students in kindergarten through fifth grade who used Boost Reading during the 2019 fall semester to students from the same district who did not use Boost Reading, using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, 8th Edition (DIBELS® 8th Edition) Composite Scores and Zones of Growth. We found K–5 students who used Boost Reading showed better growth on DIBELS 8th Edition Zones of Growth than those who did not use the product. Additionally, we found that the program was particularly effective for English Language Learners (ELLs). (DIBELS 8th Edition; University of Oregon, 2018)

You can view the study here.

Boost Reading allows younger students to progress through the curriculum along a pathway that best fits their developing abilities. Students are placed into the program based on prior data and the system maintains a rich profile for them as they master each skill level. Boost Reading also provides adaptive support, meaning that the degree of scaffolding, instruction, and practice adapts within each game based on student performance.

Students are served up content that’s appropriate for them within each quest. If a student struggles with a particular content set (3 failed attempts), the set is removed from the quest and presented to the student in a later quest after they’ve had more practice with the prerequisite skills.

When this happens, the teacher dashboard will indicate that the student is “stuck” through the class view and the student view.

If the teacher taps on the student’s name, they can see the specific content that the student struggled with. This allows teachers to provide additional support for the student. The progress bar will go back to green when the student has mastered the content set at a later date.

Classroom use

For younger students

Boost Reading is a supplemental reading curriculum designed to support a student’s development in key early literacy skills through play. The games in Boost Reading are meant to engage students individually on their own unique path. As a result, there are numerous ways you can use Boost Reading with your students.

We recommend you allow students to play for 10–15 minutes per session, 2–3 times a week in some of the following ways:

  • As part of a work station or literacy center
  • During reading blocks or choice time
  • With students not in intervention groups during intervention time
  • During transitions between periods (or at the start or end of school)
  • In a computer lab
  • In after-school programs
  • At home (students may use logins to practice on Boost Reading at home)

For younger students

Students propel the storyline in Boost Reading forward as they take on quests in Bookerton. This narrative is available in both English and Spanish. Students can toggle between the two languages through their settings menu.

In-Game Supports

In addition to the overall narrative, many of the games have features that support ELL students and struggling readers:

  • Many of the games have read-aloud text or are picture-based so that students can work independently, whatever their level of language proficiency.
  • Supports such as cognates are provided for vocabulary words in Boost Reading interactive Reader.
  • Boost Reading has games that cover phonics and phonological awareness, including at the syllable level, to support pre-readers who need robust instruction in these areas.
  • Boost Reading has games that provide explicit language instruction, for example connectives and anaphora, as well as strategy instruction in comprehension monitoring and morphology.
  • Boost Reading’s instructional methods (e.g., providing clear models, multiple opportunities to practice skills, feedback, cumulative review) and the skills and strategies taught in phonics, morphology, and language leverage techniques proven to help ELs learn how to read in English. Coupled with progressing Spanish-language support, Boost Reading ensures that all students can succeed, no matter what their first language is. Read more here.

Technology

Supported Devices and Network Requirements

To ensure that your hardware and network meet the minimum technical requirements for optimal performance and support of Boost Reading please see Amplify’s customer requirements page

List of IP Addresses to Allow

To make sure Boost Reading is accessible at your district, you can add the appropriate URLs to your district’s firewall allowlist. Visit the Amplify Network Access Validator to see the list of URLs and IP addresses.

Literacy Essentials, Episode 1

Science of Reading Essentials: Writing

In this special Essentials episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert pulls from past episodes of the podcast to give you everything you need to know about science-based writing instruction. Experts include Steve Graham, Ed.D.; Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.; Natalie Wexler; and Judith Hochman, Ed.D. Listeners will walk away from this episode with a solid foundation for creating a classroom of confident and capable writers, and gain a better understanding of the connection between reading and writing, the role of handwriting and spelling, the power of sentences, and the importance of applying cognitive load theory to writing. Download our discussion guide to fuel a professional learning session!

Join Science of Reading: The Community to connect with fellow educators.

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Transcripts and additional resources:

Access the listening guide—and other free, high-quality resources—at our brand new professional learning page.
Join our community Facebook group
Transcript

Meet Our Guest(s):

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Judith Hochman, Ed.D.

Judith C. Hochman is the former head of The Windward School and the founder of the Windward Teacher Training Institute in White Plains, New York, as well as the former superintendent of the Greenburgh Graham Free School District in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. She is the founder of The Writing Revolution, a not-for-profit organization which disseminates evidence-based strategies for writing instruction. Hochman is the author of Basic Writing Skills: A Manual for Teachers and co-author of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (2017, 2024).

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Natalie Wexler

Natalie Wexler is the author of Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning. She is also the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It and the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades. She has a free Substack newsletter called Minding the Gap, and she was the host of Season One of the Reading Comprehension Revisited podcast from the Knowledge Matters Campaign. More information is available at her website, www.nataliewexler.com.

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Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D., (Harvard University) is a professor at the School of Education, University of California at Irvine. She was a former classroom teacher in San Francisco. Her scholarship focuses on understanding language and literacy development and effective instruction for children from diverse backgrounds. Her areas of research include reading comprehension, reading fluency, listening comprehension and oral language, dyslexia, higher-order cognitive skills, written composition, and reading-writing relations. She has worked extensively with monolingual children and multilingual children from various linguistic backgrounds including English, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and Kiswahili. Her research has been supported by over $60 million in grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Science Foundation. Her work was recognized by several awards, including the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) by former President Barack Obama, the Developing Scholar Award, and the Robert M. Gagne Outstanding Student Research Award. She is an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow, and serves as the editor-in-chief for Scientific Studies of Reading and the chair of the California Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel (RDRSSP), appointed by the California State Board of Education.

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Steve Graham, Ed.D.

Steve Graham is a Regents’ and Warner Professor at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation. For 47 years, he has studied how writing develops, how to teach it effectively, and how it can be used to support reading and learning. In recent years, he has been involved in the development and testing of digital tools for supporting writing and reading through a series of grants from the Institute of Educational Sciences and the Office of Special Education Programs in the U.S. Department of Education. His research involves the development of writers with special needs in both elementary and secondary schools, much of which occurs in urban schools. Graham has received many awards for his contributions to literacy and was selected to the Reading Hall of Fame in 2018. He is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association, Division 15 of the American Psychological Association, and of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is chief academic officer of literacy at Amplify and host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Throughout her career, she has focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

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Quotes

“The Science of Reading encapsulates decades of research about both reading and writing—because if writing was never invented, we would not have to teach kids how to read.”

—Susan Lambert

"What we see with exceptional teachers is they have their kids write."

—Steve Graham, Ed.D.

“This is not learned by osmosis. And it's not learned by vague feedback like, 'Make it better,' or 'Add more details.' You've got to be very granular.”

—Judith Hochman, Ed.D.

Season 9, Episode 10

Phonology as a settled science, with Jane Ashby, Ph.D.

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Jane Ashby, professor in the Reading Science doctoral program at Mount St. Joseph University. The two define the concept of “settled science” as a jumping-off point before digging into phonology and the argument for not always basing your teaching practice on the newest research. Dr. Ashby touches on the impact of phonology on comprehension, the Matthew Effect, and why the term “instant words” is more accurate than “sight words.” You’ll walk away from this episode with two practical exercises Dr. Ashby recommends for teaching students to transfer oral segmenting and blending to reading and writing tasks.

Join Science of Reading: The Community to connect with fellow educators.

A smiling person with glasses and gray hair is featured in a circular frame against a background filled with book, pencil, and lightbulb icons, symbolizing the journey of reading and writing. This image perfectly illustrates themes from the Science of Reading podcast on teaching phonological awareness.
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Transcripts and additional resources:

Connect with Jane Ashby
Read: Phonological recoding and self-teaching: sine qua non of reading acquisition
More: The Four-Part Processing Model for Word Recognition
Read: Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy
Join our community Facebook Group
Connect with Susan Lambert
Want to hear more of Dr. Ashby? Listen to the bonus episode!
Transcript

Meet Our Guest(s):

Jane Ashby, Ph.D.

Jane Ashby, Ph.D.

Dr. Ashby’s reading journey started 30 years ago. She pursued an Ed.M. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, then taught adult learners who struggled with reading. This led her to deepen her instruction skills by studying the Orton-Gillingham approach at Massachusetts General Hospital. She supported teachers and students facing reading disorders in the Columbus area, then returned to school to study how readers get the words off the page during silent reading. She earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Massachusetts, and in 2009, joined the Psychology Department at Central Michigan University, where her eye movement lab investigated the role of speech processes in silent reading. She coauthored the book Psychology of Reading (2012) as well as several papers examining the role of phonology in silent reading. During her sabbatical, Dr. Ashby supported teachers in Vermont who were developing more effective literacy practices. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and outdoor adventures.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Throughout her career, she has focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Person with short blonde hair, glasses, and earrings, wearing an orange jacket, smiling in front of a plain gray background—committed to literacy education and fostering background knowledge for all learners.

Quotes

“To store a vocabulary word, it's not enough to have the meaning. You have to have the entry for it, and the entry for it is the sound form of the word.”

—Jane Ashby

“The greatest gift you can give a kid is letting them know that you see that they're special and that they have something unique that they bring to the world. But the second piece is really, can you help them become a confident, independent reader?”

—Jane Ashby

“ The practitioner doesn't necessarily want to follow the latest research, because you don't know if the latest research is going to replicate or not. Is it going to hold up over time or not? If you always follow the latest research, you can find yourself zigzagging a lot in your practice.”

—Jane Ashby

“There's a good 10 to 20 years of solid work that needs to be done just implementing what we already know from research, what is already the settled science.”

—Jane Ashby

Season 1, Episode 3

Teaching with resilience, starring Fawn Nguyen

Today on Beyond My Years, host Ana Torres learns from Fawn Nguyen, a math educator with over 30 years of classroom experience! Fawn tells Ana the story of her near-death experience being lost at sea while escaping Vietnam, and explains how it shaped the sense of gratitude she leads with in the classroom. She also discusses what it means to be yourself in the classroom, the importance of sharing your mistakes with your students, and the merits of practicing advocacy vs. authority with students. Taking all those lessons back to the classroom, Ana and Classroom Insider Eric Cross then discuss connecting with students through shared struggles and challenges.

Portrait of a woman smiling in front of a plain background, with a circular border and a patterned backdrop of books, apples, and stars—perfect for content on how to teach resilience.

Meet Our Guest(s):

Smiling woman with shoulder-length brown hair wearing a light pink collared shirt, posing in front of a plain grey background.

Fawn Nguyen

Fawn Nguyen is Director of STEM Initiatives at Amplify. Before joining our team, she was a math coach in a K–8 school district for three years, and a middle school math teacher for 30 years. She has received many accolades, including being named the 2014 Ventura County Teacher of the Year, Raytheon’s 2009 Math Teacher Hero, and the 2005 Sarah D. Barder Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She has also been a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at math conferences nationwide. In 2012, she co-founded the Math Teacher’s Circle in Thousand Oaks, California. From 2015–2018, Fawn served as a member of NCTM’s Professional Development Services Committee.

Meet our host, Ana Torres.

Ana has been an educator for 30 years, working in both the K–8 and higher education sectors. She served as an administrator and instructor at various public and private colleges and universities and as a bilingual and dual language teacher, dual language math and reading interventionist, dual language instructional coach, assistant principal, and principal in K–8 schools. Ana is currently the Senior Biliteracy and Multilingual Product Specialist on Amplify’s Product Specialist team, and delivers literacy and biliteracy presentations across the nation. Ana’s passion and advocacy for biliteracy and multiculturalism has led her to educate leaders, teachers, and parents about the positive impact of bilingualism and biliteracy in our world.

A woman with long dark hair and hoop earrings smiles at the camera while wearing a black blazer, standing outdoors—ready to discuss classroom challenges or share insights on her teacher podcast.
A man with short, closely-cropped hair and a trimmed beard smiles at the camera against a light gray background, ready to inspire diverse learners in the math classroom.

Meet our Classroom Insider, Eric Cross.

Eric Cross is a middle school science teacher who hopes to someday be a lifelong educator, like the guests on Beyond My Years! In each episode, Eric connects with host Ana Torres to discuss her guests’ best insights gleaned from their long and rewarding careers in the classroom. Then, Eric talks about bringing some of their wisdom into his current classroom and busy life.

Transcripts and additional resources:

Subscribe to Beyond My Years
Follow us on Instagram
Connect with Eric Cross
Connect with Ana Torres
Transcript

Quotes

“In my next lifetime, I would still teach, I would go back to teaching. That’s how much I love it.’”

—Fawn Nguyen

“It has to be an exchange. We can’t be just receiving, asking kids to be [themselves] and yet we ourselves are not.”

—Fawn Nguyen

“[Seasoned educators] are experienced and experience means good and bad. We want to learn from both. I certainly didn’t want a mentor who never made a mistake, ‘cause I’m not gaining anything.”

—Fawn Nguyen

“It’s about separating the behavior from the person. And another thing, separate what they don’t know at the time from what they’re capable of.”

—Fawn Nguyen

Season 7, Episode 2

The Science of Reading in the Montessori classroom, with Susan Zoll, Natasha Feinberg, Laura Saylor

For the second episode in our new season focused on tackling the hard stuff, we’re taking on a question that listeners have asked: how can we apply the Science of Reading in a Montessori setting? To help explore that question, we’re joined by the three authors of the recent book Powerful Literacy in the Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice. Listen to Dr. Susan Zoll, Dr. Natasha Feinberg, and Dr. Laura Saylor as they explore the shared qualities between the Science of Reading and Montessori approach. They share tips and guidance for literacy instruction both inside and outside a Montessori setting and end with an impassioned call to educators from all approaches to come together and learn from each other for the benefit of students everywhere.

Join Science of Reading: The Community to connect with fellow educators.

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Transcripts and additional resources:

Book: ”Powerful Literacy in the Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice” by Susan Zoll, Natasha Feinberg, and Laura Saylor
Book: “Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching” by Anita Archer and Charles Hughes
Transcript

Meet Our Guest(s):

Tres retratos de mujeres sonrientes dispuestos en forma triangular con un número siete escrito a mano entre las dos imágenes inferiores en un aula Montessori.

Dr. Natasha Feinberg

Natasha Feinberg, Ed.D. is an assistant professor at Rhode Island College in the elementary education department. She instructs preservice teachers in the areas of reading and writing as well as directs the Master’s of Education in Reading program. Dr. Feinberg has 17 years of experience as a reading specialist/literacy coach in the R.I. public school system. With an Ed.D. in curriculum leadership from Northeastern University, Dr. Feinberg’s area of expertise lies in the Science of Reading and teaching reading to all types of learners. She has worked extensively with Tier 2 and 3 literacy interventions identifying specific student literacy needs and matching evidence-based interventions and specific progress monitoring tools that address those needs. Her work focuses on supporting data-based individualization and data-based decision making.

 

Dr. Laura Saylor

Dr. Laura Saylor is dean of the school of education at Mount St. Joseph University. She earned her Ph.D. in educational studies with a concentration in educational policy and higher education with a focus in STEM education from The University of Cincinnati. Previously, she earned her Master of Education from Xavier University with a concentration  in Montessori Education.

Her 25 years of practical experience include teaching in inclusive and multi-age settings and serving as the head of school for an independent Montessori school. Laura is a frequent presenter at national conferences. Her research focuses include the importance of learning and reading science in teacher preparation as well as assessing performance of pre-service teachers in clinical experiences. Dr. Saylor’s interests also extend to best practices in educational assessment and collaborative work between P-12 and educator preparation. Her recently published research includes mathematics discourse with pre-service teachers and the effects of teacher-centered mentorship.

 

Dr. Susan Zoll

Susan Zoll, Ph.D., specializes in early childhood education serving in leadership roles on several U.S. Department of Education-funded early literacy initiatives (Early Reading First 2004, 2006, 2009; Early Childhood Education Professional Development grant 2006); Director of the Institute for Early Childhood Teaching and Learning (Race To The Top – Early Learning Challenge, 2014); and her current role as Associate Professor in teacher preparation coaching preservice educators at Rhode Island College.

Dr. Zoll holds a Montessori primary credential (AMS 3-6) having served as a Montessori classroom teacher, teacher trainer for the language curriculum, and a head of school. Currently, she serves as the co-chair of the American Montessori Society’s (AMS) Research Committee.

Publications include: Powerful Literacy in the Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice (Teachers College Press, 2023); Designing a Logic Model to Inform Montessori Research (2019); The Montessori Experiment in Rhode Island (1913-1949): Tracing Theory to Implementation over 25 Years (2017); Towards Social Justice: A Needs Assessment of Early Childhood Development In South Africa (2013); From “at risk” to “at promise”: An Evaluation of an Early Reading First Project (2012); and Sustainable Practices in Mentoring: Tools to Support Child Outcomes and a Mentoring Protocol (2011). Her work in the development of an assessment protocol has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education’s Doing What Works initiative.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Susan is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Susan is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Retrato de una mujer caucásica sonriente con cabello rubio corto, involucrada en un podcast sobre la ciencia de la lectura, con gafas, lápiz labial rojo y un collar de perlas.

Quotes

“Maria Montessori was a scientist first. She developed her methods based on science.”

— Laura Saylor

“Reading is the human rights issue of our era in education and we want all children to be successful.”

—Susan Zoll

“I encourage everyone, get together with your colleagues, talk about the different pedagogy, talk about the different strategies that are out there, because that is what is going to help us become better in the field of education.”

—Natasha Feinberg

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Season 3, Episode 1

Science as the underdog, and the research behind it.

In our first episode, we unpack the research around our season theme of science as the underdog, with Horizon Research, Inc. Vice President Eric R. Banilower and Senior Researcher Courtney Plumley. Eric and Courtney dive into the research they’ve found and their experiences as former educators to show how science is often overlooked in K–12 classrooms. We discuss how the science classroom compares to other subjects in terms of time and resources, how schools are a reflection of society, and what’s needed to change science and its impact on a larger scale.

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Meet Our Guest(s):

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Eric R. Banilower and Courtney Plumley

Eric R. Banilower is a Vice President at Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI), and has worked in education for over 30 years. Eric was previously a high school physics and physical science teacher before he joined HRI in 1997, where he has worked on a number of research and evaluation projects. Most recently, he has been the Principal Investigator of the 2012 and 2018 iterations of the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, a nationally representative survey focusing on the status of the K–12 STEM education system.

Courtney Plumley is a Senior Researcher at Horizon Research, Inc. She began her career in education as an elementary school teacher before starting at HRI in 2009. In her time at HRI she has worked on many K-12 STEM research and evaluation projects. Most recently, Ms. Plumley has worked with Carnegie Corporation of New York on mapping the landscape of K-12 science education in the US and is managing the field test for the OpenSciEd elementary materials.

Meet our host: Eric Cross

Eric Cross is a seventh grade science/technology teacher, grade level lead, and digital learning innovator for Albert Einstein Academies, International Baccalaureate schools. He is also an adjunct professor of learning and technology at the University of San Diego and a Google certified innovator. Eric earned a bachelor’s degree from Azusa Pacific University and a Master of Education from the University of San Diego. He had 17 years of experience working with at-risk youth and underserved populations before becoming a middle school teacher. By building relationships with students, colleagues, and the community, he has become an empowered leader in and out of the classroom. Through meaningful learning experiences centered around student agency, STEM has become accessible to students through highly engaging lesson design, thoughtful integration of digital tools, and pedagogy that engages students from all backgrounds.

Transcripts and additional resources:

Get your free SC study guide for this episode
Join the conversation in the Science Connections Facebook community
Transcripts

Quotes

Our data is showing us places where the system needs to provide teachers and their students the opportunities to do great things.

—Eric R. Banilower

Stay connected

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Season 8, Episode 7

Vocabulary is unconstrained, with Tanya S. Wright

As a writer of several books for teachers and parents, former kindergarten teacher, and current associate professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University, Tanya S. Wright, Ph.D., has maintained focus on a singular question: How can we most effectively work with students in the early education setting? In answering that question, Wright has researched and written on two interesting areas: vocabulary development, and best practices for literacy development in young children. Listeners will come away from this conversation with some great tips and strategies for developing vocabulary, working effectively with younger students, and integrating writing and vocabulary.

Join Science of Reading: The Community to connect with fellow educators.

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Transcripts and additional resources:

Read:A Teacher’s Guide to Vocabulary Development Across the Day: The Classroom Essentials Series
Read:Literacy Learning for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: Key Practices for Educators
X account: @TanyaSWright
Transcript

Meet Our Guest(s):

Tanya S. Wright, Ph.D.

Tanya S. Wright, Ph.D.

Tanya S. Wright is an associate professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. A former kindergarten teacher, Wright’s research and teaching have focused on early childhood and elementary language and literacy curriculum and instruction. The author of several books for teachers and parents, Wright’s work has been published in journals such as American Educator, The Elementary School Journal, The Reading Teacher, and more.

Wright was the winner of the International Literacy Association Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2012 and the Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award in 2022. Teacher and lead author of SOLID Start Curriculum, and leads the literacy integration team/serves as co-lead of the K–2 instructional design team for the OpenSciEd Elementary curriculum development project.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Her career has been focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Retrato de una mujer caucásica sonriente con cabello rubio corto, involucrada en un podcast sobre la ciencia de la lectura, con gafas, lápiz labial rojo y un collar de perlas.

Quotes

“We need kids to be able to sound out the words, but we also need them to know what they mean. Otherwise, the text won't make sense. So we really need to be working on both of these at the same time.”

—Tanya S. Wright

“Really value what kids bring to the classroom, even if it's not perfect yet, or if it's not exactly what adults would say.”

—Tanya S. Wright

“It's really important that we're thinking about purposeful, planned, and intentional vocabulary supports to make sure that everybody is included in the learning and can participate in the classroom.”

—Tanya S. Wright

“Realistically, kids love to learn big words. They make use of them. They don't really differentiate it. So that's an adult imposition, right? Which ones are the big ones or which ones are the hard ones? If we use them with kids, they will use them too. And enjoy it.”

—Tanya S. Wright

Season 1, Special Episode

Springing forward and looking back, with Ana and Eric

Today on Beyond My Years, host Ana Torres and Classroom Insider Eric Cross reconnect with three past guests—Fawn Nguyen, Rebecka Peterson, and Simone McQuaige—to explore key challenges from their early teaching days: classroom management, decentering oneself, and time management. Ana and Eric share their own experiences with these common hurdles, then offer a quick look at what’s ahead in Season 2.

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Meet Our Guest(s):

Smiling woman with shoulder-length brown hair wearing a light pink collared shirt, posing in front of a plain grey background.

Fawn Nguyen

Fawn Nguyen is director of STEM Initiatives at Amplify. Before joining Amplify, she was a math coach in a K–8 school district for three years and a middle school math teacher for 30 years. She has received many accolades, including being named the 2014 Ventura County Teacher of the Year, Raytheon’s 2009 Math Teacher Hero, and the 2005 Sarah D. Barder Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She has also been a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator at math conferences nationwide. In 2012, she co-founded the Math Teacher’s Circle in Thousand Oaks, California. From 2015–2018, Fawn served as a member of NCTM’s Professional Development Services Committee.

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A. Simone McQuaige

A. Simone McQuaige has dedicated 34 years to education within the Prince George’s County Public School (PGCPS) system. A proud alumna of PGCPS, she began her career as an elementary school teacher. She has since had various leadership roles, including mentor, teacher, reading specialist, and reading/English language arts instructional specialist, as well as serving as an adjunct professor. Simone is the supervisor of reading/English language arts K–5 and she leads the Elementary Literacy Support Team in the Office of Curriculum and Instruction.

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Rebecka Peterson

Recognized as the 2023 National Teacher of the Year, Rebecka Peterson is a math teacher who loves stories. Rebecka has been teaching for 16 years, the last 12 of which at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She believes that when we learn each other’s stories, we carry a piece of each other with us, enabling us to authentically advocate for our students, teachers, and communities.

In the midst of a challenging first year of teaching, Rebecka joined other educators in a daily practice of noting “one good thing” in her classroom. Together they found inspiration by embracing the motto: “Every day may not be good, but there is one good thing in every day.” This shift in perspective transformed her work. Rebecka now collaborates with fellow educators, emphasizing the importance of cultivating intentional joy as a means of sustaining oneself in the difficult but beautiful profession of teaching.

Meet our host, Ana Torres.

Ana has been an educator for 30 years, working in both the K–8 and higher education sectors. She served as an administrator and instructor at various public and private colleges and universities and as a bilingual and dual language teacher, dual language math and reading interventionist, dual language instructional coach, assistant principal, and principal in K–8 schools. Ana is currently the bilingual and multilingual specialist on Amplify’s product specialist team, and delivers literacy and biliteracy presentations across the nation. Ana’s passion and advocacy for biliteracy and support for all students from all walks of life has led her to educate leaders, teachers, and parents about the positive impact of bilingualism and biliteracy in our world.

A woman with long dark hair and hoop earrings smiles at the camera while wearing a black blazer, standing outdoors—ready to discuss classroom challenges or share insights on her teacher podcast.
A man with short, closely-cropped hair and a trimmed beard smiles at the camera against a light gray background, ready to inspire diverse learners in the math classroom.

Meet our Classroom Insider, Eric Cross.

Eric Cross is a middle school science teacher who hopes to someday be a lifelong educator, like the guests on Beyond My Years! In each episode, Eric connects with host Ana Torres to discuss her guests’ best insights gleaned from their long and rewarding careers in the classroom. Then, Eric talks about bringing some of their wisdom into his current classroom and busy life.

Transcripts and additional resources:

Simone McQuaige episode
Rebecka Peterson episode
Fawn Nguyen episode
Subscribe to Beyond My Years
Follow us on Instagram: @amplify.education
Connect with Eric Cross
Connect with Ana Torres
Transcript

Quotes

“ My biggest mistake early on was needing to have the last word.”

Fawn Nguyen

“ Something I really struggled with and actually took me several years to feel confident in [was] how to manage my classroom in a way that felt good and true to me.”

Rebecka Peterson

“Looking back, I realized it would’ve been so helpful to have learned how to set boundaries for myself, prioritize tasks, and definitely build time for my own self-care.”

A. Simone McQuaige

Season 9, Episode 13

Empowering instruction through mental models, with Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Young-Suk Grace Kim,  a professor at University of California at Irvine School of Education. Dr. Kim begins by defining a theoretical model, outlining its value to teachers as it pertains to literacy instruction. She describes her own interactive dynamic literacy (IDL) model, which seeks to more fully explain reading and writing connections. Dr. Kim emphasizes how reading and writing function as a powerful and closely related system, and examines how this system interacts with developmental phases, linguistic grain size, and reading and writing difficulties, including dyslexia. After navigating the complexities of this conversation, Susan ends the episode by sharing her unique insights and takeaways from her time with Dr. Kim.

Join Science of Reading: The Community to connect with fellow educators.

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Transcripts and additional resources:

Connect with Young-Suk Grace Kim on X
Read: Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills through Systematically Integrated Instruction
Read: Reading and Writing Relations Are Not Uniform: They Differ by the Linguistic Grain Size, Developmental Phase, and Measurement
Join our community Facebook Group
Connect with Susan Lambert
Spring Science of Reading Summit: The Deep Links Between Reading, Writing, and Language
Transcript

Meet Our Guest(s):

Woman with glasses and short hair in a blazer, smiling. Surrounded by a circular border with an illustrated book icon.

Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D., (Harvard University) is a professor at the School of Education, University of California at Irvine. She is a former classroom teacher in San Francisco. Her scholarship focuses on understanding language and literacy development and effective instruction for children from diverse backgrounds. Her areas of research include reading comprehension, reading fluency, listening comprehension and oral language, dyslexia, higher-order cognitive skills, written composition, and reading-writing relations. She has worked extensively with monolingual children and multilingual children from various linguistic backgrounds including English, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and Kiswahili. Her research has been supported by over $60 million in grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, the U. S. Department of Education, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Science Foundation. Her work was recognized by several awards, including the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) by former President Barack Obama, the Developing Scholar Award, and the Robert M. Gagne Outstanding Student Research Award. She is an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow, and serves as the editor-in-chief for Scientific Studies of Reading and the chair of the California Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel (RDRSSP), appointed by the California State Board of Education.

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert is the Chief Academic Officer of Elementary Humanities at Amplify, and the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Throughout her career, she has focused on creating high-quality learning environments using evidence-based practices. Lambert is a mom of four, a grandma of four, a world traveler, and a collector of stories.

As the host of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Lambert explores the increasing body of scientific research around how reading is best taught. As a former classroom teacher, administrator, and curriculum developer, Lambert is dedicated to turning theory into best practices that educators can put right to use in the classroom, and to showcasing national models of reading instruction excellence.

Person with short blonde hair, glasses, and earrings, wearing an orange jacket, smiling in front of a plain gray background—committed to literacy education and fostering background knowledge for all learners.

Quotes

“Theory is an explanation about how things work. …It's a structured framework, a mental framework, that helps us explain, and predict, and understand phenomena.”

—Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

“Theoretical models matter because they offer insights into the processes of reading and writing, as well as factors that contribute to the development of reading and writing skills and/or difficulties in development. Teachers' understanding of this will empower them to make decisions about instructional approaches.”

—Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

“Lower order skills are necessary for higher order skills—that means skills and knowledge have a series of causal effects. So if you flip it the other way—any challenges…skills—it's going to have a series of impacts on higher order skills.”

—Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

“A lot of educators understand that reading and writing are related, but I think as educators, we need to have a really precise understanding about it. We need to have a good mental model about how they're related and why they're related, so that we can use that knowledge to inform our instruction and assessment.”

—Young-Suk Grace Kim, Ed.D.

“If an educator goes to a professional development and learns about something like phoneme awareness…but you don't have a framework in which to attach it, you can sort of go down a rabbit trail on one thing instead of thinking about how it relates to the whole.”

—Susan Lambert

Amplify enters supplemental curriculum market

New York, NY – (June 25, 2018) Amplify, a company that creates next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today that it is entering the digital supplemental market in reading and math with two new supplemental programs, Amplify Close Reading and Amplify Fractions. These new supplemental products join Amplify’s growing portfolio of core curriculum and assessment programs for grades K-8.

“Digital supplemental programs in reading and math are widely used, but they’re often repetitive and focused on drilling students in skills versus developing conceptual understanding that take kids deeper and deeper into a particular field,” said Larry Berger, CEO of Amplify. “We have found that teachers and students love Amplify’s conceptually rich, story-based programs that provide both high-quality instruction and practice.”

Amplify Close Reading takes the form of a digital graphic novel adventure, engaging students in a suspenseful story while helping them master close reading skills covered by ELA standards in grades 6-8. Titled “The Last Readers,” the graphic novel is set in a dystopian future world run by machines that tell people what they can and can’t read. Recruited for the rebellion, students are trained in the powerful ways authors convey meaning and affect their audience.

Close reading, the practice of analyzing a text to determine what it says and how it says it, is a skill prioritized by recent middle school ELA standards, which have placed renewed emphasis on text-dependent analysis of literary and informational texts. Amplify Close Reading was developed in partnership with literacy expert Tim Shanahan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi­cago.

“I recommend it all the time to colleagues because it’s such a great program,” said Kris Wren, a 7th-grade ELA teacher at Central Middle School in New Madrid, MO. “My students are very focused when they are playing the program. They don’t realize they are building skills and developing close reading skills. They enjoy it and ask for it.”

Amplify Fractions covers math standards in grades 3–6 and offers a new approach to learning fractions through a blend of adaptive learning and interactive storytelling. Students learn fractions through playful storylines and real-world contexts, with lessons that adapt to individual student need. To ensure that students are set up for success in math, Amplify Fractions includes personalized feedback via digital tutor, along with unlimited practice opportunities.

A research team led by Carnegie Mellon University’s Robert Siegler found that 5th graders’ understanding of fractions and division predicted high school students’ knowledge of algebra and overall math achievement and that U.S. students’ inadequate knowledge of fractions and division is a major source of the stagnant growth in the subject.

“Fractions are one of the most difficult concepts for students,” said Rebecca Gilbreath-Levan, a 4th-grade teacher at Double Churches Elementary School in Columbus, GA. “With Amplify Fractions, I found a program that actually excites my students to want to learn and practice fractions. Students remembered the characters and stories in the program, which is a great thing to fall back on to remember the concept.”

Educators were able to sign up for the beta version of both programs for the 2017-18 school year. The full versions are now available.

Amplify entered the core curriculum market in 2012 with the launch of Amplify CKLA, a knowledge-based elementary language arts program. It launched its middle school Amplify ELA program in 2014 and its K–8 Amplify Science program in 2017. Amplify Close Reading and Amplify Fractions are the company’s first supplemental curriculum programs.

About Amplify
A pioneer in K–12 education since 2000, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our captivating core and supplemental programs in ELA, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves. Our formative assessment products turn data into practical instructional support to help all students build a strong foundation in early reading and math. All of our programs provide teachers with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of every student. Today, Amplify serves more than three million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.

Contact: media@amplify.com

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Amplify expands supplemental offerings with K–8 adaptive reading program

Brooklyn, NY – (3/15/19): Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today that it is expanding its offerings in the supplemental curriculum market with a new, highly engaging personalized reading program for grades K-8, Amplify Reading.

Based on the latest research on how children learn to read, Amplify Reading was designed with an advisory board of leading researchers and practitioners in the fields of early literacy and reading comprehension, including Jane Oakhill, Bruce McCandliss, Tim Shanahan, Kelly Cartwright, Art Graesser, Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, and Elfrieda Hiebert.

“Amplify Reading uniquely combines compelling, age-appropriate storylines with skill-appropriate instruction and practice driven by powerful adaptive technology,” said Melissa Ulan, senior vice president, Product, at Amplify. “Educators are seeing amazing reading progress with the program, in large part because students enjoy the characters and plot lines so much that teachers actually have to beg them to stop playing. We’re excited that the full K–8 program is now available for all educators to bring to their classrooms.”

Storytelling is at the heart of Amplify Reading, whether in an imaginative game world where a character that students create (called a Curioso) grows as their reading skills grow (grades K–1) or as a rebel fighter in a dystopian graphic novel (grades 6–8). The program was created with reading experts, game designers, educators, and students to be hyper-engaging and uses a patented algorithm to offer innovative adaptive instruction. This technology, combined with the engaging story world, ensures that students are working on the skills they need at the right time while embedded in an age-appropriate narrative. The program contains more than 50 research-based games mapped to specific reading skills and standards, authentic texts allowing students to apply their new reading skills, and robust teacher support tools, including an easy reporting dashboard and PDFs for additional teacher-led instruction.

“This program is extremely engaging and interactive for each student,” said Brittany, a 2nd-grade teacher in Utah who used an early version of Amplify Reading. “They begged to get on Amplify Reading, and they cried when it was time to log off! This program is a great addition to our curriculum.”

Amplify entered the core curriculum market in 2012 with the launch of Amplify CKLA, a knowledge-based elementary language arts program. It launched its middle school Amplify ELA program in 2014 and its K–8 Amplify Science program in 2017. Amplify introduced pilot versions of supplemental digital reading programs for grades K–2 and 6–8 for the 2017–2018 school year (the 6–8 version was formerly called Amplify Close Reading). The full Amplify Reading program now offers reading instruction and practice for all K–8 reading standards.

Amplify also offers mCLASS: Amplify Reading Edition, which combines its gold-standard assessment program, mCLASS, with adaptive instruction through Amplify Reading. mCLASS: Amplify Reading Edition is a seamlessly integrated early literacy solution with universal screening and personalized learning designed to support all students in learning to read on grade level by the end of elementary school. Amplify Reading is also compatible with Amplify’s K–5 ELA core curriculum, Amplify CKLA. Amplify Reading’s flexible, student-driven structure can be used in a number of ways to supplement Amplify CKLA’s core instruction—from reinforcing a unit’s key skills, to offering additional support, to providing academic enrichment.

About Amplify

A pioneer in K–12 education since 2000, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our captivating core and supplemental programs in ELA, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves. Our formative assessment products turn data into practical instructional support to help all students build a strong foundation in early reading and math. All of our programs provide teachers with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of every student. Today, Amplify serves more than four million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.

Contact: media@amplify.com

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