Welcome, Amplify Desmos Math families

Introducing Amplify Desmos Math

Amplify Desmos Math is a core math curriculum for prekindergarten through grade 12. We believe that a structured approach to problem-based learning builds on students’ curiosity to develop lasting grade-level understanding.

The Amplify Desmos Math curriculum uses student-centered instruction. In every lesson, students solve engaging and relevant problems, think critically, work collaboratively, and actively participate in their own learning.

Explore grade-level resources:

Student centered, teacher guided

In Amplify Desmos Math, students work on problems and share their thinking, while teachers guide the learning throughout with purposeful questions, feedback, discussion, and direct instruction. Ongoing practice and application opportunities build fluency and lasting mathematical understanding.

This approach helps students:

• Use prior knowledge as a foundation on which to build new skills and understandings.
• Build conceptual understanding by making connections across ideas, representations, and strategies.
• Develop procedural fluency through explicit modeling, guided practice, feedback, and independent practice.
• Apply what they learn to new mathematical situations.
• Persevere through challenging problems.

What the research tells us

• Independent third-party studies show that the student-centered, teacher-guided instruction of Desmos Math helps students learn more math.
• Districts around the country are experiencing success with Amplify Desmos Math.

Components of a lesson

A typical Amplify Desmos Math lesson includes:

• Warm-Up: An open-ended question or interaction to draw students into the lesson and reveal students’ prior knowledge and ideas.
• Activities: One to three activities that make up the heart of each lesson. Lesson activities use a Launch-Monitor-Connect framework where the teacher introduces a problem, strategically monitors students as they work, and connects student ideas to a Key Takeaway through direct instruction. Activities provide opportunities to build understanding, develop fluency, and apply mathematics to real-world situations.
• Synthesis: Teachers ensure that students end the lesson with accurate and enduring understandings of the math goal through a synthesis of student ideas, direct instruction, and reflection.
• Show What You Know: A check for understanding focused on key concepts from the lesson enables students to demonstrate what they have learned.
• Practice to reinforce the lesson:
  • Centers (grades K–5 only): Student-led game-based stations build fluency by reinforcing the math learned during lesson activities. In Kindergarten and Grade 1, Centers are built into the last 15 minutes of every lesson.
  • Lesson Practice: Additional problems available in the Student Edition for every lesson, including practice about the current lesson and review from previous lessons and units.
  • Fluency Practice: An online practice tool available to all students to build fact and skill fluency. The evidence-based approach of spaced repetition is used to promote memory retention of basic facts.

Get more information.

Have a question about Amplify Desmos Math? Visit our help library to search for articles with answers to your program questions. For additional support, please contact your student’s teacher.

Does your child’s class also use mCLASS Math assessments? Explore the mCLASS Math Caregiver Hub to find additional resources and support!