Core STEM programs: Strengthen sessions
Professional development sets teachers and leaders up for success, whether they are new to or experienced with a program. Each Strengthen session promotes a deeper understanding of the program through targeted instructional practices.
Explore STEM Strengthen sessions by program below.
About Strengthen sessions
Support Amplify implementation with sessions that target specific instructional practices for teachers and leaders in year one and beyond. When you’re ready to schedule your Strengthen session, contact us. An Amplify expert will support you in selecting the session that best fits your needs to push student results forward.
Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as enhancements.
Desmos Math
Desmos Math lessons are powerful in their ability to elicit student thinking and spark interesting and productive discussions. The lessons are intuitive, memorable, and effective, which means you can spend less time searching for new resources and more time teaching. Desmos Math 6–8 has been reviewed by EdReports and received perfect, all-green scores.
Explore the Desmos Math sessions (grade bands 6–Algebra 1) for Begin packages and beyond. Select the session title or scroll to learn more about each session.
Begin packages
| Strengthen sessions |
| On-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 15, on-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 10 package (10 hr.) |
Hybrid 15, virtual package (15 hr.) |
Virtual package (7 hr.) |
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| One session per package | On-site 3 hr. sessions |
On-site 3 hr. sessions |
Virtual 1 hr. session |
Virtual 3 hr. sessions |
Virtual 1 hr. session |
| Enhancing planning |  |
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| Enhancing practice |
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| Enhancing observations for leaders | |
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| Unit-level planning |
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| Lesson-level planning |
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| Instructional Routines: Number Talks, Notice and Wonder | |
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Begin: Enhancing planning for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Dive into planning an upcoming Desmos Math lesson using curriculum resources and new protocols. Leave with a greater understanding of your unit story and a roadmap of an upcoming lesson to guide student learning, make connections across lessons, and measure student mastery of learning goals.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Enhancing practice for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn how to use Desmos Math Teacher Dashboard features, such as anonymizing, pacing, and pausing, to create engagement at the start of activities, sustain learning in the middle, and summarize student thinking at the end. Leave with a deeper understanding of how each of these tools can create a classroom culture that promotes critical thinking and student discourse.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Enhancing observations for leaders
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn to use our non-evaluative classroom look-for tool for Desmos Math to promote the use of instructional resources, focus on instructional delivery, and monitor instruction. Leave with an action plan for collecting and analyzing observation data to support teachers in their implementation of Desmos Math.
Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Unit-level planning
Virtual, 1 hour
Dive into lesson-level planning as you learn how to create a roadmap for a lesson that guides student learning, makes connections across lessons, and measures student understanding of the learning goals in Desmos Math.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Lesson-level planning
Virtual, 1 hour
Dive into lesson-level planning as you learn how to create a roadmap for a lesson that guides student learning, makes connections across lessons, and measures student understanding of the learning goals in Desmos Math.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Instructional Routines: Number Talks, Notice and Wonder
Virtual, 1 hour
Explore how the Desmos Math Instructional Routines Number Talks and Notice and Wonder spark conversation and provide opportunities for students to showcase their brilliance. Walk away with strategies for effectively using these Instructional Routines in your next lesson.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice packages
| Strengthen sessions |
| On-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 15, on-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 13 package (13 hr.) |
Virtual package (9 hr.) |
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| One session per package | On-site 3 hr. session |
Virtual 3 hr. session |
Virtual 1 hr. session |
Virtual 3 hr. session |
| Enhancing planning | |
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| Enhancing practice |
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| Enhancing observations for leaders | |
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| Using the 5 Practices to orchestrate math discussions |
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| Unit-level planning |
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| Lesson-level planning |
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| Instructional Routines: Number Talks, Notice and Wonder |
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| Building language with routines: Stronger and Clearer, Collect and Display | |
Practice: Enhancing planning for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Dive into planning for an upcoming Demos Math unit and lesson by using the Unit Overview and Teacher Guide. Leave with a greater understanding of your unit story and a roadmap of an upcoming lesson to guide student learning, make connections, and measure student mastery of the learning goals.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Enhancing practice for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn how to use Desmos Math Toolkit features, such as anonymizing, pacing, and pausing, to create engagement at the start of activities, sustain learning in the middle, and summarize student thinking at the end. Leave with a deeper understanding of how each of these tools can create a classroom culture that promotes critical thinking and student discourse.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Enhancing observations for leaders
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn to use our non-evaluative classroom look-for tool for Desmos Math to promote the use of instructional resources, focus on instructional delivery, and monitor instruction. Leave with an action plan for collecting and analyzing observation data to support teachers in their implementation of Desmos Math.
Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Using the 5 Practices to orchestrate math discussions
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Explore how you can use Smith and Stein’s 5 Practices with the Desmos Math dashboard to collect and discuss student ideas. Leave with strategies for fostering class discussions based on student work.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Unit-level planning
Virtual, 1 hour
Dive into unit planning as you learn the story of how your upcoming unit is tied to other units and grade levels, and discover the big ideas you'll explore alongside your students in Desmos Math.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Lesson-level planning
Virtual, 1 hour
Dive into lesson-level planning as you learn how to create a roadmap for a lesson that guides student learning, makes connections across lessons, and measures student understanding of the learning goals in Desmos Math.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Instructional Routines: Number Talks, Notice and Wonder
Virtual, 1 hour
Explore how Desmos Math routines, such as Number Talks and Notice and Wonder, spark conversations and provide opportunities for students to showcase their brilliance. Walk away with strategies for effectively using these instructional routines in your next lesson.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Building language with routines: Stronger ad Clearer, Collect and Display
Virtual, 1 hour
Explore how the routines Stronger and Clearer and Compare and Connect bolster students as they make sense of new contexts and mathematical problems in Desmos Math. Leave with strategies for using these routines to students as they simultaneously learn mathematical practices, content, and language in your upcoming lessons.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Amplify Science
Amplify Science is a K–8 science curriculum that blends hands-on investigations, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools to empower students to think, read, write, and argue like real scientists and engineers.
Explore the Amplify Science sessions (for grade bands K–5 and 6–8) for year one packages and beyond. Select the session title or scroll to learn more about each session.
Begin packages
| Strengthen sessions |
| On-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 15, on-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 10 package (10 hr.) |
Hybrid 15, virtual package (15 hr.) |
Virtual package (7 hr.) |
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| One session per package | On-site, 3 hr. session |
Virtual, 3 hr. session |
Virtual, 1 hr. session |
Virtual, 3 hr. session |
Virtual, 1 hr. session |
| Enhancing planning | |
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| Enhancing practice |
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| Enhancing observations for leaders | |
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| Planning an Amplify Science lesson |
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| Supporting diverse learners: Exploring the resources |
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| Supporting diverse learners: Teacher modeling and student discourse |
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| Unit kit materials and prep | |
Begin: Enhancing planning for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn how to use a planning protocol to internalize an upcoming Amplify Science unit. Leave with a plan to support students engaging in three-dimensional learning while also meeting the diverse needs of students in your classroom.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Enhancing practice for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Analyze a sample formative assessment, deepen your understanding of Amplify Science unit learning progressions, and participate in discussions to understand the relationships between different types of assessments and your unit’s learning goals. Walk away with strategies for collecting, analyzing, and responding to student assessment data to enhance your teaching practice.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Enhancing observations for leaders
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn to use the non-evaluative classroom walkthrough tool for Amplify Science to promote the use of instructional resources, focus on instructional delivery, and monitor instruction. Leave with an action plan for collecting and analyzing observation data to support teachers in their implementation of Amplify Science.
Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Supporting diverse learners: Exploring the resources
Virtual, 1 hour
Learn how to use lesson-specific differentiation briefs, embedded assessments, and activity-specific teacher support notes to maximize instruction for diverse learners with Amplify Science.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Begin: Supporting diverse learners: Teacher modeling and student discourse
Virtual, 1 hour
Explore ways to leverage and build upon two key instructional elements in Amplify Science, and plan how you’ll use these supports to engage diverse learners in your next lesson.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice packages
| Strengthen sessions |
| On-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 15, on-site package (15 hr.) |
Hybrid 13 package (13 hr.) |
Virtual package (9 hr.) |
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| One session per package | On-site, 3 hr. session |
Virtual, 3 hr. session |
Virtual, 1 hr. session |
Virtual, 3 hr. session |
| Enhancing planning | |
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| Enhancing practice |
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| Enhancing observations for leaders | |
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| Supporting all learners with complex texts (K–5 or 6–8) |
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| Supporting English learners (K–5 or 6–8) |
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| Writing in science (K–5 or 6–8) |
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| Engineering Internships (6–8) |
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| Science Seminar (6–8) |
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| Planning an Amplify Science lesson |
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| Supporting diverse learners: Exploring the resources |
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| Supporting diverse learners: Teacher modeling and student discourse |
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| Analyzing student work |
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| Supporting diverse learners: Multimodal learning and multiple at-bats |
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| Grading with Amplify Science |
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| Amplify Science classroom look-fors | |
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| Enhancing the digital experience (K–5) |
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| Planning with the Coherence Flowchart |
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Practice: Enhancing planning for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn how to use a planning protocol to internalize an upcoming Amplify Science unit. Walk away with a plan to support students engaging in three-dimensional learning while also meeting the diverse needs of students in your classroom.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Enhancing practice for teachers
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Analyze a sample formative assessment, deepen your understanding of Amplify Science unit learning progressions, and participate in discussions to understand the relationships between different types of assessments and your unit’s learning goals. Walk away with strategies for collecting, analyzing, and responding to student assessment data to enhance your teaching practice.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Enhancing observations for leaders
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Learn to use the non-evaluative classroom walkthrough tool for Amplify Science to promote the use of instructional resources, focus on instructional delivery, and monitor instruction. Leave with an action plan for collecting and analyzing observation data to support teachers in their implementation of Amplify Science.
Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Supporting all learners with complex texts (grades K–5 or 6–8)
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Collaborate to solve common reading challenges alongside other educators. Learn strategies to support students in grades K–5 or 6–8 in accessing complex texts in Amplify Science units by engaging in a model reading sequence. Leave with a plan for incorporating effective strategies into your upcoming Amplify Science reading lesson.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff of grades K–5 or 6–8 (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Supporting English learners (grades K–5 or 6–8)
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Explore strategies and engage in model activities to support multilingual/English learners in grades K–5 or 6–8 in developing their abilities to do, talk, read, write, visualize, and construct arguments in Amplify Science. Leave with strategies to support a deeper understanding of the critical role that language and literacy play in developing scientific understanding.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff of grades K–5 or 6–8 (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Writing in science (grades K–5 or 6–8)
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Develop an understanding of how the Amplify Science writing approach supports students in grades K–5 or 6–8 in engaging in science practices, making sense of science ideas, and growing as writers. Leave with a plan for supporting student writing in your next unit.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff of grades K–5 or 6–8 (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Engineering Internships (grades 6–8)
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Plan for the first Amplify Science Engineering Internship course of your grade level (6–8) by exploring the Futura workspace and digital tools students will use during the Internship experience. Leave with an understanding of how students will apply science concept knowledge to construct design solutions. This session will feature one of the following Engineering Internships based on your need: Metabolism, Plate Motion, or Force and Motion unit.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff of grades 6–8 (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Science Seminar (grades 6–8)
On-site or virtual, 3 hours
Experience a Science Seminar sequence of a sample Amplify Science grade 6–8 unit from the student perspective to gain an understanding of how students apply science concepts to engage in argumentation about a phenomenon. Leave with a plan for teaching a Science Seminar unit in your own classroom.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff of grades 6–8 (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Supporting diverse learners: Exploring the resources
Virtual, 1 hour
Learn how to use lesson-specific differentiation briefs, embedded assessments, and activity-specific teacher support notes to supplement instruction for diverse learners with Amplify Science.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Supporting diverse learners: Teacher modeling and student discourse
Virtual, 1 hour
Explore ways to leverage and build upon two key instructional elements in Amplify Science and plan for ways to use these supports to engage diverse learners in your next lesson.
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Practice: Analyzing student work
Virtual, 1 hour
Engage with a protocol to analyze real student work and plan for instructional next steps in Amplify Science. (You are required to bring student formative assessment samples to this session.)
Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)
Get in touch with a PD expert
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