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Amplify Science

Amplify Science is Chicago Public Schools’ recommended K–8 core science instructional material. Looking for support ordering? Contact ScienceCPS@amplify.com or (855) 559-5757.

A powerful partnership

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

Learn more about the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Looking for pricing or ordering support? Email scienceCPS@amplify.com or call (855) 559-5757.

What sets Amplify Science apart?

Authored by the industry-leading science curriculum team at U.C. Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, who have 50 years of experience in K–12 science education and who will continue to enhance and update the program for years to come
New curriculum built to meet 100% of the Next Generation Science Standards
State-of-the-art, highly engaging curriculum that invites students to take on the role of a scientist or engineer in every unit to solve relevant real-world problems
Flexible, truly blended program that combines comprehensive print components and compelling online content with hands-on learning in every unit
Robust teacher support for ease of use by a wide range of teachers in diverse classroom contexts, with carefully crafted lessons, standards alignment, differentiation strategies, and ELL supports throughout the program
Embedded assessments throughout the program, including both formative and summative assessments for every grade level

Grades K–5 overview

Each unit focuses on a specific learning goal in the form of an overarching unit question. Rather than following linear steps in an experiment, the program leaves room for students to make connections across concepts and make their own discoveries. In this way, Amplify Science replicates the realities and ambiguities of scientific research and thinking.

Learn more about the program structure
Download the K–5 unit sequence
NGSS correlations
Hear from K–5 teachers

Amplify Science blends physical materials with a suite of digital tools, presenting students with the resources they need to investigate real-world problems, and empowering and supporting teachers as they lead instruction and gain insight into student growth and progress.

Student Investigation Notebooks for every unit allow students to interact with content while taking notes, answering questions, and conducting investigations. Review a sample from the Grade 2 Plant and Animal Relationships unit.
Student Books enhance science topics and allow students to practice reading within the science content area.
Instructional materials for teachers. The Amplify Science curriculum website hosts all lesson content, media, digital simulations, and more, and is the primary tool “open” for teachers during class time. You can view complete unit samples by accessing the curriculum at the bottom of this page.
Robust digital simulations (grades 4–5) and digital applications, developed exclusively for the Amplify Science program. Supported devices include: iPad 3+, Chromebook, Windows PC, and MacBook.
Unit kits for each unit in the program including consumable and nonconsumable hands-on materials, printed classroom display materials, and the students books.
Embedded formative and summative assessments are meant to support and guide student instruction.

View an on-demand webinar.

Grades 6–8 overview

Beginning in school year 2018-19, Chicago Public Schools recommends that schools follow the integrated scope and sequence for middle school science. The decision to shift from discipline-specific to integrated science was informed by a group of 30 CPS middle school science teachers who served on an Advisory Team during school year 2017-18 as well as guidance from other state and national committees with expertise in implementing the Next Generation Science Standards. Amplify’s 6–8 curriculum and CPS’ 2018-19 REACH Performance Tasks align to the integrated scope and sequence.

Learn about the program structure
Download the 6–8 unit sequence
NGSS correlations
Learn about the flexible, blended program

Student Investigation Notebooks for every unit allow students to interact with content while taking notes, answering questions, and conducting investigations. Review a sample from Metabolism.
Instructional materials for teachers. The Amplify Science curriculum website hosts all lesson content, media, digital simulations, and more, and is the primary tool “open” for teachers during class time. You can view complete unit samples by accessing the curriculum at the bottom of this page.
Robust digital simulations and digital applications, developed exclusively for the Amplify Science program. Supported devices include: iPad 3+, Chromebook, Windows PC, and MacBook.
Unit kits for each unit in the program including consumable and nonconsumable hands-on materials, and printed classroom display materials.
Embedded formative and summative assessments are meant to support and guide student instruction.

View an on-demand webinar.

Science and literacy

The Amplify Science program capitalizes on the wealth of opportunities provided by science to learn about the world via reading and writing, and on the strong link between science and literacy practices. It is a core science program designed for three-dimensional learning and can also be considered a supplementary literacy program because it addresses the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) related to disciplinary literacy.

Through its integration of literacy practices authentic to science, Amplify Science addresses the ELA Anchor Standards as well as the standards for Reading Informational Text, Writing, Listening/Speaking, and Language that are related to acquiring and using academic vocabulary. (Less discipline-specific reading standards, such as the “Reading: Foundational Skills” and “Reading: Literature,” fall outside the purview of the Amplify Science program. Please see each unit’s Overview of Standards and Goals for a list of which Common Core ELA standards are addressed in the program.)

The focus of literacy instruction in Amplify Science is on increasing students’ facility with reading informational text, engaging in scientific discussions, and writing scientific explanations and arguments. The program takes into account the specific needs of young students as they are learning to read, write, and discuss science concepts, but does not take full responsibility for teaching basic skills such as phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, or writing mechanics.

Learn more

Access and equity

Diversity in the science and engineering classroom is an asset. It offers countless opportunities for creativity and innovation and opens the door to multiple perspectives and cross-cultural understanding. Historically, however, certain groups of students — including ethnically diverse students, English learners, standard English learners, students with disabilities, girls and young women, foster children and youth, and students experiencing poverty — have not had equitable opportunities for intellectually stimulating, language-rich, and culturally relevant science and engineering education. The vision of the new standards is “all standards, all students.” Amplify Science is designed to fulfill this vision by providing quality and supportive materials for teachers so that every student — regardless of their background, where they live, the language they speak at home, or their learning characteristics — has access to and benefits from deep and engaging science and engineering learning opportunities. Two overarching conceptual frameworks informed Amplify Science’s approach to ensuring access and equity for all students: Universal Design for Learning and Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching.

Learn more

Start your review

Amplify Science is not a textbook. Each lesson in the program consists of a sequence of activities that engage students with a variety of materials, including scientific texts, hands-on materials, digital simulations, engaging media, formative and summative assessments, and so much more. Learn more about the grades K–8 program by reviewing the following pages:

Looking for support ordering?
ScienceCPS@amplify.com
(855) 559-5757

Winter Professional Learning Schedule for Chicago Public Schools

Ready to look inside Amplify Science?

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

As a provider of technology solutions to schools, Amplify’s commitment to data privacy and security is essential to our organization. Amplify demonstrates that commitment in part through the physical, technical, and administrative safeguards we maintain to protect student data and other sensitive information entrusted to our care.

Amplify looks forward to working with the security community to find security vulnerabilities and support our efforts to keep our data and systems safe and secure.

Before reporting a vulnerability, please read our program rules, eligibility overview, report submission rules and guidelines, legal terms, and out-of-scope list set out below.

General Rules

We appreciate reports on any Amplify-owned asset, but only vulnerabilities that prove to be outside of expected behavior are eligible for acceptance.
Reports involving third party services or providers not under Amplify’s control are out-of-scope for submission.
Amplify places a high priority on privacy. Vulnerabilities in the areas of inadvertent exposure of our customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) are considered to be of Critical severity.
We classify vulnerability severity per CVSS (the Common Vulnerability Scoring Standard). These are general guidelines, and the ultimate decision over a reward – whether to give one and in what amount – is a decision that lies entirely within our discretion on a case-by-case basis.
In order to receive an award for validated reports, you must have a HackerOne account. Please note reward decisions are subject to the discretion of Amplify. Please note these are general guidelines, and that reward decisions are subject to the discretion of Amplify.
Only interact with test accounts that you created or that we provided. The use of any credentials outside of these areas for testing purposes is strictly prohibited.
Do not contact Amplify’s customer support for questions or to submit a vulnerability report.
Amplify may, in its sole discretion, disqualify you if you breach this policy or fail to comply with any of the program’s rules and terms.
Amplify reserves the right to cancel or modify this program without notice at any time.

Eligibility

You are not eligible for participation if you 1) are employed by Amplify or any of its affiliates 2) are an immediate family member of a person employed by Amplify or any of its affiliates or 3) left the employment of Amplify or its affiliates or subsidiaries within the past (12) months.
You are not eligible for participation if you have been prohibited in writing from participating in the Bug Bounty Program by Amplify at any time.
You may not be in violation of any national, state, or local law or regulation with respect to any activities directly or indirectly related to conducting your tests.
You may not compromise the privacy or safety of our customer and the operation of our services;
You may not cause harm to Amplify, our customers, or others;
You must follow the policy guidelines to responsibly disclose vulnerabilities to Amplify.

Vulnerability Submission Rules & Guidelines

Any testing conducted on customer data or accounts is strictly prohibited and will result in removal from the program.
If during the course of testing you encounter any sensitive data outside of your test accounts (including student or teacher names, login info, assessment data, activity data, and student work, etc.), please cease testing immediately and report what you have found. DO NOT include any text, screenshots, etc. with PII in the report. This action safeguards both potentially vulnerable data and yourself.
Do not access, download, or share any data you encounter in your testing.
Only interact with test accounts that you created or that we provided. The use of any credentials outside of these areas for testing purposes is strictly prohibited.
Provide detailed reports with reproducible steps. If the report is not detailed enough to reproduce the issue, the issue will not be eligible for a reward.
In some cases, you may not have all of the context information to assess the impact of a vulnerability. If you’re unsure of the direct impact but are reasonably certain that you have identified a vulnerability, we encourage you to submit a detailed report and state the open questions on impact.
When duplicate submissions for the same vulnerability occur, we only award the first report that was received, provided that it can be fully reproduced.
Multiple reports describing the same vulnerability against multiple assets or endpoints must be submitted within a single report.
Avoid destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our service.
Proof of Concept (POC) videos that do not include PII are highly recommended to help verify the issue, provide clarity, and save time on triage.
Please provide timely responses to any follow-up questions and requests for additional information.
Understand that there could be submissions for which we accept the risk, have other compensating controls, or will not address in the manner expected. When this happens, we will act as transparently as we can to provide you with the necessary context as to how the decision was made.
Reports submitted using methods that violate policy rules will not be accepted and may result in account suspension from/denial of entrance to the program.
Please refer to any noted out-of-scope areas listed under Out-of-Scope Vulnerabilities.

Out-of-Scope Vulnerabilities

When reporting vulnerabilities, please consider (1) attack scenario / exploitability, and (2) security impact of the bug. The following issues are considered out-of scope. In addition, please refer to any noted Out of Scope areas listed under the program assets.

Social engineering (e.g. phishing, vishing, smishing) is prohibited.
Clickjacking on pages with no sensitive actions.
Unauthenticated/logout/login CSRF.
Attacks requiring MITM or physical access to a user’s device.
Previously known vulnerable libraries without a working Proof of Concept.
Comma Separated Values (CSV) injection without demonstrating a vulnerability.
Missing best practices in SSL/TLS configuration.
Any activity that could lead to the disruption of our service (DoS).
Content spoofing and text injection issues without showing an attack vector/without being able to modify HTML/CSS.
XSRF that requires the knowledge of a secret.
Automated tools that could generate significant traffic and possibly impair the functioning of our services.
Testing or demonstrating the ability to upload unlimited audio/video files to exhaust resources.
Leaked credentials from third party providers, including invalid or stale employee credential dumps, and/or leaked personal information of Amplify staff.
Leaked credentials for Amplify customers not caused by vulnerabilities in our systems.
Vulnerabilities identified via third party services or providers where Amplify is not the owner.
Issues that merely result in spam/annoyance without additional impact (e.g sending emails without sufficient rate limiting)
Attempts to access our offices or data centers.
Any activity that could contribute to the disruption of our service (DoS). Automated scanning tests should be kept to 10 requests per second or less.
Self XSS.
Broken links and/or crashes in general.
Issues that require unlikely user interaction.
Issues that do not affect the latest version of modern browsers
Issues that require physical access to a victim’s computer/device.
Disclosure of information that does not present a significant risk
Please refer to any noted out-of-scope areas listed under program assets.

Legal

Any information you receive or collect about us, our affiliates or any of our users, employees or agents in connection with the Bug Bounty Program (“Confidential Information”) must be kept confidential and only used in connection with the Bug Bounty Program. You may not use, disclose or distribute any such Confidential Information, including without limitation any information regarding your Submission, without our prior written consent. You must get written consent by submitting a disclosure request through the HackerOne platform.
Researchers must follow HackerOne’s disclosure guidelines. Public disclosure or disclosure to other third parties without the explicit permission of Amplify is prohibited.
We will not take legal action against you if vulnerabilities are found and responsibly reported in compliance with all of the terms and conditions outlined in this policy.
Amplify reserves the right to modify the terms and conditions of this program without notice at any time, and your participation in the Program constitutes acceptance of all terms.

Submit Vulnerability Report

Amplify Science

A new phenomena-based science curriculum for grades K–5.

A disciplinary literacy approach to learning science

Literacy is an integral part of science. Scientists read, write, listen, and speak in order to obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the natural world. They explain their findings, conduct research, connect to the work of other scientists, and communicate ideas to a variety of audiences. In the Amplify Science program, students learn to read, write, and speak as scientists do as they acquire facility with the academic language and vocabulary of science. Through the seamless integration of science and literacy instruction, students also learn that reading, writing, and talking are essential practices of science, and that all scientists use these practices to gather information, communicate claims, leverage evidence, draw conclusions from data, and share their ideas through oral and written explanations and arguments.

Situating literacy instruction in a content area like science has several benefits. First, it helps students develop ways of thinking that are characteristic to the discipline. Second, building background knowledge in a discipline also helps students access complex content in texts that can be difficult to grasp. Finally, situating literacy in a content area like science provides an authentic reason for reading, writing, and talking — to better understand the science ideas under study. Reading, like science, can be an act of inquiry when there are genuine questions to be investigated.

The following are the guiding principles for disciplinary literacy in the Amplify Science program:

Students can acquire literacy expertise through the pursuit of science knowledge and by engaging in scientific and engineering practices.
Attention to disciplinary literacy instruction should begin as soon as students enter school and should continue throughout the grades.
Participation in a community is key to acquiring disciplinary expertise and literacy.
Argumentation and explanation are the central enterprises of science and, thus, these practices are the focus of reading, writing, and speaking in science.

Reading in Amplify Science

Amplify Science provides students with well-written, grade-level appropriate informational texts alongside explicit, embedded instruction on reading in science. Throughout the program, students are apprenticed into reading like scientists – that is, reading actively, curiously, and critically, with a focus on making meaning and using the text as a source of evidence. As students read science texts in conjunction with other multimodal experiences around a topic (doing, talking, visualizing, writing), they increase their skill in accessing these complex texts, as well as their understanding of the importance of text for finding information. Reading informational text is inexorably linked to students’ investigations in each unit. Firsthand investigations provide background knowledge and context for students’ reading, and, in turn, the text provides information, evidence, and support for investigations in progress. In addition, the program includes many books and articles that introduce diverse scientists currently working in the field to highlight science and engineering as a vibrant and viable career choice for students.

Reading in Amplify Science is approached from an inquiry stance – students ask questions, make connections, evaluate information, search for evidence, and clarify difficult concepts as they read. This approach focuses on the practices and processes by which experts in a field obtain, evaluate, and communicate information, including arguments, explanations, data, and visual representations used to explain scientific concepts. Across the program, the teacher models, and students practice, reading like scientists while using reading strategies and approaches that are appropriate to the task, purpose, and grade level. Along with explicit instruction, teachers model strategic reading by thinking aloud as they read, asking questions, and linking the information in the text to their class’s investigations. Students are then provided with multiple opportunities to read and discuss ideas with peers, using the text as a resource for information and evidence. Reading and discussing texts in these ways builds students’ capacity to read strategically while simultaneously building their understanding of science content. The scaffolded reading experiences at each grade level help students learn to approach complex texts in systematic ways and will aid them as they read other science texts throughout their school careers.

TEXT DESIGN AND ACCESSIBILITY Each Amplify Science unit includes custom-written informational texts. In K–5, there are five student books (four informational books and one reference book) per unit; in grades 6–8, there are multiple student articles per unit. These informational texts are designed to support students’ understanding of science ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts, as well as to showcase the work of diverse scientists. An important goal of the Amplify Science program is to provide appropriately complex science texts for students that support, link to, and expand their firsthand science learning. To accomplish this goal, it is critical that the texts are accessible to as many students as possible. All Student Books, articles, and other student materials are reviewed for accessibility and readability using the three-dimensional model of text complexity (qualitative, quantitative, and reader-and-task considerations) set out by the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA).

The qualitative dimension of text complexity focuses on the purpose, structure, language conventions, and knowledge demands of a text. Books and articles were written, reviewed, and edited by members of the Lawrence Hall of Science team of professional educators and science writers during the development of each unit. They are tailored to address concepts students are learning in the unit, and use the same language and vocabulary throughout so students encounter consistent terminology across modalities of learning (reading, writing, doing investigations, discussing).

The texts also include carefully created or selected visual representations such as diagrams, photographs, and illustrations that support and/or provide additional information. The placement of each book or article within the instructional sequence is carefully designed and classroom-tested so that the text is supportive of student content learning in a variety of ways, and provides just-in-time information, reinforcing key ideas or introducing new ones within the unit.

On the quantitative dimension, each book and article was designed and reviewed using internally developed criteria for each grade. Each book or article was analyzed against a list of commonly used words, as well as criteria for calculating the difficulty of decodable words. The number of unique hard words in each text was controlled, with the percentage of hard words varying based on the grade level. At the same time, a small set of core science vocabulary words related to the science ideas students are learning was repeatedly used across a set of books or articles because repeated encounters with words in context is one way that students learn and internalize them. In addition to our internal approach to readability, each book or article in grades 1–8 was analyzed by MetaMetrics and assigned a Lexile Measure. This allowed us to ensure that books and articles fall within recommended Lexile Measures found in the updated Text Complexity Band in Supplemental Information for Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy: New Research on Text Complexity.

Reader and task considerations are related to whether a particular text is appropriate for particular students and particular tasks. The placement of books within the Amplify Science program of instruction was carefully considered as part of unit design. Books were strategically placed within the sequence of instruction to ensure they are appropriately tied to what students are learning and that students are adequately prepared to read them with appropriate support. Sometimes this means that students read a text before conducting a firsthand investigation because it serves the purpose of activating and enhancing students’ background knowledge about a topic and sparking an interest in a scientific idea. At other times, students read a book after they have had a chance to investigate and develop ideas about the phenomenon firsthand because reading will help them generate more evidence to support claims. We cannot know all the individual learning needs of every reader the program reaches; however, the design and placement of the books was also informed by survey data from field trial teachers. These teachers were asked to evaluate field trial versions of the books and accompanying lessons based on several criteria, and to comment on how well the instruction and respective text worked for different readers.

More information on reading in Amplify Science available through in-person professional learning and within the Program Guide included with purchase.

Elk Grove Science K5

Program details

Get started with Amplify Reading: 6–8 Edition.

Cuatro personajes con distintos disfraces y una gran máquina robótica con garras visibles se encuentran juntos sobre un fondo blanco.

Introduction

Amplify Reading 6–8 is a digital reading program laser-focused on helping students find deeper meaning in texts by teaching them to question everything they read.

To capture students’ imagination, Amplify Reading 6–8 takes the form of an interactive graphic novel called The Last Readers. This story is set in a dystopian future world run by Machines, where people are told what to read and what to think. But dissent is afoot. Recruited for the rebellion, students are trained in the powerful ways authors convey meaning and affect their audience.

What students learn

Exploring texts from literary classics to propaganda, from great speeches to scientific articles, students learn to analyze the moves that authors make to achieve their purposes. Chapter topics alternate between the close analysis of arguments and literary analysis.

Each chapter should take approximately one hour for students to complete.

How to integrate this program into your curriculum

Amplify Reading 6–8 is designed for students to work independently as they progress through the chapters of The Last Readers. For the last chapter of each book, teachers have the option to build on independent work through group and whole-class activities.

For the best experience, students should complete the chapters in order. The chapters and concepts build on each other and were designed to help students master close reading skills. While teachers can unlock chapters so students can work on specific concepts at any given moment, doing so may result in a less-than-ideal experience. Later lessons are locked by default, but we will provide the ability to unlock lessons from within the teacher dashboard.

How teachers are using Amplify Reading 6–8

Reinforcement of concepts

Many teachers find the program extremely helpful for reinforcing key reading skills in the core curriculum. They use it in class one or two times a week for 20 to 30 minutes over the course of a year.

Test preparation

The program features extensive practice with text-dependent questions, providing a fun and effective way for students to get comfortable answering those kinds of questions.

Other common uses

Teachers also use the program to introduce key close reading concepts, for extra practice or homework, as response to intervention, and for after-school and summer school programs.

Routines

Devoting one class period every week or two to having students work independently on The Last Readers. While students are working independently on devices, teachers can work with small groups who need extra support with their core curriculum work. Teachers can also assign students work in Practice Mode during class or for homework.
Treating each book of The Last Readers as a 2–3 week mini-unit that can be inserted between units of core curriculum instruction. In addition to having students work on the chapters during class, teachers can assign students work in Practice Mode in between chapters or for homework.
Regularly assigning The Last Readers to students as homework. Because students may move through the chapters at different paces, teachers may want to assign one chapter per week and ask students to work in Practice Mode for the rest of the week after they complete a chapter.

Pedagogical approach

In Amplify Reading 6–8:

Students learn to question everything they read by engaging with a story-based adventure in which understanding every piece of text and every article, billboard, speech and poem is essential to the narrative.
Students learn to leverage the same devices used by authors to convey meaning by creating new content that integrates seamlessly with the story.

Unlike other reading supplementals that rely solely on assessment questions and feedback, Amplify Reading 6–8 weaves digital instruction together with assessment, all within an immersive story where the analysis of text is a critical element of the plot. The storytelling is vivid, suspenseful, and complex, designed to provide students with purpose and agency as they take on ever more challenging and high-stakes close reading tasks.

Each mission includes three steps:

Interactive instruction: Students engage with a specific close reading concept using digital manipulatives.
Guided close reading: Students apply knowledge of the concept to a complex text.
Creative application: Students use their knowledge of the concept to create new content that solves a story-based problem.

Literary and informational passages are paired with carefully crafted, text-dependent questions and technology-enhanced items that prepare students for the same types of questions they’ll face on high stakes assessments. All along the way, teachers receive reports that visualize activity and progress, and highlight areas of improvement. Teachers can also leverage the original content generated by students in each mission as a rich classroom discussion piece.

Combining content and pedagogy with the creativity and purpose of storytelling results in an experience that truly motivates students and gives them the skills and confidence to tackle complex text.

Standards and alignments

Download the complete scope and sequence.

The practice of close reading lies at the heart of the Common Core and many other state standards for English Language Arts. Instruction in close reading enables students to become attuned to the essential elements of authentic texts: from key ideas and claims to specific details and evidence; from the effects of single words to those of larger textual structures; from the significance of individual texts to the interrelated meanings of entire corpora.

The recent focus on close reading is reflected in the text-dependent questions that populate many recent state assessments of ELA proficiency. Text-dependent questions address students’:

understanding of vocabulary
understanding of syntax and structure
understanding of literary and argumentative devices
understanding of themes and central ideas

Amplify Reading 6–8 gives students the essential skills and confidence they need to address text-dependent questions and the standards to which they refer.

Additionally, each book of The Last Readers emphasizes at least one Common Core reading anchor standards associated with each of the ELA standards strands:

Book 1: KID 1 / C&S 4 / IKI 8

Book 2: KID 1, 2, 3 / C&S 4, 5, 6 / IKI 8

Book 3: KID 1, 2, 3 / C&S 4, 5, 6 / IKI 6, 7, 8

ANCHOR STANDARD	CHAPTERS
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.	Books 1, 2, 3: All chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.	Book 2: Chapters 9, 10, 12, 14, 16 Book 3: All chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3 Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.	Book 2: Chapters 10, 12, 14 Book 3: All chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4 Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.	Book 1: Chapters 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 Book 2: All chapters Book 3: All chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.5 Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.	Book 2: Chapters 9, 11, 13, 15, 16 Book 3: All chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6 Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.	Book 2: Chapters 9, 11, 16 Book 3: At least 50% of the chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.	Book 3: At least 50% of the chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.	Book 1: Chapters 1, 5, 8 Book 2: Chapters 9, 11, 13, 15 Book 3: At least 50% of the chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9 Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.	Book 3: At least 50% of the chapters
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.10 Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.	Books 1, 2, 3: All chapters

Levels

Because each classroom represents a wide range of reading abilities, teachers can assign students to unique learning tracks that are tailored to provide the level of support each student needs.

After your students have enrolled in a class, you can assign them to a particular level in Reporting. All students will be automatically enrolled in the Core level. It is recommended that you assign all students to whatever level is most appropriate for them before they begin chapter 1. You can change a student’s level at any time.

LEVEL	DESIGNED FOR
CORE	Students whose reading levels fall within the middle school band.
EXTRA SUPPORT	Students who are reading below middle school level or with limited English proficiency. The instructional content and texts have been adapted or replaced to support students who “can engage in complex, cognitively demanding social and academic activities requiring language when provided moderate linguistic support.” Support includes streamlined, scaffolded content that integrates the built-in-dictionary tool, so students can access content and academic vocabulary at their language level and above. For productive written activities, students are given supports such as sentence frames to help them develop structured academic responses.
ADVANCED (coming soon)	We are developing an advanced level that will challenge readers with more complex texts and prompts, and with additional content.

Included texts

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Getting started with Amplify Science California

Dear Elk Grove K–5 teachers,

Welcome to the Amplify Science California family! Below you’ll find everything you need to successfully kick off your science instruction this year.

– Your California team

Amplify Science - Student reading a book remote & hybrid

Program introduction

Onboarding videos

To start using Amplify Science California quickly in your classroom, check out the following onboarding videos. They cover what you need to know to get started fast, from unpacking materials to quickly start using Amplify Science in your classroom and navigating the digital Teacher’s Reference Guide.

Program pacing

Hands-on materials kit

The following videos give you a quick look into our Amplify Science California classroom kits. For each grade level, you’ll find a “How to unpack your kit” video for the first unit of the program.

Teacher digital resources

Watch this video to understand the basic organization of the digital teacher experience and how to navigate the platform.

Want some practice? Download this exploration guide to practice toggling between teacher view, presentation view, and student view.

Our new digital experience also makes it easy to assign work through our LMS integrations.

Our new digital experience also makes it easy to view student work in real time.

Student digital resources

Watch this video to take a peek at the various student digital resources available to your class.

Use this Student Login Click Path document to support students and families logging in from home.

Essential resources

Your Teacher’s Reference Guide is a tremendously rich resource. It’s also packed! That’s why teachers getting started with Amplify Science love our condensed Unit Guides, lesson planners, and device calendars.

Unit Guides

These short and sweet guides provide a big picture overview of each unit’s phenomenon and storyline, the key questions that guide learning, and how the storyline develops from chapter to chapter. We even spoil the big reveal at the end by pointing out ahead of time what students figure out throughout the unit.

A laptop displays an educational website titled "The Earth System" with lesson modules; a printed Teacher’s Guide with a similar cover design is shown beside it.

Kindergarten

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Lesson planners

Our lesson planners give you easy access to direct links to key resources within the program.

Kindergarten

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Teacher-provided materials

Your Amplify Science classroom kit includes a wide variety of consumable and non-consumable items. In fact, each kit contains enough non-consumables to support a class of 36 students working in small groups, and enough consumables to support 72 student uses.

In addition to these provided items, there are some teacher-provided items required in each unit. For a consolidated list of teacher-provided items per unit, download the appropriate PDF below.

Device calendars

Our at-a-glance device calendars make device management and sharing between grade-level colleagues a breeze. With one calendar per unit (beginning in grade 2), you can easily see which lessons utilize devices.

Approach to assessment

The Amplify Science California assessment system is grounded in the principle that students benefit from regular and varied opportunities to demonstrate understanding through performance. In practice this means that conceptual understanding is revealed through engagement in the science and engineering practices.

Assessment types at a glance

In your classroom, you’ll be utilizing a variety of formative (F) and summative (S) assessments:

End-of-Unit Assessment (S): Assessments toward the end of each unit feature a combination of targeted discussions, student-generated models, and written explanations to gauge students’ knowledge and growth.
Pre-Unit Assessments (F): Discussion, modeling, and written explanations to gauge students’ knowledge.
On-the-Fly Assessments (OtFA) (F): Multi-dimensional tasks integrated regularly throughout the lessons. OtFA opportunities were designed to help teachers make sense of student activity during a learning experience (e.g., student-to-student talk, writing, and model construction) and to provide evidence of how a student is coming to understand core concepts and developing dexterity with SEPs and CCCs. Three-dimensional assessment opportunities make measuring progress toward NGSS learning goals possible.
Self-assessments (F): One per chapter; brief opportunities for students to reflect on their own learning, ask questions, and reveal ongoing wonderings about unit content.
Critical Juncture Assessments (F): Variety of multidimensional performance tasks intended to assess student progress, occurring at the end of each chapter. Examples include writing scientific explanations, engaging in argumentation, developing and using models, and designing engineering solutions. Based on student performance on the assessment, teachers have access to recommendations for targeted student interventions, suggested follow-ups, or differentiating classroom instruction.
End-of-Unit Assessment (S): Assessments toward the end of each unit feature a combination of targeted discussions, student-generated models, and written explanations to gauge students’ knowledge and growth.

Pre-Unit Assessments

Most Pre-Unit assessments are embedded within an activity of the first lesson of a unit. In kindergarten and grade 1, the Pre-Unit assessment (as well as the End-of-Unit assessment) is oral. In grades 2–5 they are typically written. Refer to the Digital Resources area of the Lesson Brief for materials needed for the assessment activity, such as the Clipboard Assessment Tool (K–1 only), copymasters (grades 2–5 only), and an Assessment Guide that will help you interpret and leverage students’ responses.

If you and your students have Interactive Classroom licenses, students can complete their assessment digitally instead of using the copymaster.

When students complete the assessment pages digitally, you’ll be able to review their work on the View Work page.

Critical Juncture Assessments

Critical Juncture assessments typically occur towards the end of each chapter. The Materials and Preparation section will indicate when there is a Critical Juncture to prepare for, but you can also tell when an activity is designed to be a Critical Juncture assessment by the hummingbird icon that will appear within it. Selecting the hummingbird icon will tell you how to assess students’ understanding with the activity, and how to tailor instruction based on what you find. If you need guidance on the “answers” to the assessment activity, refer to the “Possible Responses” tab.

If you are using Classroom Slides or Interactive Classroom, you’ll see a hummingbird or “Critical Juncture” label in the bottom right corner of one of the slides of the activity.

The notes about assessing understanding and tailoring instruction are located in the notes of that slide (on the right-hand side of the Teacher’s Guide tab in the Interactive Classroom experience; underneath the slide in Classroom Slides).

End-of-Unit Assessments

End-of-Unit assessments are typically the last lesson of a unit. In some units, these are two-part assessments that take place over two lessons. The easiest way to find the End-of-Unit assessment is to skim through the lesson titles. Lessons containing End-of-Unit assessments will always have that noted in the title.

Like the Pre-unit assessment, you can find materials for the End-of-unit assessments in the Digital Resources area of the Lesson Brief.

On-the-Fly Assessments

These embedded assessments leverage the formative opportunities in the learning experience students are already engaged in, such as creating models, analyzing data, actively reading, conducting investigations, and more. Refer to the Critical Juncture section above for guidance on finding information about using them.

Unit-level assessment information

You can find overall information about an individual unit’s assessments in the “Assessment System” resource, which is located within the Teacher References section on the Unit Overview page.

The Assessment System resource contains a comprehensive list of all of the assessment opportunities in the unit, including the assessment’s location, a brief indication of what students are doing in that particular activity, what type of assessment it is, which Disciplinary Core Ideas, science and engineering practices, and cross-cutting concepts it specifically addresses, and the kind of evaluation guidance you can expect for it. If you are in a kindergarten or first grade unit, you will also find information on the Clipboard Assessment Tool (used for supporting oral assessment) in this section.

If you’re interested in focusing on information related to the unit’s Critical Juncture and On-the-Fly assessments in particular, check out the “Embedded Formative Assessments” resource, also located within the Teacher References section on the Unit Overview page.

Three-dimensional assessment connections

All assessment opportunities within Amplify Science California include clear labeling around the Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs), and Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) to help teachers connect formative and summative assessments to specific NGSS dimensions.

Coming soon

Unlike other publishers, we don’t make you wait until your next adoption to get the latest and greatest from Amplify. We’re always launching new and exciting features. In fact, on this page is a list of new features you can look forward to using during the 2023-2024 school year.

FAQs

Program questions

Amplify Science California is a flexible, blended K–8 science curriculum that addresses 100 percent of the Next Generation Science Standards for California and a significant number of the California English Language Development Standards and Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects, and Math. Together, the units deliver three-dimensional instruction across the following disciplines: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, and Engineering Design.

Amplify Science California does indeed feature some powerful and engaging digital components, which are gradually introduced beginning at grade 2. However, as a fully blended and flexible program, Amplify Science California can be (and has been) implemented in a wide variety of scenarios.

All lessons were designed with device sharing in mind, and never assume that every student has a separate device. While 1:1 scenarios are great, they aren’t required. When devices are necessary for students to fully experience a concept, teachers can opt to share devices across pairs or small groups, or simply display the Sim or Modeling Tool to the whole class and allow students to “drive” using your device.

Rather than introducing a concept on Monday, testing for mastery on Friday, and knowing students will forget everything by the next Tuesday, we set out to help students build meaningful and lasting knowledge that they can retain and transfer over the course of the entire unit. We accomplish this by giving students multiple opportunities (a.k.a. “at-bats”) to encounter, explore, and experience a concept. Said another way, Amplify Science California is actually made up of a series of multi-modal “mini-lessons.” This intentional, cyclical, and iterative design mirrors the 5Es, allows teachers the flexibility to speed up or skip ahead once students have demonstrated mastery, and empowers students to learn concepts more deeply than any other program.

Yes. Rather than separating performance expectations into physical science units, earth and space science units, and life science units, Amplify Science California units are organized around anchoring phenomena designed to give students opportunities to dive deeply into certain Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) while also drawing from or applying to others. In organizing the Amplify Science California middle school units, we’ve carefully sequenced these ideas within each grade level to support the development of deep and coherent understanding.

Many real-world phenomena cross the domain boundaries of life, physical, or earth and space science (as well as engineering). Each Amplify Science California unit begins with an intriguing real-world phenomenon that poses a problem that needs to be understood and/or solved. By the end of the unit, students will have analyzed the anchor phenomenon across multiple scientific domains, possibly designed and tested an engineering solution, and applied what they’ve learned in a different context.

For example:
In the Light Waves unit, students investigate the anchoring phenomenon of why Australia has a much higher skin cancer rate than countries at similar latitudes like Brazil. The focus of this unit is on Disciplinary Core Ideas related to wave properties (PS4.A) and electromagnetic radiation (PS4.B). Students explore these physical science ideas deeply within the unit, and also draw on ideas from earth science (e.g., latitudinal variation of the sun’s energy) and life science (e.g., the effect of energy on the DNA in the nucleus of a cell) in order to explain the central phenomenon.

Absolutely. Hands-on learning is at the heart of Amplify Science California. Integrated into every unit are opportunities for students to take on the role of scientists and engineers as they gather evidence, think critically, solve problems, and develop and defend their claims.

In addition, our unique combination of focus and flex activities means teachers have more options, opportunities, and materials to make learning active. Each hands-on activity provides clear instructions for the teacher, with more complex activities supported by video demonstrations and illustrations.

What’s important to remember is that more hands-on doesn’t necessarily mean better, at least according to the California NGSS. That’s because only two of the eight Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) are directly related to hands-on learning.

Just as scientists gather evidence from many types of sources, students in the Amplify Science California program gather evidence not just by making physical models, but also by making and interpreting digital models; reading texts; watching videos; and analyzing photographs, maps, and data sets. By doing do, students are provided with more opportunities than any other program to use all of the practices called out in the California NGSS Framework:

Asking questions
Developing and using models
Planning and carrying out investigations
Analyzing and interpreting data
Using mathematics and computational thinking
Constructing explanations
Engaging in arguments from evidence
Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

While all of our units engage students in gathering evidence from a rich collection of sources, the reliance on different types of evidence (and evidence sources) varies according to unit. For instance, some units lend themselves to meaningful hands-on experiences, while in other units the phenomena students are investigating are too slow, too dangerous, or too big to be observed directly. In those units, students rely more heavily on other evidence sources such a physical models or simulations.

Unit types in grades K–5

In each K–5 grade, there is one unit that emphasizes investigation, one that emphasizes modeling, and one that emphasizes design. In addition, in grades 3–5, there is also one unit that emphasizes argumentation.

Unit types in grades 6–8

Each 6–8 grade features three types of units: Launch, Core, and Engineering Internships. Each year has one Launch unit, six Core units, and two Engineering Internships.

For teachers who want to supplement the lessons with even more hands-on activities, optional “flextension” activities are included in many units.

Yes indeed. Amplify Science California integrates all four STEM disciplines—science, technology, engineering, and math, in addition to English Language Arts—throughout the curriculum. In addition, each grade level features specific units that emphasize engineering design.

Yes, the program includes multiple opportunities for summative assessments.

End-of-unit assessments: At grades K–1 these look like targeted conversations, at grades 2–5 we incorporate written responses, and at grades 6–8 we assess through a combination of auto-scored multiple-choice questions and rubric-scored written responses. These summative assessments for each unit are designed to provide valid, reliable, and fair measures of students’ progress and attainment of three-dimensional learning.

Benchmark assessments: Delivered four times per year in grades 3–5 and three times per year in grades 6–8, benchmark assessments report on students’ facilities with each of the grade appropriate DCIs, SEPs, CCCs, and performance expectations of the California NGSS.

Science Seminars and final written arguments (formative and summative components): In grades 6–8, culminating performance tasks for each core unit invite students to figure out a new real-world problem. They collect and analyze evidence, examine a number of claims, and then engage in a full-class discussion where they must state which claims are best supported by the evidence, all while making clear their reasoning that connects the evidence to the claims. After the seminar, students then individually write their final scientific argument, drawing on the DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs they have used over the course of the unit to develop a sophisticated and convincing argument that addresses the problem they’ve been investigating. Rubrics, scoring guides, and examples of student responses at each scoring level are provided to teachers to support the assessment of students’ understanding of concepts and specific practices.

Amplify Science California provides more than enough instructional content to fill 180 days of instruction. However, unlike other programs that expect you to complete 180 discrete lessons, Amplify Science California includes built-in wiggle room.

For example, the typical elementary classroom delivers science instruction only two times per week. Rather than asking teachers to wade through unnecessary content, we designed our program to address 100 percent of the California NGSS in just 66 days at grades K–2 and 88 days at grades 3–5. When it comes to middle school, we address 100 percent of the California NGSS in 146 lessons.

Some classes might last longer than one session due to a number of reasons (e.g., enthusiastic student conversations, challenging topics requiring deeper dives, more time needed to accommodate diverse learners, etc.). Also, teachers might want to supplement Amplify Science California with some of their own favorite lessons. Lastly, we’ve accounted for the inevitable assembly days, class trips, testing schedules, etc. For teachers that want to go deeper or expand upon a unit topic, we also offer a number of additional lessons that are not core to each unit.

Amplify Science California lessons are designed to be completed in the following time frames:
Lessons in grades K–1 are designed for 45 minutes of science instruction.
Lessons in grades 2–5 are designed for 60 minutes of science instruction.

That said, it’s not a problem if you can’t allocate 45 minutes of science instruction every day at K–1, or 60 minutes per day at 2–5. Since there are a total of 66 lessons to address 100 percent of California NGSS at grades K–2, and 88 lessons to address 100 percent of California NGSS at grades 3–5, you can easily teach the lessons in smaller blocks and cover all of the content over the course of the school year.

Each lesson of every Amplify Science California unit includes point-of-use differentiation strategies and embedded teacher and student supports for diverse learners, including English learners, students who need more support, and students who are ready for more challenge. These strategies and methods ensure that all students have access to the same content as their peers.

Two notable categories of suggested modifications are:

English-learner-specific strategies such as English/Spanish glossaries, native language supports, and provision of cognates and other content-specific language scaffolds are provided in each unit.
Relatively small alterations and additional scaffolds that provide students with greater access to the content.
These types of scaffolds benefit all learners and include suggestions such as providing graphic organizers, practice with multiple-meaning words, etc.

With Amplify Science California, the use of technology is always purposeful.

For example:

The curriculum has a strong emphasis on literacy, with students reading and analyzing informational texts, and writing scientific explanations and arguments.
Digital elements are gradually introduced to students in grades 2–3, with the greatest use of digital elements taking place in grades 4–5, as the phenomena at these grades become more challenging to observe directly.
The curriculum’s readers and interactive notebook pages are available in both print and digital across all K–5 units.

This curriculum addresses a significant number of the standards as they pertain to science. Throughout each unit, students read science texts, engage in science talk and argumentation, and write evidence-based science explanations. The curriculum supports vocabulary, language, and reading comprehension development. Students also use measurement tools with precision, record and analyze data, make sense of scientific phenomena, and develop solutions to problems experienced in the real world.

Digital questions

Teacher Support notes including sample teacher talk, student responses, pedagogical support, and possible student responses are provided within your student-facing slides. Simply click “Teach” and reference your private Teacher Guide tab. Students will only see the lesson slides that you are presenting.

You, the teacher, must “Start class” to launch the presentation tab. (Remember, without the presentation tab, students would be able to see your teacher notes.)

Clicking “Starting class” also brings students to the correct slide, which is particularly important for young students who are learning to navigate.

Teachers can either press the “End class” button in the bottom right corner of the slide navigation, or they can simply close the presentation tab.

Clicking “End class” also enables students to navigate through the lesson on their own. That means they’ll be able to return to slides and books to review content, to the Sims and Modeling Tools to replay them, or to notebook pages to update their work.

You can click on the “Student preview” option in the bottom right corner (within the menu that opens when you click the three dots) to open a new browser tab where you can preview the student view using your teacher account.

Any work you complete in this student preview (or elsewhere in the teacher experience) will be automatically saved to your account.

Looking for help?

For login or technology issues, please submit an EGUSD Heat ticket. For curriculum and pedagogical questions, please refer to the support resources below.

Powerful (and free!) pedagogical support

Amplify provides a unique kind of support you won’t find from other publishers. We’ve developed an educational support team of former teachers and administrators who provide pedagogical support for every Amplify curriculum, assessment, and intervention program. This service is completely free for all educators who are using our programs and includes:

Guidance for developing lesson plans and intervention plans.
Information on where to locate standards and other planning materials.
Recommendations and tips for day-to-day teaching with Amplify programs.
Support with administering and interpreting assessment data and more.

To reach our pedagogical team, use our live chat within your program, call (800) 823-1969, or email edsupport@amplify.com

Timely technical and program support

Our technical and program support is included and available from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT, Monday through Friday, through a variety of channels, including a live chat program that enables teachers to get immediate help in the middle of the school day.

For your most urgent questions:

Use our live chat within your program.
Call our toll-free number: (800) 823-1969.

For less urgent questions:

Email support

Connect with other teachers

Our Amplify Science Facebook group is a community of Amplify Science educators from across the country. It’s a space to share best practices, ideas, and support on everything from implementation to instruction. Join today.

Math Teacher Lounge episode: Howie Hua on making math viral

K—12 math instruction has come a long way from having students memorize times tables. Thanks to innovative instructors like Howie Hua, it’s gone all the way to TikTok. And it’s gone viral.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer recently talked to Howie Hua on Math Teacher Lounge—now a podcast!

Meet Howie Hua

Howie Hua is a lecturer at Fresno State. He teaches math to future elementary math teachers. That’s a good thing, because he doesn’t just make math “come alive.” He makes it go viral.

He has more than 32,000 followers on TikTok (@howie_hua), where his brief, punchy math explainer videos have garnered nearly 500,000 likes.

That’s why Bethany Lockhart Johnson was so excited to talk to him on the podcast, she says. “He is inviting us to think about how we ask questions in mathematics in ways that get people buzzing. His ideas and thoughts have gone viral and people are in conversation in a way that we long for them to be, out in the streets shouting about mathematics.”

(Fun fact: Hua can also throw a rifle 15 feet in the air, do a back flip, and catch it. Don’t believe us? Check out his TikTok.)

Questions are as important as answers

“I think people don’t want to watch a 20-minute YouTube video on something math-related. Maybe they just want a short one-minute explainer,” says Hua.

Even in one minute, Hua shines new light on math functions and concepts—and more.

“People want to understand what’s actually happening,” says Hua. “For example, I got so many nice comments when I explained the long division algorithm. I said, ‘Let’s visualize it.’ It’s not just connecting the permutation and the combination formulas. People want to know what’s happening rather than just ‘Use this formula to get an answer.’”

Dan Meyer shares a couple of Hua’s most popular TikToks:

Test Talk: Reduce test anxiety by having students talk in a group about a test for five minutes before putting pencil to paper.
How do you calculate … ? In his Mental Math Mondays series, Hua asks viewers to tell him exactly how they solve a given arithmetic problem. “One of my favorite hobbies is to listen to how people think about math,” says Hua. “So if you want to make my day, comment or stitch this video with how you would calculate 17 plus 18 in your head.”

Hua says that to ask “Hey, how would you think about this?” does more than give him insight. Asking questions helps build community, and shows people that there are many ways to arrive at an answer.

Says Hua: “It really goes to show that math is a creative subject. ‘Hey, can we find another way? What’s another way that we can do this?’ I tell my students, the beauty is in us, not the final answer.”

Join the challenge

Here’s Hua’s Math Teacher Lounge challenge for this episode:

Walk around and find something that you can count, take a picture, and then ask around: “Hey, how would you count these?” See if their way is the same as yours—or if it blows your mind.
Share your pictures and thoughts by tagging us (@MTLShow) and Howie (@Howie_Hua) on Twitter, and sharing them in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group as well.

Bonus: Did you do the daily Wordle before you read this post? You might have learned something about teaching math—listen to the podcast to find out why (and to hear why on earth Dan Meyer would start his guesses with “PYGMY”)

The Math Teacher Lounge podcast is available on all major streaming platforms and on mathteacherlounge.com. Math Teacher Lounge is presented by Amplify and Desmos. Visit Amplify’s website to find out more about Amplify Math.

Dyslexia toolkit for teachers

What do students at risk for dyslexia struggle with?

Delay in learning tasks such as tying shoes, telling time
Difficulty expressing self
Inattentiveness, distractibility
Inability to follow directions
Left-right confusion
Difficulty learning alphabet, times tables, words of songs
Difficulty learning rhymes
Poor playground skills
Difficulty learning to read
Mixing order of letters or numbers when writing
Reversing letters or numbers

Supporting students with dyslexia: What can you do?

According to the International Dyslexia Association official publication of Perspectives on Language and Literacy, Vol. 44, 2018, here are six steps to help your struggling students:

1. Screen for dyslexia

Become involved in implementing or improving universal screening programs for dyslexia by reminding administrators about specific laws.
If you suspect your student has dyslexia, request that common reading and writing skills associated with dyslexia are assessed (e.g., basic reading skills [phonics and sight word identification], spelling, reading rate).

2. Dyslexia training for teachers and reading specialists

Advocate for the appointment of a specific person in charge of dyslexia training.
Request specific teacher training that includes structured literacy programs (e.g., explicit, systematic reading instruction, phonics instruction, etc.). Request dyslexia awareness training for all K–12 teachers.

3. Eligibility for accommodations and services for students with dyslexia

Become involved in the Response to Intervention, Multi-tiered system of support, or a similar system at your school. Ensure that the accommodations and services that are provided are appropriate for students with dyslexia.
Collaborate with colleagues to evaluate the effectiveness of accommodations and services being provided to students with dyslexia.

4. Classroom instruction for students with dyslexia

Become familiar with differentiated instruction strategies (e.g., use of centers during instruction).
Learn and help colleagues learn about specific reading programs designed to help students with dyslexia (e.g., structured literacy programs).

5. Dyslexia handbook

Request that your state or district develop a dyslexia handbook to guide teachers and offer other states’ handbooks as a reference.

6. Dyslexia awareness

Consult with fellow educational professionals in your school(s) to hold events and encourage discussions about dyslexia during October (National Dyslexia Month).

DIBELS® 8th Edition is validated for the following measures:

DIBELS 8th Edition Subtest Alignment with Dyslexia Screening Areas

	Rapid Naming Ability	Phonological Awareness	Alphabetic Principle	Word Reading
Letter Naming Fluency
Phonemic Segmentation Fluency
Nonsense Word Fluency
Word Reading Fluency
Oral Reading Fluency

How mCLASS can help you identify and support at-risk students

mCLASS® with DIBELS® 8th Edition’s free dyslexia screening measures provide additional screening for risk of dyslexia in students in grades K–3 through subtests that help identify early warning signs of reading difficulty. Measures include:

Vocabulary
Encoding
Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN)
Word Reading Fluency (WRF)
Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)
Phonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF)

Embracing artificial intelligence in the math classroom

Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere these days. We use it when we ask Alexa or Siri for the morning weather report. We use it when GPS tells us how to best avoid traffic. We use it when we chill at the end of the day with a recommendation from Netflix.

But what about during the day—and specifically, at school? Even more specifically, can AI be leveraged to enhance the math classroom?

“While AI is an amazing tool, you’ve really got to make sure that you are focusing in on your expertise as well,” says veteran math educator and STEM instructional coach Kristen Moore, “And saying, ‘How can I use this to make something better?’ and not just, ‘How can I use this to make something?’”

In this post, we’ll talk about the current state of AI in math education, and how it can support educators in making math better. (SPOILER: It’s not going to replace you!)

First, some STEM learning for us: What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to the development of computer systems able to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.

It involves creating algorithms and systems that enable computers to learn from data, adapt to new situations, and make decisions or predictions.

AI aims to mimic human cognitive functions such as understanding language, recognizing patterns, solving problems, and making decisions. It encompasses a range of techniques and technologies, including machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing, and robotics.

The term “artificial intelligence” was introduced in 1956. The availability of vast amounts of data and advancements in computer power in the 2010s led to additional breakthroughs. And with the proliferation of smartphones, smart devices, and the internet, AI technologies began to work their way into our homes, cars, pockets, and everyday lives.

What’s the state of AI in education?

AI is already commonplace in schools and classrooms. Here are just a few examples:

Adaptive learning: This software uses AI algorithms to adjust the difficulty and content of lessons based on a student’s performance, helping students remain engaged and challenged at their optimal level.
Assistive technologies: AI helps students with disabilities by providing assistive technologies like text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools, making educational content more accessible.
Plagiarism detection: These tools use AI algorithms to identify instances of copied or unoriginal content in students’ assignments, essays, and projects.
Data analysis for teachers: AI analyzes data from student assessments to identify trends and insights, helping teachers make informed decisions about instructional strategies. It can also predict students’ performance trends, helping teachers identify at-risk students early and intervene to provide additional support.
Grammar, spelling, and style checkers: AI can provide real-time feedback to students (and teachers!) on their writing work.

Embracing AI technology in your math classroom

While AI is not here to replace teachers, it is here to stay. And experts say it’s only going to become more commonplace. But despite how common AI is already—both outside and inside school—not all teachers are familiar with its numerous applications and potential. Now is a great time for educators to start exploring its uses and get ahead of the curve.

Here are a few easy entry points for math teachers.

ChatGPT: A common AI tool, ChatGPT is designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives. It’s trained on a wide range of internet text, which enables it to generate responses to a vast array of prompts and questions.

Most students have likely experimented with ChatGPT, while teachers—though aware of it—are less likely to use it. ChatGPT has highly practical applications for both groups, though—including in the math (and science) classroom.

It can, for example, help teachers plan interesting, relevant math lessons for their students. Kristen Moore, who discusses this topic on Math Teacher Lounge, suggests that math teachers use ChatGPT to:

Connect topics to student interests and vice-versa. (Teachers can ask ChatGPT for real-life applications of polynomials and select those that might pique student interest, or ask about math applications derived from students’ hobbies and pursuits.)
Generate word problems (including step-by-step solutions), lessons, projects and rubrics, and more.

Toward the (near) future

As AI advances, it will continue to revolutionize education. Here are a few time-saving ways that educators can look forward to using it in their classrooms.

AI tutors: AI-powered virtual tutors will help math students with homework questions and provide explanations for various concepts. These tutors can be available at home 24/7, allowing students to seek an AI homework helper whenever they need it.
Automatic graders: Some AI tools can automatically grade math work, including multiple-choice and short-answer assignments. These tutors can be available at home 24/7 in any household with internet access, allowing students to seek more personalized instruction.
Personalized learning paths: These AI-powered platforms will work particularly well for math students by adapting to each student’s skill level and pace, offering tailored exercises and challenges that cater to their strengths and identify areas of improvement. They will analyze students’ performance and adjust the difficulty of content, ensuring that students get targeted support and opportunities to progress.

More to explore

To dive deeper into AI in math education—and get rolling with AI in your classroom—check out this two-episode mini-series on our Math Teacher Lounge podcast focused on just that:

Season 5, Episode 7: Discerning the role of AI in education with former teacher, current education technology entrepreneur, and general partner at Reach Capital Jennifer Carolan, who has a lot to share about how AI can partner with educators to foster social learning opportunities.
Season 5, Episode 8: Utilizing AI as a teaching tool with educator Kristen Moore, who discusses how she uses ChatGPT to revolutionize student learning and streamline lesson planning.

“I’m a believer that learning is inherently social,” says Carolan, who is quick to emphasize how technology can enhance that quality, not replace it. The same can be said for the role teachers play in the classroom—a role technology can support, but never take away. To learn more about this topic (and discuss it with your fellow educators!), head to our Math Teacher Lounge community!

Amplify’s professional services for educators

We work together with educators to create meaningful learning experiences in schools—whether it’s designing a customized professional development plan, working alongside teachers in the classroom, or providing engaging and effective high-impact tutoring services to help students thrive.

Amplify’s professional development

When educators grow, students grow. Our goal is to support your team’s professional development with training designed to nurture, develop, and refine instructional practices, enhancing student achievement. We offer flexible PD training and coaching, both in-person and online, with a range of support to fit districts’ needs and educators’ busy schedules.

Explore Amplify’s Effective PD solutions

Two women sit at a table working on laptops, collaborating and reviewing documents, with icons on the left representing ideas, writing, computers, and achievement.

An adult and a child wearing headphones smiling and high-fiving each other at a desk with a laptop.

Amplify’s high-impact tutoring

Every child deserves to be a confident reader and mathematical thinker. Amplify Tutoring, grounded in evidence-based practices and high-quality instructional materials, delivers meaningful gains for students and data-driven insights for educators. Our flexible high-impact tutoring models for literacy and math help schools meet students’ unique needs.

EXPLORE AMPLIFY’S HIGH-IMPACT TUTORING SOLUTIONS

When you grow, your students grow.

“From the start, and in every encounter since I have been overwhelmed by the professionalism and customer focus all Amplify employees have demonstrated. Not only are the curriculum products extraordinary but they are backed by extraordinary people.”

Teacher, Montana

When you grow, your students grow.

“[Amplify] deserves a medal for being one of the few companies that actually explains enrollment and access processes clearly, while providing continued support. Thanks for being organized and caring towards your customers!”

Technology teaching and learning support specialist, Ohio

When you grow, your students grow.

“[Our] facilitator did a fabulous job of highlighting key look-fors, as well as sharing personal experiences with implementation, which are so useful for a teacher to hear.”

Teacher, Louisiana

When you grow, your students grow.

“Amplify Tutoring has been critical in helping several nonreaders not only become readers, but become avid readers…
The turnaround in confidence and excitement for learning has been amazing! The Amplify Tutoring Team provides continuous support system which checks in at all levels to help make the student experience a success.”

—
District program director, Alaska

Leading education into the future, together

Collaborative partnerships to strengthen educator success

Partnering with leading organizations, Amplify offers robust Amplify Desmos Math professional development that complements and enriches your learning journey and ensures access to comprehensive educational resources. Together, we align district and school leader support, enhance instructional practices, and boost student engagement to drive enduring outcomes.

Partner organizations

Leverage Amplify’s curricular expertise and ANet’s strength in assessment alignment and strategic system support to achieve powerful, consistent adoption and effective, long-term implementation.

Explore this partnership

Learn more about ANet

Accelerate results by pairing Amplify’s deep expertise in Amplify Desmos Math and program-aligned professional learning with Teaching Lab’s proven Cycles of Inquiry and direct-to-teacher coaching models to ensure uniformity and harmony in the adoption, rollout, and long-term implementation of HQIM.

Explore this partnership

Learn more about Teaching Lab

The image shows the words "Teaching Matters," with "Matters" in bold and underlined with a green line, emphasizing the vital role of teaching in student success and an enriched learning experience.

Unite Amplify’s program-aligned professional learning with Teaching Matters’ Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) for teachers and leaders to deliver powerful results through consistency and coherence in adoption, implementation, and sustained use.

Explore this partnership

Learn more about Teaching Matters

Harness the power of Amplify’s deep expertise in Amplify Desmos Math alongside TNTP’s proven coaching models for system and school leaders to drive sustainable, impactful, and coherent HQIM implementation.

Explore this partnership

Learn more about TNTP

Experience transformational results when Amplify’s deep expertise in Amplify Desmos Math joins with UnboundEd’s proven strengths in change management, instructional transformation, and leadership coaching to deliver sustainable instructional practices and lasting impact.

Explore this partnership

Learn more about UnboundEd

Don’t miss the finale of Math Teacher Lounge

Just like certain functions and number sequences, even the most successful podcasts reach a natural end. And that’s true of Math Teacher Lounge. After six seasons and more than 40 episodes, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are heading off to work on other exciting projects.

So let’s take a look at the podcast’s farewell episode, as well as some highlights from earlier seasons.

Highlights from this math podcast

On the final episode of Math Teacher Lounge, our hosts walk through the past ten episodes on math fluency. They highlight key conversations on defining and assessing fluency, fluency development in a bilingual math classroom setting, and the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on so-called fake fluency.

“I think every guest has answered a question that we’ve had about fluency and then also opened up new areas of investigation for us,” says Dan. “Whether that’s thinking about community more deeply through fluency or assessment or classroom practices, all these different folks offered us a glimpse into their expertise and then pointed at paths towards more learning.”

Spanning six seasons, the podcast has reached thousands of educators while exploring a wide range of topics including the joy of math, math anxiety, and (of course) math fluency. Guests have included Amplify’s Jason Zimba, Reach Capital’s Jennifer Carolan, and Baltimore County Public Schools’s John W. Staley, Ph.D.

Some of the most popular episodes included:

Investigating math anxiety in the classroom (S5E1) with Gerardo Ramirez, Ph.D., associate professor of educational psychology at Ball State University. Ramirez helped our hosts and listeners understand what math anxiety is and is not, what impact it has on learning, and what we can do about it.

Building math fluency through games (S6E7) with University of Louisville professor Jennifer Bay-Williams, Ph.D., who—in a special live recording at NCTM 2023—showed how games can bring both fluency and joy into the math classroom.

Cultivating a joy of learning with Sesame Workshop (S5E3) with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content for Sesame Workshop. Dr. Truglio shared how to cultivate a growth mindset in young children and point them toward academic achievement and long-term success.

Professional development—and more—to look forward to

Bethany and Dan will continue working on a host of other exciting projects, including webinars and conference appearances. On March 12, Dan will also participate in the Amplify 2024 Math Symposium: a free, virtual, five-hour event that will help educators strengthen math instruction, bolster student agency, and build math proficiency for life.

The following key Math Symposium sessions (featuring your favorite Math Teacher Lounge guests and host Dan Meyer) will help you learn even more about those popular topics in math:

Dan Meyer

How to Invite Students into More Effective Math Learning | 3:15 p.m. EDT

Gerardo Ramirez Ball State University

How Student’s Personal Narratives Shape Math Learning | 12:15 p.m. EDT

Jennifer Bay-Williams University of Louisville

Bringing Math to Life: How Games Build Fluency and Engagement | 1:00 p.m. EDT

Akimi Gibson Sesame Workshop

Developing Young Children’s Identities and Competencies as Mathematicians | 4:00 p.m. EDT

Check out the full agenda and sign up today. All sessions will be recorded and attendees will receive a certificate of attendance.

Key links

State review site for South Carolina literacy

Thank you for taking the time to review Amplify’s K–8 literacy programs for South Carolina. This site will allow your committee to easily access grade-level teacher and student resources digitally and experience all the high-quality instructional materials we have to offer.

Elementary Review

Middle School Review

Welcome, Ohio Department of Education and Workforce!

Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition builds on the principles and instruction of previous editions to provide better-than-ever support for teaching and learning. The focus continues on delivering evidence-based instruction across a system of multi-tiered supports aligned with the Science of Reading and Writing.

We’re excited to share this site, where you’ll find a range of materials and literacy tools including Reviewer Resources and Teaching Materials (Teacher Guides, Activity Books, and Student Readers) organized by grade and unit.

We welcome your thoughts and questions!

Reviewer resources

Alignment and scope and sequence

Core Comprehensive English Language Arts:

Core Foundational Skills:

K-2 Skills Scope and Sequence

Curriculum maps

Core Comprehensive English Language Arts:

Core Foundational Skills:

Kindergarten

Explore all available resources for Kindergarten, organized by strand and unit.

Core Comprehensive English Language Arts

Unit 1: Star Light, Star Bright: Nursery Rhymes and Fables

Unit 2: See, Hear, Smell, Taste, Touch: The Five Senses

Unit 3: Underdogs and Heroes: Stories

Unit 4: See How They Grow: Plants

Unit 5: Moo, Cluck, Oink: Farms

Unit 6: Deep Roots: Introduction to Native American Cultures

Unit 7: All Around the World: Geography

Unit 8 (Choice): Royal Tales: Monarchs

Unit 8 (Choice): National Icons: Presidents and American Symbols

Unit 9 (Choice): Our Planet: Taking Care of the Earth

Unit 9 (Choice): Rain and Rainbows: Seasons and Weather

Unit 10: Shaped by Nature: Art and the World Around Us

Core Foundational Skills

Unit 1

Unit 2

Unit 3

Unit 4

Unit 5

Unit 6

Unit 7

Unit 8

Unit 9

Unit 10

Ancillary Components

Grade 1

Explore all available resources for Grade 1, organized by strand and unit.

Core Comprehensive English Language Arts

Unit 1: The Moral of the Story: Fables and Tales

Unit 2: From Nose to Toes: How Your Body Works

Unit 3: Common Threads: Different Lands, Similar Stories

Unit 4: Reach for the Stars: Astronomy

Unit 5: Charting the World: Geography

Unit 6: A World of Homes: Animals and Habitats

Unit 7: A New Nation: American Independence

Unit 8 (Choice): Once Upon a Time: Fairy Tales

Unit 8 (Choice): Our Planet: The History of the Earth

Unit 9 (Choice): From Babylon to the Nile: Early World Civilizations

Unit 9 (Choice): Early Americas: Maya, Aztec, and Inca

Unit 10: Adventure Stories: Tales from the Edge

Core Foundational Skills

Unit 1

Unit 2

Unit 3

Unit 4

Unit 5

Unit 6

Unit 7

Ancillary Components

Grade 2

Explore all available resources for Grade 2, organized by strand and unit.

Core Comprehensive English Language Arts

Unit 1: Fortunes and Feats: Fairy Tales and Tall Tales

Unit 2: The Birthplace of Democracy: Ancient Greece

Unit 3: Legends and Heroes: Greek Myths

Unit 4: Our Planet: Cycles in Nature

Unit 5: Butterflies, Bees, and Beetles: Insects

Unit 6: A House Divided: The American Civil War

Unit 7: Sounds and Stanzas: Poetry

Unit 8 (Choice): Journeys to America: Immigration

Unit 8 (Choice): Making a Difference: Creating Change

Unit 9 (Choice): Building Blocks: All About Nutrition

Unit 9 (Choice): Early Asian Civilizations: India and China

Unit 10: Taking Flight: The Age of Aviation

Core Foundational Skills

Unit 1

Unit 2

Unit 3

Unit 4

Unit 5

Unit 6

Ancillary Components

Grade 3

Explore all available resources for Grade 3, organized by unit.

Core Comprehensive English Language Arts

Unit 1: Timeless Tales: Classic Stories

Unit 2: Fur, Fins, and Feathers: Animal Classification

Unit 3: Rhythm and Rhyme: Poetry

Unit 4: Rise and Fall: Ancient Rome

Unit 5: Our Solar System and Beyond: Astronomy

Unit 6: Regions and Cultures: Native Americans

Unit 7 (Choice): Novel Study: Charlotte’s Web

Unit 7 (Choice): Novel Study: Stella Díaz Has Something to Say

Unit 8 (Choice): Systems and Senses: The Human Body

Unit 8 (Choice): From Glow to Echo: Light and Sound

Unit 9: From Blues to Bebop: All That Jazz

Ancillary Components

Supplemental Skills Units

Grade 3 Supplemental Skills units are included in core classroom kits, although the instruction isn’t required for Grade 3 standards coverage.

Unit 1

Unit 2

Unit 3

Unit 4

Grade 4 Core Comprehensive ELA

Explore all available resources for Grade 4, organized by unit.

Unit 1: My Story, My Voice: Personal Narratives

Unit 2: Knights and Castles: Europe’s Middle Ages

Unit 3: Meaning and Metaphor: Poetry

Unit 4: Eureka! Student Inventor

Unit 5: Our Planet: Geology

Unit 6: Road to Independence: The American Revolution

Unit 7 (Choice): Novel Study: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Unit 7 (Choice): Novel Study: The Season of Styx Malone

Unit 8 (Choice): Crafting Stories: A World of Tales

Unit 8 (Choice): Adventure on the High Seas: Treasure Island

Unit 9: Inspiration and Ingenuity: American Innovation

Ancillary Components

Grade 5 Core Comprehensive ELA

Explore all available resources for Grade 5, organized by unit.

Unit 1: In My Own Words: Personal Narratives

Unit 2: Early Americas: Maya, Aztec, and Inca

Unit 3: Visions in Verse: Poetry

Unit 4: A Knight’s Tale: Don Quixote

Teacher Guide
Activity Book
Don Quixote (trade book, not downloadable)
Visual Supports
Student-Facing Pausing Point Activities
Assessment Guide: Unit Assessment
Take Home Activities
Caregiver Letter
Caregiver Letter (Spanish)

Unit 5: The Deep Blue World: Oceans

Unit 6: Cultures and Histories: Native Americans

Unit 7 (Choice): Novel Study: The Phantom Tollbooth

Unit 7 (Choice): Novel Study: The Science of Breakable Things

Unit 8 (Choice): Arts and Culture: The Renaissance

Unit 8 (Choice): Through the Forest: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Unit 9: Building Up the World: Global Architecture

Ancillary Components

Digital platform

In the 2025-26 school year, Amplify CKLA’s all-in-one platform will offer essential tools that streamline instruction for teachers and engage students with meaningful content. Teachers can plan and deliver lessons efficiently, while students can access assignments, assessments, and fun practice games.

Presentation Screens
Deliver interactive lessons with ready-made, customizable slides for every lesson.

Auto-scored digital assessments
Assess vocabulary, comprehension, and knowledge development at the end of each K–2 Knowledge and 3–5 Integrated Unit.

Standards-based reports
Identify strengths and growth areas for individuals, small groups, or your entire class. Interactive dashboards offer detailed results from assessments and activities.

Skill-building practice games
Engage students with interactive games that reinforce concepts and make learning fun. Powered by Boost Reading™, these games align with lessons and provide real-time feedback.

eReader
Students access texts, take notes, and use audio-enabled eReaders to enhance their reading experience.

Sound Library
Students watch articulation videos and listen to songs for each sound to support phonological awareness.

Vocab App
Helps students in Grades 3-5 practice Amplify CKLA Tier 2 vocabulary words with fun, interactive games.

Intervention Toolkit
Offers user-friendly resources designed to aid educators in identifying and addressing deficiencies in students’ foundation skills.

Program support resources

Additional program resource documents:

Welcome, San Diego Unified School District!

At Amplify, we partner with you to engage all students deeply with high quality content while also providing teachers with powerful tools that support remote and hybrid learning. We’ll be by your side with new resources and product enhancements to ensure continuity of learning in Amplify Science, Amplify ELA, and Amplify Desmos Math.

Choose a program below for implementation resources, including onboarding videos, program overviews, information about professional learning sessions, and more.

Amplify Science

Amplify ELA

Amplify Desmos Math caregivers: K – 5th Grade

Amplify Desmos Math caregivers: 6th – 8th Grade

Amplify Desmos Math implementation

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Questions?

Amplify Support
Monday through Friday, 4 a.m.–4 p.m. PT
Saturday through Sunday, 8 a.m.–4 p.m. PT
(800) 823-1969
help@amplify.com

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Kirk Van Wagoner

Senior Account Executive

kvanwagoner@amplify.com

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JeMele Moore

Associate Director, Customer Success

jmoore@amplify.com

Texas State Reviewers: Welcome to Amplify Desmos Math Texas!

Thank you for taking the time to review Amplify Desmos Math Texas K–5. This site provides the login steps and tools you need to review the program.

Watch this short introductory video to help you navigate the Amplify Desmos Math Texas K-5 platform. Then, use the login credentials below to start your online review.

The helpful Navigation Tool-Title Lists with live links and other documents to guide your review can be found below as well.

Three people engage in a painting project indoors, with one holding a fraction card and others painting the walls and floor. A tree and math symbols are in the background.

Login page for Amplify with options to log in via Google, Clever, Amplify, QR code, or District SSO. A "Help" button and illustrated design elements are also visible.

Step 1

Go to learning.amplify.com and select Login with Amplify.

Enter the username and password:

Username: t.txmathk5@tryamplify.net
Password: AmplifyNumber1

Step 2

Select Amplify Desmos Math in Your Programs.

Educational dashboard showing a welcome message to "Educator K-5 Review," highlighting "Amplify Desmos Math" as a recommended program, with a paper airplane and quick links section.

Step 3

Once you’re in the program, select a grade level to explore the digital curriculum.

Navigation video

View this short introductory video to help you navigate the Amplify Desmos Math Texas K-5 platform.

Navigation Tool – Title Lists

Tip: Be sure you’re logged into the Amplify Desmos Math platform (steps above) before clicking on the links in these documents.

New content – Quality rubric 1.1a

If approved, this proposed content will be added as a Paper Resource on the Course-level tile on Amplify Desmos Math Texas and on the Caregiver Hub as an additional home resource.

New content – Quality rubric 2.1c

If approved, these two pages will be added to the front matter of the Assessment Resource teacher ancillary.

New content – Grade 4

Grade 4, Unit 1, Lesson 13 Student Edition
4.1.C.iv select tools, including technology as appropriate, to solve problems
- 4.1.C.iv Activity Citation 1:4.3.14 (New Content: Activity 2, Screens 5 – 10, Second Sentence on each Screen)
- 4.1.C.iv Activity Citation 2: 4.1.03 (New Content: Activity 1, Screen 3, Sentence that begins with Choose)
- 4.1.C.iv Activity Citation 3: 4.1.03 (New Content: Synthesis, Screen 8, Explain, Last sentence that begins with Choose)
- 4.1.C.iv Activity Citation 4: 4.6.16 (New Content: Activity 1, Screen 2, Sentence that begins with Choose)

Citations for Upper Limit TEKS in K-5 Mathematics

Proposed changes to address the upper limit TEKS breakouts can be found at the link above. The notes for each citation indicate where the new content will exist, once approved.

Components List

Access the full list of components for Amplify Desmos Math Texas K-5.

Center Resources and Kits

Access a description and ISBN’s for the K-5 Center Resources and Kits.

Manipulative Kits List

Access the full list of contents for each K-5 Amplify Desmos Math Texas Manipulative Kit.

Expect more from your assessments with mCLASS Math.

Understanding student thinking is the key to accelerating student performance.

Welcome to mCLASS^® Math, the benchmarking and progress monitoring system for grades K–8 that measures proficiency, reveals underlying mathematical thinking, and informs instructional support for every learner. Analyzing student responses to reveal valid underlying mathematical thinking—even in wrong answers—helps better target individualized instructional recommendations that build grade-level proficiency.

Explore samples

Meet mCLASS Math.

mCLASS Math’s research-based benchmark and progress monitoring assessment system tracks performance against grade-level expectations to help predict later growth outcomes.

With screening and diagnostic capabilities and empirically established cut scores to assess risk, mCLASS Math reporting helps educators pinpoint strengths and areas of growth for individualized instructional support for every student. Together, these establish a strong Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS).

Explore skills coverage

This powerful assessment is digitally assigned to the whole class three times annually: beginning-of-year (BOY), middle-of-year (MOY), and end-of-year (EOY). The open responses of the assessment give more robust data-points gathered from each item, and it only takes 30 to 40 minutes to complete.

Designed to target critical grade-level skills that predict success, the rich data can be used as a diagnostic tool for Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention and flags for the potential risk of dyscalculia.

mCLASS Progress Monitoring assessments help teachers chart students’ progression between benchmark assessment windows. For students receiving targeted support, mCLASS Progress Monitoring determines if intervention is effective or adjustments are needed to enhance student learning.

These short yet effective assessments enable teachers to monitor a student’s math performance between mCLASS Benchmark assessments. mCLASS Progress Monitoring assessments can be assigned to a select group of students needing targeted support in a specific skill or Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention, and are aligned around crucial math domains for each grade level.

Assess in less time.

With the groundbreaking digital analysis of student thinking, mCLASS Math teachers can rely on the predictive validity of assessments in less time.

The powerful Student Response Analysis of open-ended questions provides deep insight into what and how students think—faster and with fewer questions.

Learn more

A laptop displays a classroom results dashboard for supplemental math, featuring a table of student scores, colored rating bars, and side labels showing numbers 250, 310, and 320.

Access deeper insights.

mCLASS Math’s dynamic data reports offer a window into student thinking, reliably guiding intervention across Tiers 1–3.

The more teachers understand how their students think, the better they can support their growth. The assessment system recognizes students’ individual strengths, experiences, understandings, and strategies—or assets, as we collectively refer to them—to inform the robust data that powers mCLASS Math.

Explore a guided tour

Educator and caregiver reports

Empirically established cut scores and domain-specific measures help teachers plan for tiered intervention with classroom, school, and district-level performance reports set to predict end-of-year outcomes.

To reinforce learning at home, Home Connect letters provide caregivers with easy-to-use reports on their child’s math development.

Student Thinking Report

The Student Thinking Report gives teachers actionable recommendations tailored to how individual students or groups of students approach problems. By understanding the different ways of thinking in skimmable, yet robust, reports, teachers have the tools they need to efficiently plan differentiation to achieve instructional targets.

Actionable recommendations enable teachers to quickly differentiate with intervention resources aligned to common misconceptions.

Learn about reporting

Research behind mCLASS Math

Based on decades of research for best practices in math, mCLASS Math efficiently assesses students’ skills and thinking to give teachers instant recommendations for small group and individualized instruction.

Following research from leading math experts and an in-depth validation analysis through WestEd, a technical report will be released summer 2025.

A teacher provides instructional support to students wearing headphones as they work on laptops during a math intervention session. Other students are visible in the background.

A dedicated team at Amplify with over 500 combined years of classroom teaching, school leadership, and assessment experience thoughtfully created mCLASS Math with teachers and students in mind.

Following research from leading math experts and an in-depth validation analysis through WestEd, data will be continuously released starting in spring 2025.

A woman with long dark hair, smiling and wearing a dark top, embodies the essence of individualized instruction against a neutral background.

Sandra Pappas

Associate Director of Research

A person in a suit and tie smiles while standing in front of a wall with ivy, embodying the essence of individualized instruction and progress monitoring.

Patrick Callahan, Ph.D.

Educator and Founder of Math ANEX

A man in a suit and tie stands against a gray background, arms crossed, exuding confidence as if ready to offer instructional support. He gazes at the camera with an air of determination and expertise.

Jason Zimba, Ph.D.

Chief Academic Officer of STEM
at Amplify

The mCLASS Math K–5 assessment system is designed to provide educators with reliable and valid measures to identify students needing additional support in mathematics and to inform instructional decisions. Preliminary data presents evidence supporting the psychometric quality of the assessment using the technical standards outlined by the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) and state requirements for screening measures.

Read the research

Data informs
instruction

mCLASS Math works alongside your core instruction, differentiation, and intervention. The data model behind mCLASS Math provides comprehensive data for each student across grades K–8, easily connecting teachers to the immediate next steps that will support, strengthen, and stretch all learners.

Explore walkthrough

Math activity interface with three ten-frames showing flowers and leaves, a prompt to find the sum 9 + 4 + 3, and movable flowers for counting—ideal for math intervention and progress monitoring.

Personalized Learning accelerates student growth with daily, targeted 15-minute digital activities. Supported by a virtual tutor, students tackle individualized tasks linked to daily lessons, receiving just-in-time support to foster grade-level success.

Explore sample activities

Two educational pages titled "Writing Equations With Unknown Variables" under Teacher Guide ML L06, featuring problem examples, vocabulary, and recommended next steps for teaching. Includes progress monitoring tools to enhance individualized instruction and boost learning outcomes.

Teacher-led, 15-minute Mini-Lessons can build grade-level proficiency by providing research-based, targeted intervention to small groups of students who need additional support.

Explore sample Mini-Lessons

Three educational math worksheets titled "Capture Squares" and "Cover Up," featuring instructions and a multiplication grid, provide instructional support as engaging supplemental math activities for classroom use.

Reinforce students’ understanding of concepts through collaborative, hands-on Centers (grades K–5). These student-led routines provide additional practice with vertical alignment across grade levels.

Explore sample Centers

Fluency Practice uses spaced repetition, an evidence-based approach to promoting memory retention, to teach basic facts. The adaptive nature of the practice allows students to focus less and less on the facts they already know. We’ve partnered with Math for Love to iterate on the popular Multiplication by Heart to create Division by Heart and Addition and Subtraction by Heart I & II. These proven fluency decks—plus Skills Fluency for supporting procedural fluency practice—help students practice crucial skills independently.

Try Fluency Practice

A laptop screen showcases a software interface with an "Item Bank" of selectable cards, ideal for progress monitoring. The interface features sorting options and a left sidebar menu, offering seamless integration for instructional support.

Item Banks provide space for teachers to create custom practice and assessments by using filters and searching for standards, summative-style items, and more.

Collage of math exercises featuring cubes, an avocado-themed problem, and geometric shapes. Includes instruction for selection and explanation, offering instructional support to aid in progress monitoring.

All students should have access to fun and challenging problems. Extensions are 10- to 15-minute activities aligned to the most critical topics for the grade, providing flexible, low-lift activities for the whole class or targeted intervention to small groups of students ready for an extra challenge.

See a sample Extension

One cohesive math experience

As part of Amplify Desmos Math, Amplify’s comprehensive math suite, mCLASS Math provides a strong foundation of actionable data to help teachers diagnose and capitalize on student strengths. Amplify Desmos Math ensures that you have all the core, intervention, and personalized instruction you need to support each stage of a student’s math journey.

Learn more

Welcome, Arizona educators!

Dear Arizona educator,

Thank you for your interest in Amplify’s core, assessment, intervention, and supplemental programs. Amplify’s resources are different to make a difference—and the results are undeniable. Explore our unique, research-based approaches built right into our high-quality instructional materials. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

With great respect for what you do,

The Arizona Amplify team

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Early Literacy Suite

Based on 20 years of experience with the Science of Reading, Amplify’s early literacy suite combines the crucial elements of core curriculum, intervention, and personalized learning. Our programs ensure that all educators have what they need to support every student within an aligned system based on research and effective practices. Amplify CKLA received all-green ratings from EdReports. Read the review on EdReports.

Explore K–5 Literacy Suite

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Amplify ELA

Amplify ELA is a blended curriculum designed specifically for grades 6–8. At the heart of every lesson is the text. We enable teachers to teach skills texts and develop their students’ muscles for building meaning through reading. With Amplify ELA, students learn to attack any complex text and make observations, grapple with interesting ideas, and find relevance for themselves. Rated all green by EdReports, Amplify ELA earned perfect scores across all gateways. Read the review on EdReports.

Explore 6–8 Amplify ELA

Amplify Science

Amplify Science empowers students to think, read, and write like real scientists and engineers. Amplify Science K–8 received all-green ratings in EdReports’ review of national middle-school science curricula. Read the review on EdReports.

Explore K–8 Amplify Science

Two students wearing safety goggles conduct a science experiment together, pouring liquid between plastic cups over a blue tray on a classroom table.

Amplify Desmos Math

Meet Amplify Desmos Math. Our structured approach to problem-based learning systematically builds on students’ curiosity to develop lasting grade-level understanding.

Explore Amplify Desmos Math

Contact us

Support is always available. Our team is dedicated to helping you and can be reached at any time by emailing or calling us directly.

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Eastern, Western, Southern AZ

Tommy Gearhart

Senior Account Executive

(505) 206-7661

tgearhart@amplify.com

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Northern & Central AZ

Yvonne Rohde

Senior Account Executive

(480) 673-0019

yrohde@amplify.com

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Districts below 3,500

Laina Armbruster

Account Executive

(602) 791-4135

larmbruster@amplify.com

Prepare for Amplify professional development

When you grow, your students grow.

Whether you are implementing Amplify programs for the first time or strengthening instructional practices, our goal is to support your professional growth and help all students succeed.

Feel prepared and ready to grow with us.

This site provides session preparation guidance, the agenda and objectives for all Prepare, Begin and Practice sessions. The Prepare sessions are denoted as such. The Begin and Practice sessions are listed by product type – core, assessment and supplemental. All state-specific training is found in its own section.

A four-step process diagram labeled Prepare, Begin, Practice, and Advance, each with icons and brief descriptions of stages for implementing an educational program.

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Onsite session preparation

Do you have an upcoming onsite PD session? Do you need to know what your participants should bring to their session or what should be provided in the training space? Click ‘learn more’ below for detailed information on how to prepare for your onsite session.

Learn more

Remote session preparation

Do you have an upcoming remote PD session? Do you need to know what your participants should have at their session or how to set up a remote session? Click ‘learn more’ below for detailed information on how to prepare for your remote session.

Learn more

Prepare session agendas

Launch

Build your Knowledge of Math Problem-Based Learning (90 min)

K–5
6–8

Deepen your Knowledge of Math Problem-Based Learning (3 hour)

K–5
6–8

Launch

Build your Knowledge of Science of Reading (90 min)

K–5

Deepen your Knowledge of Science of Reading (3 hour)

K–5

Multiliterate learners

Build your knowledge of multiliterate learners (90 min) K–5
Deepen your knowledge of multiliterate learners (3 hour) K–5

Core: Launch and Strengthen session agendas

Select your program to preview a session agenda and any other session specific preparation steps for participants.

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand program overview for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand program overview for teachers K–2
Program overview for leaders K–5

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5
Writing K–2 3–5
- Note: teachers should bring a recent class set of student writing samples from the Amplify curriculum to this session.

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers PreK K–2 3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers PreK K–2 3–5
Skills Strand program overview for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand program overview for teachers K–2
Program overview for leaders PreK–5

CKLA Writing Studio (3 hours)

Writing Studio companion training for teachers K–5

CKLA Language Studio (3 hours)

Language Studio companion training for teachers K–2 3–5

CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition Transition Training (1 hour)

Transition Training for Teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand Transition Training for Teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand Transition Training for Teachers K–2

Grade 3 Skills (1 hour)

Supplemental training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers PreK K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5
Maximizing impact: Data-informed remediation with the ARG K–2
- Note: teachers should bring a recent set of graded class data from an Amplify benchmark or end-of-unit assessment to this session.
Maximizing impact: Data-informed remediation with the ARG/DERG 3–5
Writing K–2 3–5
- Note: teachers should bring a recent class set of student writing samples from the Amplify curriculum to this session.
Enhancing observations for leaders K–5

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand program overview for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand program overview for teachers K–2
Program overview for leaders K–5

CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition Transition Training (1 hour)

Transition Training for Teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand Transition Training for Teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand Transition Training for Teachers K–2

Grade 3 Skills (1 hour)

Supplemental training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K –2 3–5
Maximizing impact: Data-informed remediation with the ARG K–2
Maximizing impact: Data-informed remediation with the ARG/DERG 3–5
Enhancing observations for leaders K–5

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for leaders PreK–5

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5
Writing for teachers K–2 3–5

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers 6–8

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers 6–8
Program overview for leaders 6–8

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers 6–8
Enhancing practice for teachers 6–8
Writing: Improving through feedback 6–8
Supporting all learners 6–8
Data-informed instruction 6–8
Enhancing observations for leaders 6–8

Focus (1 hour)

Teaching with print and digital 6–8
Lesson planning 6–8
Pacing 6–8
Increasing student engagement 6–8
Grading and assessment 6–8

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers G6–Alg1 Geo–Alg2

Program Overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers G6–Alg1 Geo–Alg2
Program overview for leaders G6–Alg1 Geo–Alg2

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–5 6–A1 High School

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers K–5 6–A1 High School
Program overview for leaders K–5 6–A1 High School

Transition training (1 hour)

Desmos Math to Amplify Desmos Math transition training for teachers 6–A1

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Supporting all Learners K–5 6–A1
Enhancing observations for leaders K–A1
Enhancing planning for teachers K–5 6–A1 High School
Enhancing practice for teachers K–5 6–A1 High School

Focus (1 hour)

Snapshots in the Teacher Dashboard 6–A1
Teaching a lesson with Digital Student Screens K–5
Unit-level planning K–5 6–A1 High School

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–5 6–8

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers TK K–5 6–8
Program overview for leaders K–5 6–8

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–5 6–8
Enhancing practice for teachers K–5 6–8
Supporting all learners with complex texts K–5 6–8
Supporting English learners K–5 6–8
Writing in science K–5 6–8
Engineering internship 6 – MET 7 – PM 8 – FAM
Science Seminar 6–8
Enhancing observations for leaders K–5 6–8
Assessment system K–5 6–8

Focus (1 hour)

Enhancing the digital experience K–5
Planning with the Coherence Flowchart K–8
Planning an Amplify Science lesson K–8
Supporting all learners: exploring the resources K–8
Supporting all learners: teacher modeling and student discourse K–8
Supporting all learners: multimodal instruction K–8
Analyzing student work K–8
- Note: teachers should bring a recent set of student work samples from an Amplify Science assessment to this session.

Unit kit materials and prep K–8
Grading with Amplify Science K–8

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and scoring training (3 hours)

Administration and scoring training for teachers

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training for leaders

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and scoring training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training for leaders

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training for leaders

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for interventionists

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for intervention coordinators

Launch

Program overview + DIBELS 8th Edition Administration and scoring training (6 hours)

Program overview + DIBELS 8th Edition Administration and scoring training for interventionists

Initial training + DIBELS 8th Edition Administration and scoring training (9 hours)

Initial training + DIBELS 8th Edition Administration and scoring training for interventionists and coordinators

Launch

Asset-based assessment training (3 hours)

Asset-based assessment training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Student Thinking and instructional next steps

Focus (1 hour)

Leveraging Assessment data to strengthen mathematical explanations

Assessment and Intervention: Coaching options

Select your program to view options for building a coaching session agenda.

Coaching session agenda options

Use this resource as a reference for building a coaching session agenda.

Coach PLC session topic menu

Use this resource as a menu of possible topics to choose from for a PLC or grade level meeting.

Note: this resource will only be needed if your coaching session agenda includes a PLC or grade level meeting.

Coaching session agenda options

Use this resource as a reference for building a coaching session agenda.

Coach PLC session topic menu

Use this resource as a menu of possible topics to choose from for a PLC or grade level meeting.

Note: this resource will only be needed if your coaching session agenda includes a PLC or grade level meeting.

Coaching session agenda options

Use this resource as a reference for building a coaching session agenda.

Coach PLC session topic menu

Use this resource as a menu of possible topics to choose from for a PLC or grade level meeting.

Note: this resource will only be needed if your coaching session agenda includes a PLC or grade level meeting.

Boost: Launch and Strengthen session agendas

Select your program to preview a session agenda and any other session specific preparation steps for participants.

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Strengthen

Focus (1 hour)

Maximizing data for teachers

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Getting started for teachers

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Getting started for teachers

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Getting started for teachers

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Getting started for teachers

Strengthen

Focus (1 hour)

Maximizing data for teachers

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Getting started for teachers

Strengthen

Focus (1 hour)

Next steps with Boost Math Resources

Online course outlines

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers: Online course

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers: Online course

Administration and scoring training for teachers: Online course

Administration and scoring training for teachers: Online course

Administration and scoring training for DDS users: Online course

Program overview for interventionists: Online course

Getting started for teachers: Online course

Getting started for teachers: Online course

Getting started for teachers: Online course

Getting started for teachers: Online course

mCLASS

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers: Online course

mCLASS Lectura

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers: Online course

Boost Reading

Getting started for teachers: Online course K–5 6–8

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers: Online course

mCLASS Lectura

Administration and instruction essentials essentials for teachers: Online course

State-specific session agendas

Select your program to preview a session agenda and any other session specific preparation steps for participants.

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5 6–8
Skills strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers K–2 3–5 6–8
Program overview for leaders K–5 6–8
Skills strand program overview for teachers K–2
Knowledge strand program overview for teachers K–2

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5 6–8
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5 6–8
Writing K–2 3–5 6–8
Enhancing observations for leaders K–5 6–8
Supporting all learners for 6–8 teachers 6–8
Data informed instruction 6–8

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5 6–8
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5 6–8
Teaching with print and digital 6–8
Lesson planning 6–8
Grading and assessment 6–8

Coach

K–5

Use this resource as a menu of possible topics to choose from for a PLC or grade level meeting.

Note: this resource will only be needed if your coaching session agenda includes a PLC or grade level meeting.

6–8

Use this resource as a menu of possible topics to choose from for a PLC or grade level meeting.

Note: this resource will only be needed if your coaching session agenda includes a PLC or grade level meeting.

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills strand program overview for teachers K–2
Knowledge strand program overview for teachers K–2

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5
Writing K–2 3–5

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5
Skills strand initial training for teachers K–2
Knowledge strand initial training for teachers K–2

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for leaders K–5

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5
Writing K–2 3–5

Focus (1 hour)

Student engagement K–5
Supporting all learners K–5
Pacing K–5

Coach

K–5

Use this resource as a menu of possible topics to choose from for a PLC or grade level meeting.

Note: this resource will only be needed if your coaching session agenda includes a PLC or grade level meeting.

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers K–2 3–5
Program overview for leaders K–5

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Enhancing planning for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers K–2 3–5
Writing K–2 3–5
Maximizing Impact: data-informed remediation with the ARG for teachers K–2 3–5
Enhancing observations for leaders K–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers K–2 3–5

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Initial training for teachers 6–8

Program overview (3 hours)

Program overview for teachers 6–8
Program overview for leaders 6–8

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and scoring training (3 hours)

Administration and scoring training for teachers

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training for leaders

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and scoring training (3 hours)

Administration and scoring training for teachers

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training for leaders

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Administration and reporting training for leaders

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and scoring training (3 hours)

Administration and scoring training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Maximizing student outcomes with reporting and progress monitoring

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Maximizing student outcomes with reporting and progress monitoring

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Maximizing student outcomes with reporting and progress monitoring

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Getting started for teachers K–5 6–8
Getting started for leaders K–5

Strengthen

Focus (1 hour)

Maximizing data for teachers K–5 6–8

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours)

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and scoring training (3 hours)

Administration and scoring training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

NYC Solves Regents Prep A1

Hello NYC high school math educators!

Welcome to Amplify Desmos Math NYC Solves Regents Prep A1. This sequence of lessons is specifically designed for students who passed Algebra 1 in eighth grade but did not pass the NYS Regents exam in June. The instructional resources are accessed through the Amplify Desmos Math platform, affording students a highly engaging experience to prepare them for the January administration of the Regents by reinforcing conceptual understanding.

On this site, you’ll find a variety of resources to guide you in learning more about the course and how to get started.

Ready to jump in? This quick start guide will help you take the first steps to get started. Remember to use your NYCDOE email for access.

Laptop displaying a math website called Desmos Math 6–A1, featuring an interactive exercise involving a sketch of a car and graphs.

amplify math middle schoolers in classroom

About Amplify Desmos Math

Amplify Desmos Math 6–A1 is based on the highly rated IM K–12™ curricula from Illustrative Mathematics, with extensive enhancements that include teacher supports, interactivity, assessments, and reporting.

The program is aligned with the expectations outlined in the New York City Department of Education Definition of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education and the New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework.

Download the CR-SE alignment.

Your NYC Solves Regents Prep A1 course uses key lessons and activities from Amplify Desmos Math to prepare students for the A1 Regents.

NYC webinar series

Figuring out how to implement a problem-based learning approach to mathematics can be fun—and challenging. Rest assured that you will not be alone on this journey. Amplify will be by your side every step of the way. Our back-to-school math webinar series for K–8 administrators and teachers:

Introduces the new NYC Solves initiative.
Establishes the foundation for all educators to effectively understand and implement the NYCPS Shifts in Mathematics in their classrooms.
Provides an overview of Amplify Desmos Math, the pre-approved NYCPS curriculum chosen to ensure every school can successfully implement these math shifts and is supported with high-level, tailored professional development and coaching throughout the process.

Please see the specific webinars and the recordings below to learn more!

On-demand webinar 1
[Aug. 29 and Sept. 3, 2024]

Would you like to learn more about the NYCPS Shifts in Mathematics and enhance your understanding of each of the five shifts?

Explore how the NYCPS math shifts are transforming mathematics education from a procedural approach to a more engaging, discoverable, and connected learning experience.

Listen to the Understanding the NYCPS Shifts in Mathematics session recording.

On-demand webinar 2
[Sept. 10 and Sept. 12, 2024]

Let’s unpack the why, what, and how to unlock every student’s mathematical mind and build math proficiency for life! In this webinar, we discuss the power of teaching our children to be skilled mathematicians through a structured approach to problem solving

Listen to the Unlocking Mathematical Minds: A Structured Approach to Problem-Based Learning session recording.

On-demand webinar 3
[Sept. 17 and Sept. 19, 2024]

For some educators, transitioning to problem-based learning might seem daunting. There is often concern that its open-ended nature could derail students from achieving mathematical goals. However, by finding the right balance between open-ended opportunities and structured classroom activities, students can be encouraged to share their thinking while meeting key learning targets. Uncover simple shifts that educators can implement to foster open-ended student thinking while maintaining focus on mathematical instructional goals.

Listen to the Making the Shift to Problem-Based Learning session recording.

Live webinar 4
[Oct. 1 and Oct. 3, 2024]

Learn More and Experience Amplify Desmos Math LIVE, an NYCPS Approved Math Curricula.

This is the final session of the series. Amplify Desmos Math New York K–A1 is math that motivates! During this session, you’ll experience a Grade 6 lesson that captures the essence of NYC Solves.

Choose from two convenient times and register below:

Oct. 1, 2024, 9:15–10:15 a.m. EDT
Oct. 3, 2024, 3:15–4:15 p.m. EDT

Program features to know

Screenshot of an educational module titled "Balloon Float" on Desmos Classroom. It focuses on proportional relationships with tables and lists goals related to quantities, patterns, and numerical relationships.

Desmos Classroom digital lessons

Digital lessons should be powerful in their ability to surface student thinking and spark interesting and productive discussions. We’ve joined forces with Desmos Classroom to bring this vision to life with a complete library of interactive, collaborative lessons.

A screenshot of an educational software showing a turtle race. Users write equations for four turtles to determine their speed. Lane 4 is empty, waiting for an equation to be written. Graph and table included.

Engaging student experience

Relevant content and interactive math tools create an intuitive and engaging student experience. Plus, working together in real-time allows students to see that communicating their ideas and learning from each other are important parts of math class.

Laptop screen displaying an illustrative mathematics pattern on a grid in a graphics editing software interface, with annotations and tool icons visible.

Visibility into student thinking

Imagine having more visibility into your students’ mathematical thinking. Now imagine students have access to this same information. With our collaborative lesson interface and teacher dashboard, students stay engaged. What’s more, they have visibility into the thinking of their peers—exposing them to a wider variety of approaches to solving the same problem.

A screenshot displays a Pizza Maker educational tool. Four pizzas are shown, and a question about oven temperature for multiple pizzas is posed. Various student responses are visible below.

Ready-to-teach lessons

The two tracks for scope and sequence include ready-to-teach lessons to prepare students for the A1 Regents. Lessons come complete with slides, step-by-step teaching notes, suggested student and teacher responses, tips for incorporating instructional routines, support for developing mathematical language, and links to useful resources. Teachers can also control what slides students see, giving teachers the ability to control the pace of the lesson to suit the needs of the class.

Planning for instruction

To start using the program quickly in your classroom, check out the following onboarding videos, guide, and planning resources. They cover what you need to know to get going fast.

Amplify Desmos Math Regents Prep Course Session I

NYC Solves Regents Prep A1 is customized specifically to meet the needs of students in ninth grade preparing for the Algebra 1 Regents exam. Within each document below, you’ll find the scope and sequence with course structure and lessons.

Screenshot of an educational website's dashboard, displaying colorful banners for math 6, math 7, math 8, and algebra 1 courses under the featured collections section.

Logging in to access the program

Login instructions:

Teachers: Log in with Amplify steps 1–3 and steps 4–6 or TeachHub (district-preferred login method)
Administrators: Log in with Amplify or TeachHub (district-preferred login method)
Students: Log in with Amplify steps 1–3 and steps 4–6 or TeachHub (district-preferred login method)

Questions? Check out this Tech FAQ for more information.

Additional support:

How to navigate the platform
How to reset student(s) password
How to log my class out of a shared device
Clever class logout instructions

A desktop screen displaying various educational graphs and charts, including trajectory and bar graphs, with icons and text details related to Desmos math lessons.

Lesson Sampler

Amplify Desmos Math delivers the instructional power of student-centered learning in a lesson format that’s teacher-friendly and manageable.

With easy-to-follow instructional support, implementing a problem-based program is effective and enjoyable for both you and your students. Paired with the Desmos Classroom digital experience, math class becomes fun and dynamic, with plenty of opportunities for students to talk through their reasoning, work with their peers, and gain new understanding.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math, Algebra 1, Teacher Edition" depicting students interacting with mathematical graphs and geometric shapes in a futuristic setting.

Algebra 1 [A1] Teacher Edition Sampler

LEARN MORE

A math worksheet titled "Working Backwards" featuring a warm-up exercise involving a number machine, with a table to complete for different values of x and an illustration of machine operations.

Algebra 1 [A1] Student Edition Sampler

LEARN MORE

Additional features

Universal design

Every student is brilliant, and every student has brilliant mathematical ideas worth sharing and cultivating. Incorporating principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into lessons brings students’ brilliance to the forefront. UDL is a research-based framework designed to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

A feedback form with two questions, "How well did you understand the math in this lesson?" and "How did you feel about learning math in this lesson?" with corresponding emoji options for responses, perfectly complements the New York Math curriculum.

Diversity and representation

Helping students develop strong, healthy, and flexible math identities is a cornerstone of our program. Throughout the curriculum, students are taught that they themselves are mathematicians, that today’s math has been shaped by a diverse range of mathematicians who deserve to be celebrated, and that learning is never finished.

Illustration of a laptop displaying various colorful icons and graphics representing diverse professions and historical figures on its screen, emphasizing illustrative mathematics and desmos math concepts through its displayed content.

Assessments

Less exciting, but essential for learning: assessments. Amplify Desmos Math features a robust variety of formative and summative assessments, including readiness checks, exit tickets, quizzes, end-of-unit tests, and benchmarks aligned with New York State Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards.

Reporting

Not only do our reports reveal progress toward standard mastery, they also include details on how students performed against the standard in the past and how many encounters are yet to come. This feature alone helps teachers prioritize instruction and intervene with additional resources when necessary.

A computer screen displays a New York math skills tracking interface, highlighting standard 6.EE.C.9, with progress indicators and a class average score of 74% shown in a yellow pie chart.

Looking for help?

Throughout your implementation, you can reach our support team by live chat, phone, or email Monday through Friday,
7 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET.

Chat: Click the orange icon while logged in to get immediate help.
Phone: Call our dedicated support line for NYCPS (888) 960-0380.
Email: Send an email to help@amplify.com. In the message body, please include your name and question. Provide as much detail as possible, so we can help you find a solution.

A laptop screen displays an educational curriculum interface with a list of core units and colorful illustrated unit tiles for sixth grade ELA.

Amplify Desmos Math for KIPP

We’re thrilled that you’re reviewing Amplify Desmos Math for use with your students.

We’re confident you’ll find this to be a powerful and effective program for getting all your students talking and thinking about math concepts together.

Michael Kasloff
Regional Vice President, Strategic Sales

Expect more from your math program.

Computer interface displaying various mosaic patterns submitted by users, each in different color combinations and grid shapes, with labels beneath each design.

For students

Every student feels connected and a part of the conversation when participating in an Amplify Desmos Math lesson. And when students are actively engaged with the content, they achieve more.

A classroom progress dashboard shows students’ names in a list with blue progress bars and checkmarks for submitted assignments in a math class.

For teachers

The program delivers what math educators want and need:

Standards-aligned print and digital lessons that capture students’ interest every day
The right mix of informal and substantive diagnostic and summative assessments
Differentiation support
Extensive practice in print and digital
Multilingual learner support

Math textbook cover and a colorful graph on a website interface, depicting parabolas and offering interactive tools for capturing parabolic shapes.

For leaders

The program delivers what school and district leaders want and need:

A coherent core program based on the industry-leading IM K–12 Math™ by Illustrative Mathematics^®
A comprehensive suite of usage and performance reports to identify school- and district-wide trends
A team from Amplify dedicated to making your implementation a success

What’s included

We’ve taken the power of Desmos’ technology and lessons and added beautiful, easy-to-use print and digital components to make a game-changing program that makes teaching a breeze.

Student materials

Student Editions (2 volumes)
Digital lessons, practice, assessment, and differentiation, built with Desmos technology

Program components subject to change.

Teacher materials

Teacher Edition (2 volumes)
Digital tools and support
Classroom monitoring and management
Reporting
Assessment customization
Differentiation, including just-in-time prerequisite supports
Additional practice and Assessment blackline masters (print and digital)

Program components subject to change.

Start your review

Ready to explore the program? Watch our quick walkthrough video and follow these simple instructions to access your demo account.

Preview K–5 digital lessons here.
Download the draft K–5 scope and sequence here.
Preview digital lessons for grades 6–Algebra 1 here.
You can also preview both the student edition and teacher edition of a grade 3 lesson in print.

View our help articles on running your first lesson and the Teacher dashboard for more information.

Illustration of a Desmos Math software interface on a laptop screen next to a colorful, stylized diagram of classroom activities.

mCLASS Math (Assessment)

All digital (grades K–6)
The all new mCLASS Math is an online screener and diagnostic. It provides granular data, targeted grouping suggestions, teacher-led activities and places students in Boost Math.

Click here to view the mCLASS Math scope and sequence and skills coverage across grades K–6. To the right, preview a sample item and program overview information.

Contact us

Support is always within reach. Our team is dedicated to supporting KIPP and can be reached at any time by emailing or calling us directly.

A portrait of a bald man with a beard, wearing a blue shirt, smiling slightly and looking directly at the camera against a white background.

Michael Kasloff

Regional Vice President, Strategic Sales

862-215-4505

mkasloff@amplify.com

Amplify Desmos Math for NYC

Welcome! This site contains supporting resources for the New York City Department of Education Amplify Desmos Math adoption for grade 6–A1.

What’s new?

New reporting views will be available for district and school leaders by February 10th. Review the resources below for more.
- Overview of reports and filters
- Step by step directions for accessing and interpreting reports
- Video walkthrough
Have a question about Amplify Desmos Math? this FAQ doc answers top questions about access, implementation, and features.
Need help? Check here for who can help! Our dedicated phone number, just for NYC, has team members ready to help! 1-888-960-0380

About the program

Amplify Desmos Math New York is based on Illustrative Mathematics® IM K–12™ and expands on Desmos Math 6–8 (which received all-green ratings from EdReports) with beautiful print resources, and robust practice, differentiation supports, assessment and reporting. Read the review on EdReports.

Amplify Desmos Math provides:

Engaging, discourse-rich math lessons that are easier to teach.
Flexible, collaborative problem-solving experiences both online and off.
Real-time insights that make student thinking more transparent.

Program highlights to know about

Getting started with Amplify Desmos Math Video (coming soon)
Curriculum overview and background
Examples of implementation
Implementation considerations
Caregiver Resources
Multilingual Learner Supports
Packing List

Screenshot of a Desmos Classroom lesson page titled "Balloon Float," showing lesson objectives, standards, vocabulary, and navigation menu on the left.

Desmos Classroom digital lessons

Screenshot of an educational interface showing a turtle race with lanes labeled 1 to 4, a play button, timer, and a table for writing equations for each lane.

Engaging student experience

Relevant content and interactive math tools create an intuitive and engaging student experience. Plus, working together in real time allows students to see that communicating their ideas and learning from each other are important parts of math class.

A digital activity interface showing hexagonal mosaics, a "Scale Factor = 3" label, and students' text responses about scaling and color patterns in the mosaic shapes.

Visibility into student thinking

Imagine having more visibility into your students’ mathematical thinking. Now imagine that students have access to this same information. With our collaborative lesson interface and teacher dashboard, students have awareness their own thinking and that of their peers—exposing them to a wider variety of approaches to solving the same problem.

A computer screen displays a math lesson about baking pizzas at 600°F, showing four uncooked pizzas and student response boxes below the question.

Ready-to-teach lessons

Each grade level includes 150 ready-to-teach lessons, complete with slides, step-by-step teaching notes, suggested student and teacher responses, tips for incorporating instructional routines, support for developing mathematical language, and links to useful resources. Teachers can manage what slides students see, controlling the pace of the lesson to suit the needs of the class.

Planning for instruction

Amplify Desmos Math is customized specifically to meet the New York State Next Generation Math Learning Standards. Within each document below, you’ll find direct links to lessons and activities where each individual standard is addressed.

The program is also aligned with the expectations outlined in the New York City Department of Education Definition of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education and the New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework. Download the CR-SE alignment.

Amplify Desmos Math Scope and Sequence

Amplify Desmos Math Accelerated Scope and Sequence

Ready to plan for the 2025-26 school year? These pacing guides are designed to provide structure, not rigid mandates and resources for NYC.

Experience Amplify Desmos Math New York

Explore our digital program to review content from all grades, 6–A1. Watch our quick walkthrough video for helpful navigation tips.

Try out Amplify Desmos Math by following these steps.

Printable login instructions:

Teachers: Log in with Amplify steps 1–3 and steps 4–6 or TeachHub (district-preferred login method)
Administrators: Log in with Amplify or TeachHub (district-preferred login method)
Students: Log in with Amplify steps 1–3 and steps 4–6 or TeachHub (district-preferred login method)

Additional support:

How to reset student(s) password
How to log my class out of a shared device
Clever class logout instructions
Single session codes

Print Materials List:

Packing list

A digital screen displays a rocket graphing activity, and an open textbook shows diagrams, charts, and text on building quadratics in factored form.

Lesson Sampler

Amplify Desmos Math delivers the instructional power of student-centered learning packaged in a lesson format that’s teacher-friendly and manageable.

With easy-to-follow instructional support, implementing a problem-based program becomes more effective and enjoyable for both you and your students. Paired with the Desmos Classroom digital experience, math class is suddenly fun and dynamic, with plenty of opportunities for students to talk through their reasoning, work with their peers, and gain new understanding.

Three children and several penguins stand around a large thermometer on an icy landscape with mountains in the background. The cover is labeled "Grade 6 Sample lesson.

Grade 6 Lesson Sampler

learn more

Three people stand next to a large thermometer in a snowy landscape with mountains and penguins; cover page reads "Grade 7 Sample lesson" for Amplify Desmos Math.

Grade 7 Lesson Sampler

learn more

Three people and several penguins stand on ice near a large thermometer, with snowy mountains in the background. The thermometer shows temperatures from -30°C to 50°C.

Grade 8 Lesson Sampler

learn more

Additional features

Universal design

Diversity and representation

Assessments

Reporting

Not only do our reports reveal progress toward standard mastery, but they also include details on how students performed against the standard in the past and how many encounters are yet to come. This feature alone helps teachers prioritize instruction and intervene with additional resources when necessary.

NYC webinar series

Figuring out how to implement a problem-based learning approach to mathematics can be fun—and challenging. Rest assured that you won’t be alone on this journey; Amplify will be by your side every step of the way. Our back-to-school math webinar series for K–8 administrators and teachers:

Introduces the new NYC Solves initiative.
Establishes the foundation for all educators to effectively understand and implement the NYCPS Shifts in Mathematics in their classrooms.
Provides an overview of Amplify Desmos Math, the pre-approved NYCPS curriculum chosen to ensure that every school can successfully implement these math shifts and is supported with high-level, tailored professional development and coaching throughout the process.

Please see the specific webinars and the recordings below to learn more!

Two Amplify Desmos Math teacher edition books are shown next to a laptop displaying a digital math activity with shapes and a prompt about ordering by lightest weight.

On-demand webinar 1

Would you like to learn more about the NYCPS Shifts in Mathematics and enhance your understanding of each of the five shifts?

Explore how the NYCPS math shifts are transforming mathematics education from a procedural approach to a more engaging, discoverable, and connected learning experience.

Listen to the Understanding the NYCPS Shifts in Mathematics session recording.

On-demand webinar 2

Listen to the Unlocking Mathematical Minds: A Structured Approach to Problem-Based Learning session recording.

On-demand webinar 3

For some educators, transitioning to problem-based learning might seem daunting. There’s often concern that the open-ended nature of the approach could derail students from achieving mathematical goals. However, by finding the right balance between open-ended opportunities and structured classroom activities, teachers can encourage students to share their thinking while meeting key learning targets. Uncover simple shifts that educators can implement to foster the perfect balance of open-ended student thinking and focus on mathematical instructional goals.

Listen to the Making the Shift to Problem-Based Learning session recording.

On-demand webinar 4

Amplify Desmos Math New York K–A1 is math that motivates! During this session recording, you’ll experience a grade 6 lesson that captures the essence of NYC Solves.

Listen to the Learn More and Experience Amplify Desmos Math LIVE, an NYCPS-Approved Math Curriculum session recording.

Looking for help?

Support is always within reach. Our team is dedicated to supporting you throughout your review. You can be reached at any time by emailing or calling us directly.

Support pathways for NYC Core Orders
Chat: Click the orange icon while logged in to get immediate help.
Support Portal: Fill out this form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Phone: Call our toll-free NYC Support number: (888) 960-0380.
Email: Send an email to AmplifyNYC@amplify.com.

A computer screen displaying an educational platform with various course thumbnails including science and art topics.

Welcome, Alaska reviewers!

Thank you for taking the time to review Amplify’s complete early literacy system for PK–5.

Our curriculum, assessment, practice, and intervention solutions work in tandem to ensure classroom teachers have what they need to provide multi-tiered literacy support to every student.

On this site, you’ll find a variety of resources designed to support your review and evaluation, including links to sample materials, demo access, and additional materials.

Illustration of diverse children and animated creatures, with a large friendly robot, engaged in playful activities in a vibrant, imaginative setting.

Complete literacy system

Strong core instruction is crucial–but in isolation, even that’s not enough. A truly effective literacy system needs to bring together assessment, core instruction, personalized practice, targeted intervention, and ongoing professional development.

Together with leading experts in reading instruction, Amplify has built a proven early literacy system grounded in the latest reading research and designed to ensure every student receives the multi-tiered support they need to grow as a reader. Our partners include:

The University of Oregon
Core Knowledge Foundation
Recognized language, literacy, and biliteracy experts such as Dr. Lillian Durán, Dr. Desiree Pallais, Dr. Catherine Snow, and others.

Flowchart showing a five-step educational process: 1. universal screening, 2. core instruction, 3. personalized learning, 4. intervention, 5. science of reading professional development.

Assessment

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition is the adopted literacy screener for the state of Alaska!

The mCLASS^® Assessment System includes everything Alaska educators need—universal screening, dyslexia screening, diagnostic assessments, and progress monitoring. Plus, it’s easy and efficient to administer, and provides classroom teachers with instant, actionable data that guides instruction.

When the DIBELS^® 8th Edition assessment is paired with:

The Text Reading and Comprehension (TRC) assessment, teachers unlock the ability to record reading behaviors through running digital records.
The Vocabulary, Encoding, and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) measures, teachers are empowered to screen for dyslexia risk.
mCLASS Lectura, teachers gain a holistic view of their students with biliteracy insights that support students in both English and Spanish.

Ready to learn more? Click the button below to review mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition.

mCLASS DIBELS 8

Core instruction

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts^® (CKLA) is a state-approved core program!

Amplify CKLA is truly based in the Science of Reading. It includes explicit, systematic lessons in foundational skills and a coherent approach to building background knowledge, developing vocabulary, and reading complex text with confidence.

Through a powerful combination of proven, evidence-based practices and engaging, interactive content, Amplify CKLA ensures all students have the opportunity to become strong readers, writers, speakers, and thinkers.

Ready to learn more? Click the button below to review Amplify CKLA.

Amplify CKLA

Personalized practice

Practice is nice. Practice that is adaptive and integrates with your assessment system and core ELA program is better!

Amplify Reading is an adaptive and personalized pathway that makes practice more purposeful and productive. It also fully integrates with the mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and Amplify CKLA.

mCLASS automatically places students on an adaptive path within Amplify Reading, which provides them the exact practice they need.
That very practice follows the same approach and scope and sequence as Amplify CKLA, which further reinforces the core instruction.

Ready to learn more? Click the button below to review Amplify Reading.

Amplify Reading

Targeted intervention

mCLASS^® Intervention is a staff-led reading intervention that connects directly to mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition data.

mCLASS Intervention automatically groups students with similar needs, follows a research-based skills progression, includes ready-to-teach engaging lessons, and updates skill profiles and groups every ten days. For busy teachers, that means more free time to teach the reading skills each student needs.

Ready to learn more? Click the button below to review mCLASS Intervention.

mCLASS Intervention

Review resources

Program-specific review resources can be found within each of the review microsites referenced above.

A diagram and text outline the Science of Reading roadmap, showing core instruction, personalized learning, intervention, and five critical elements with brief descriptions.

Digital curriculum access

Instructions for accessing program-specific demo accounts are provided within each of the review microsites referenced above.

Simply click on the program buttons above, navigate to the Access demo section of each page, and use the credentials provide there to log in.

Laptop screen displaying a login page for "amplify" with multiple sign-in options including google, clever, a qr code, and district sso.

Welcome Oklahoma middle school educators!

Amplify ELA is top-rated by the state of Oklahoma as a Tier 1 program and is built specifically for the needs of middle school teachers and students.

Amplify ELA is a blended curriculum designed to help teachers implement the Oklahoma Academic Standards for ELA by delivering a structured, yet flexible instructional approach grounded in the Science of Reading.

Designed to prepare middle schoolers for high school and beyond

After watching the Amplify ELA 6–8 video to the right, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

What it is

Amplify ELA is a core program for grades 6–8 that delivers:

A unique, research-based approach designed to get all students reading grade-level text together.
An instructional design that inspires students to read more deeply, write more vividly, and think more critically.
A rich combination of dynamic texts, lively discussions, and interactive Quests that truly engages middle schoolers and inspires them to participate in learning.

All-green on EdReports

Two boys work together on a laptop while a woman—likely one of their middle school teachers—sits beside them, observing and smiling in a classroom setting.

Program effectiveness

A single continuous line drawing outlines the shape of Oklahoma, with the word "Oklahoma" lightly visible in the background.

Curriculum Alignment to OK Standard…

How it works

Amplify ELA lessons follow a structure that’s grounded in regular routines, yet flexible enough to allow for a variety of learning experiences.

Need an abridged version of the curriculum? Our abridged lesson pathways ensure full coverage of the standards in just 100 days.

Amplify ELA program guide

Illustration of a woman with long hair and earrings, eyes closed in a serene pose, surrounded by plants and butterflies.

Grade 6 program structure

Illustration of a woman with blue hair in a patterned dress, holding a mask, with a raven flying above and a text-filled background.

Grade 7 program structure

An astronaut stands holding a U.S. flag, with splashes of brown liquid beneath them, set against a plain background.

Grade 8 program structure

What students explore

Amplify ELA provides everything you need to deliver a full year’s worth of instruction.

Each grade level of Amplify ELA consists of six multimedia units. Four or five of the units are focused on complex literary texts and one or two are collections based on primary source documents and research. Each grade also provides a dedicated story writing unit, a poetry unit, and two or three two or three immersive learning experiences called Quests.

Download the Unit Overview and explore a model lesson below to learn more.

Three educational book covers from amplify ela series, featuring illustrations of an astronaut, diverse children with books, and a poet surrounded by symbolic imagery.

Unit Overviews

students collaborating and using laptops

Model lesson: Grade 7 Poe & Poetry unit

Built on the Science of Reading

Watching students mature into adolescents? Inspiring. Knowing how to engage and motivate their changing brains? Science.

The middle school years are marked by a period of tremendous growth and change—physically, emotionally, and socially. Amplify ELA understands and embraces these changes, and delivers instruction specifically designed to tap into adolescents’ natural inclinations toward collaboration, exploration, and autonomy.

A middle school teacher stands at the front of an Indiana middle school classroom as several students with laptops raise their hands, actively engaging in lessons aligned with Indiana Academic Standards.

Principles of engagement

A student reading "Summer of the Mariposas"

See yourself in Amplify ELA

Six levels of differentiation

We believe all students are capable of reading grade-level text together.

Amplify ELA ensures all students have access to the same text. With six distinct levels of differentiation, every student is supported or challenged in a way that meets their unique needs. This includes English language learners at the Developing, Expanding, and Bridging levels, as well as students needing substantial support or an extra challenge.

Multiple overlapping open documents on a computer screen, featuring text editing interfaces with prompts for feedback and responses.

Illustration depicting a series of mythical and legendary scenes including a silver robot, a classical warrior, a volcano, and poseidon with a trident in a dynamic, colorful landscape.

Differentiation for all students

A male teacher in a red shirt explains a textbook to a young female student at her desk in a colorful classroom.

Support for ELLs

Amplify Library

Assessment

Amplify ELA not only includes captivating content, but also provides clear and actionable measurement data about student performance.

Our embedded formative and summative assessment tools maximize teaching time, while allowing teachers to make confident, data-driven decisions about the instruction and supports students need to grow continually as readers and writers.

Formative and summative assessments…

Administrator reports

Access demo

Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Explore as a teacher

First, watch the quick teacher navigation video to the right. Then, follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Click the ELA Learning Platform button
Select Log in with Amplify
Enter this username: t1.okela23@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-okela23
Select the ELA icon and your desired grade level

Access ELA Learning Platform

Explore as a student

First, watch the quick student navigation video to the right. Then, follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Click the ELA Learning Platform button
Select Log in with Amplify
Enter this username: s1.okela23@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-okela23
Select the desired grade level

Access ELA Learning Platform

Contact us

Looking to speak directly with your Oklahoma representative? Get in touch below!

Jordan Baker, M. Ed.

Oklahoma Account Executive

(405) 204-0473

jobaker@amplify.com

mCLASS® for Colorado

Dear Colorado educators,

We’re pleased to share that mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura are approved for the CDE’s READ Act assessment list in English and Spanish. We’re confident you’ll find this proven, valid, and reliable assessment system to be a powerful tool that makes your reading data work harder for your teachers and students.

With great respect for what you do,

Monty Lammers
Senior Account Executive

Vanessa Scott
Account Executive

Young girl in a school uniform smiles while sitting at a desk with a book, speech bubbles saying "hello" in english and spanish above her.

mCLASS

mCLASS is a best-in-class assessment system with a suite of proven, research-based assessment measures and tools that can be flexibly combined to meet the unique literacy needs of both teachers and students in Colorado across grades K–3, including:

Universal screening
Progress monitoring
Diagnostic assessment
Dual language reporting
Dyslexia screening
Targeted teacher-led instruction

Screenshot of a reading assessment dashboard showing student Gabriel Archuleta’s Spanish and English literacy scores and an overall skill rating of “Developing.”.

mCLASS® with DIBELS® 8th Edition for English assessment

mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition is a gold-standard English literacy assessment system fully based on the Science of Reading.

As an interim and diagnostic assessment system, it consists of screening and progress monitoring measures that efficiently gauge student progress toward reading proficiency and help identify students who may be at risk of future reading difficulties, including dyslexia. In fact, Amplify’s partner, the University of Oregon’s Center for Teaching and Learning, fully revamped Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS 8th Edition) to deepen validation for both universal and dyslexia screening, and for improved and increased instructional utility.

Not only is mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition a universal and dyslexia screener, diagnostic assessment, and progress-monitoring reading assessment tool for grades K–3, it’s a powerful platform with granular insights and instant reporting that make it possible to turn student literacy data into immediate instructional action.

Ready to learn more?

Watch the video to the right to get a sneak peek at our mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition. Then click the button below to visit our review site.

Visit mCLASS DIBELS 8

mCLASS® Lectura for Spanish assessment

mCLASS Lectura was co-developed in partnership with the University of Oregon’s Center for Teaching and Learning, and validated in partnership with Dr. Lillian Durán.

The mCLASS Lectura assessment was purposefully designed, developed, field tested, and evaluated to address the unique needs that educators of Spanish-speaking students have demanded, but had not yet seen, in high-quality assessments.

Built specifically to address literacy development in Spanish, our mCLASS Lectura measures make it possible to deliver authentic and equitable universal and dyslexia screening, diagnostics, progress-monitoring assessments, and targeted instruction in the K–3 classroom. When mCLASS Lectura and DIBELS 8th Edition are used together, mCLASS is a powerful dual language solution that provides teachers a unique, asset-based approach to supporting both English Language Learners and Dual Language Learners.

Ready to learn more?

Watch the video to the right to a sneak peek at our mCLASS Lectura. Then click the button below to visit our review site.

Visit mCLASS Lectura

Contact us

Looking to speak directly with your Colorado representative? Get in touch with a team member by emailing HelloColorado@amplify.com or by calling us directly.

Monty Lammers

Senior Account Executive

Districts over 2,500 students

(719) 964-4501

mlammers@amplify.com

Vanessa Scott

Account Executive

Districts under 2,500 students

(602) 690-9216

vscott@amplify.com

Welcome, Nebo SD, to Amplify CKLA!

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.

Truly built on the Science of Reading, Amplify CKLA helps all teachers implement the Utah Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy by translating the science of reading into manageable, engaging, and effective classroom practices.

Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.

Illustration featuring diverse cultural and historical elements like an african woman, an egyptian sphinx, a space rocket, and urban and natural landscapes under a starry sky.

Recognized Quality

Amplify CKLA is one of only a few high-quality, knowledge-building literacy curricula recognized by the Knowledge Matters campaign. Our shared message: Background knowledge is essential to literacy and learning.

Diagram displaying the "knowledge matters campaign" with connections between "core knowledge language arts comprehension," "skills word recognition," and "amplify ckla skilled reading.

Science of Reading Approved by USBE

Amplify CKLA is a content-rich literacy curriculum that systematically braids knowledge-building with skills instruction. Click below to see our state submission rubric on how Amplify CKLA addresses the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.

Review our state checklist

Independently and rigorously reviewed

Amplify CKLA not only received an all-green rating from the rigorous evaluators at EdReports, but it was also recently recognized by the Knowledge Matters Campaign as a literacy program that excels in building knowledge.

Read our EdReports review

Read our Knowledge Matters review

Intentional knowledge-building

The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension and lifelong literacy. Hear from author Natalie Wexler and CKLA customers on edWebinar about the importance of knowledge-building in reading instruction.

Hear from Natalie Wexler

edWebinar Links

Program Overview

Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:

A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.

Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2

After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5

After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

How it works

Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.

In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.

Download CKLA Program Guide

A flowchart showing word recognition and language comprehension strands intertwining to form skilled reading, with progression labeled as increasingly automatic and strategic.

Rich topics

Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.

Students make connections from year-to-year by exploring grade-appropriate subject-area knowledge and vocabulary in history, science, literature, and the arts while learning to read, write, and think creatively and for themselves.

Illustration showing diverse cultural representations: two native american figures, a bear in a forest, and a medieval european woman, all set against colorful abstract backgrounds.

Seven illustrated circles represent different literary genres: fable, kindergarten, myth, grade 6, farsi, comic book, and novella, each with a relevant scene or symbol.

Units by grade

Take a closer look at the topics students explore.

A collage of educational materials including comic panels, illustrated worksheets, and classroom posters featuring diverse characters.

Knowledge Research Units

Explore our newly added Knowledge Research units.

A chocolate chip cookie in a glass of milk, a person speaking, a speech bubble saying “Let’s say it together!”, and two illustrated eyes on a green background.

Skills by grade

Take a closer look at the skills students develop.

Diverse text

Amplify CKLA puts a variety of texts in the hands of students every day to build and strengthen background knowledge and vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension, and decoding and fluency skills.

More than that, we ensure the texts students read represent the world around them. With a diverse range of authors, topics, and characters, all students have ample access to both windows and mirrors. Our texts include:

Authentic books.
Authentic text passages.
Student Readers.
Novel Guides (grades 3–5).

Six children's book covers arranged in two rows, featuring colorful illustrations of animals, people, and nature. Titles include "Rain Player," "A More Perfect Union," and "The Busy Body Book.

A boy sits at a table drawing while smiling at a large blue elephant floating outside the window in a bright, colorful room.

Grade K Text List

A boy sits on brownstone steps as a pink ice cream truck labeled "Yummy" emits colorful, wavy streams on a residential street with three row houses.

Grade 1 Text List

A rocket launches from a pad, releasing smoke, while a peregrine falcon perches on a branch in the foreground, watching the scene.

Grade 2 Text List

Three people are at a playground, with two children singing while sitting and standing on playground equipment, and an adult directing or encouraging them. Musical notes are illustrated around them.

Grade 3 Text List

Cartoon people of varied ages and backgrounds enjoy a city park; some play music, others relax or interact, with buildings and trees in the background.

Grade 4 Text List

A girl writes at her desk, imagining herself graduating in cap and gown, with a thought bubble showing her smiling and holding a diploma.

Grade 5 Text List

Aligned to LETRS and Orton Gillingham

Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.

Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement

Diagram showing parallel strands labeled with reading skills and knowledge merging together into a single twisted line labeled "Integration.

CKLA Skills sequence for K–2

CKLA Skills sequence for 3–5

Universal access

We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.

We know that early reading affects achievement throughout school and beyond—well into college and career. Yet most literacy programs continue to fall short of supporting early literacy success. That’s why we’re so proud that CKLA is helping close the reading gap between students within diverse communities.

A boy with glasses smiles while reading a book, with illustrated objects like a telescope, gourd, and cartoon insect in the background.

A group of diverse children attentively looking upwards with expressions of curiosity and interest.

Grades K–2: Supporting all learners

A diverse group of young students and a teacher laughing together around a laptop in a colorful classroom, engaged with an online language arts curriculum.

Grades 3–5: Supporting all learners

Complete curriculum

A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.

Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.

A teacher using a tablet alongside a student

CKLA and mCLASS

CKLA connects to our comprehensive diagnostic universal screener called mCLASS.

Two young girls, one with braided hair and the other with blonde hair, smiling and looking at a laptop screen in a classroom.

CKLA and Boost Reading

CKLA connects to our adaptive reading practice program called Boost Reading.

CKLA and Language Studio

CKLA aligns with Language Studio–our ELD companion program for grades K–5.

A boy sits at a desk, leaning over a notebook and writing with a pen.

CKLA and Writing Studio

CKLA aligns with Writing Studio–our writing companion program for grades K–5.

Science of Reading Resources

Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.

As you consider your next core ELA program, it’s critically important to understand what the Science of Reading really means and what it tells us about how to teach more effectively. Unlike other programs, Amplify CKLA was built upon these insights and practices, making it easier for teachers to implement this proven approach.

Explore Science of Reading Handbook

A girl runs outdoors holding a kite with colorful ribbons labeled knowledge, vocabulary, sentences, connections, gist, sounds, letters, and words.

Access demo

Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Explore the CKLA Teacher Digital Resources

First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, follow the directions below.

Go to: learning.amplify.com or click the Access CKLA Teacher Digital button below
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: t1.nebocklak5@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-nebocklak5
Click the CKLA button
Select your desired grade level from the Program drop down

Access CKLA Teacher Digital

Explore the CKLA Student Digital Resources

Follow the directions below to access the Student Resource Site:

Go to: learning.amplify.com or click the Access CKLA Student Digital button below
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: s1.nebocklak5@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-nebocklak5
From the main page, click the backpack in the top right corner.
Click on the grade level to select your desired grade.

Access CKLA Student Digital

Welcome to Amplify CKLA!

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.

Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.

Recognized Quality

Science of Reading Approved by USBE

Review our state checklist

Independently and rigorously reviewed

Read our EdReports review

Read our Knowledge Matters review

Intentional knowledge-building

Hear from Natalie Wexler

edWebinar Links

Program Overview

Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:

A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.

Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2

After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5

After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

How it works

Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.

In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.

Download CKLA Program Guide

A flowchart shows language comprehension and word recognition strands merging into skilled reading, with processes becoming increasingly strategic and automatic.

Rich topics

Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.

Units by grade

Take a closer look at the topics students explore.

New! Knowledge Research Units

Explore our newly added Knowledge Research units.

Skills by grade

Take a closer look at the skills students develop.

Diverse text

Authentic books.
Authentic text passages.
Student Readers.
Novel Guides (grades 3–5).

Grade K Text List

Grade 1 Text List

Grade 2 Text List

Grade 3 Text List

Grade 4 Text List

Grade 5 Text List

Aligned to LETRS and Orton-Gillingham

Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.

Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement

CKLA Skills sequence for K–2

CKLA Skills sequence for 3–5

Universal access

We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.

Grades K–2: Supporting all learners

CKLA-Language-Studio

Complete curriculum

A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.

Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.

CKLA and mCLASS

CKLA connects to our comprehensive diagnostic universal screener called mCLASS.

CKLA and Boost Reading

CKLA connects to our adaptive reading practice program called Boost Reading.

CKLA and Language Studio

CKLA aligns with Language Studio–our ELD companion program for grades K–5.

CKLA and Writing Studio

CKLA aligns with Writing Studio–our writing companion program for grades K–5.

Science of Reading Resources

Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.

Explore Science of Reading Handbook

Access demo

Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Explore the CKLA Teacher Digital Site

First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, follow the directions below to access the CKLA Teacher Digital Site.

Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Teacher Digital below
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: t1.utahckla@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-utahckla
Click the CKLA button on the left hand side
Select your desired grade level from the Program drop down

Access CKLA Teacher Resource Site

Explore the CKLA Student Digital Site

Follow the directions below to access the CKLA Student Digital Site.

Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Student Digital below
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: s1.utahckla@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-utahckla
Answer the question.
Click “Go” to get to the Hub!

Access CKLA Student Digital

Welcome to Amplify CKLA!

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is currently the only state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.

Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.

Recognized Quality

Science of Reading Approved by USBE

Amplify CKLA is a content-rich literacy curriculum that systematically braids knowledge-building with skills instruction. In fact, according to the Utah SBE, Amplify CKLA fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.

Review our state checklist

Independently and rigorously reviewed

Read our EdReports review

Read our Knowledge Matters review

Intentional knowledge-building

The Science of Reading reveals knowledge as an essential pillar of reading comprehension, and even lifelong literacy. That’s why leading scientists say knowledge-building must be incorporated into reading instruction from the beginning—and with Amplify CKLA, it is.

Hear from Natalie Wexler

Program Overview

Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:

A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.

Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2

After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5

After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

How it works

Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.

In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.

Download CKLA Program Guide

Rich topics

Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.

Units by grade

Take a closer look at the topics students explore.

New! Knowledge Research Units

Explore our newly added Knowledge Research units.

Skills by grade

Take a closer look at the skills students develop.

Diverse text

Authentic books.
Authentic text passages.
Student Readers.
Novel Guides (grades 3–5).

Grade K Text List

Grade 1 Text List

Grade 2 Text List

Grade 3 Text List

Grade 4 Text List

Grade 5 Text List

Aligned to LETRS and Orton-Gillingham

Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton-Gillingham and LETRS.

Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement

CKLA Skills sequence for K–2

CKLA Skills sequence for 3–5

Equitable instruction

We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.

The four pillars of equity

Two boys sit at desks in a classroom, talking to each other. An upright paper cutout of a yellow light bulb is placed between their open books.

Equity and diversity overview

Grades K–2: Supporting all learners

Grades 3–5: Supporting all learners

Complete curriculum

A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.

Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.

CKLA and mCLASS

CKLA connects to our comprehensive diagnostic universal screener called mCLASS.

CKLA and Amplify Reading

CKLA connects to our adaptive reading practice program called Amplify Reading.

CKLA and Language Studio

CKLA aligns with Language Studio–our ELD companion program for grades K–5.

CKLA and Writing Studio

CKLA aligns with Writing Studio–our writing companion program for grades K–5.

Science of Reading Resources

Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.

Explore Science of Reading Handbook

Access demo

Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Explore the CKLA Teacher Resource Site

First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then, click the “Access CKLA Teacher Resource Site” button to log in.

Click the CKLA Teacher Resource Site button
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: t1.slcsd-ckla-1@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-slcsd-ckla-1
Select the desired grade level

Access CKLA Teacher Resource Site

Welcome to Amplify CKLA!

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a state-approved core ELA curriculum designated as a primary core program that fully meets the Science of Reading requirements outlined in SB 127.

Scroll down to learn how CKLA is uniquely designed to help all your students make learning leaps in literacy.

Recognized Quality

Science of Reading Approved by USBE

Review our state checklist

Independently and rigorously reviewed

Read our EdReports review

Read our Knowledge Matters review

Intentional knowledge-building

Hear from Natalie Wexler

edWebinar Links

Program Overview

Amplify CKLA is a core ELA program for grades K–5 that delivers:

A unique research-based approach truly built on the Science of Reading.
A combination of explicit foundational skills with meaningful knowledge building.
Embedded support and differentiation that gets all students reading grade-level texts together.
Opportunities for students to see the strengths and experiences that all people share while also celebrating each others’ unique identities and experiences.
Authentic Spanish language arts instruction with Amplify Caminos.

Amplify CKLA for Grades K–2

After watching the K–2 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

Amplify CKLA for Grades 3–5

After watching the 3–5 video below, scroll down to learn even more, download resources, and access a demo.

How it works

Amplify CKLA teaches both foundational skills and background knowledge in K–2 and combines them in 3–5, as required by the science of reading.

In grades K–2, students complete one full lesson that builds foundational reading skills, as well as one full lesson that builds background knowledge.
In grades 3–5, student complete one integrated lesson that combines skills and knowledge with increasingly complex texts, close reading, and a greater writing emphasis.

Download CKLA Program Guide

Rich topics

Amplify CKLA builds knowledge coherently across subjects and grades.

Illustrative circles depicting educational stages from prek to grade 5, each showing children engaged in age-appropriate activities or learning themes.

Units by grade

Take a closer look at the topics students explore.

New! Knowledge Research Units

Explore our newly added Knowledge Research units.

Skills by grade

Take a closer look at the skills students develop.

Diverse text

Authentic books.
Authentic text passages.
Student Readers.
Novel Guides (grades 3–5).

Grade K Text List

Grade 1 Text List

Grade 2 Text List

Grade 3 Text List

Grade 4 Text List

Grade 5 Text List

Aligned to LETRS and Orton Gillingham

Amplify CKLA aligns with the instructional principles recommended by Orton Gillingham and LETRS.

Structured–Concepts are taught through consistent routines
Sequential–Concepts are taught in a logical, well-planned sequence
Systematic–Phonemes are taught from simplest to most complex
Explicit–Decoding and encoding concepts are taught directly and explicitly
Multi-sensory–Instruction is delivered through visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways
Cumulative–Concepts are applied in decodable, connected texts with constant review and reinforcement

CKLA Skills sequence for K–2

CKLA Skills sequence for 3–5

Universal access

We believe we have a responsibility to provide literacy instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel.

Grades K–2: Supporting all learners

Un grupo de niños sentados alrededor de un escritorio, sonriendo y riendo mientras miran una computadora portátil. Un adulto está cerca y también sonríe.

Grades 3–5: Supporting all learners

Complete curriculum

A strong literacy program is not just about a reading program or an assessment tool: it brings together curriculum, instruction, regular practice, intervention, and assessments.

Amplify has brought these components together in our early literacy suite of curriculum, ensure that you have what you need for multi-tiered support.

CKLA and mCLASS

CKLA connects to our comprehensive diagnostic universal screener called mCLASS.

Dos niñas están sentadas en una mesa, mirando juntas la pantalla de una computadora portátil en un salón de clases. Al fondo se ven estanterías con libros y materiales de clase.

CKLA and Boost Reading

CKLA connects to our adaptive reading practice program called Boost Reading.

CKLA and Language Studio

CKLA aligns with Language Studio–our ELD companion program for grades K–5.

CKLA and Writing Studio

CKLA aligns with Writing Studio–our writing companion program for grades K–5.

Science of Reading Resources

Watching students learn to read: magic. Knowing how they get there: science.

Explore Science of Reading Handbook

Access demo

Ready to explore on your own? Follow the instructions below to access your demo account.

Explore the CKLA Teacher Digital Site

First, watch the quick navigation video to the right. Then follow the directions below:

Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Teacher Digital
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: t1.davislangarts@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-davislangarts
Click the CKLA button on the left hand side
Select your desired grade level from the Program drop down

Access CKLA Teacher Digital

Explore the CKLA Student Digital Site

To access the student digital site follow the directions below:

Go to learning.amplify.com or click Access CKLA Student Digital
Select Log in with Amplify.
Enter this username: s1.davislangarts@demo.tryamplify.net
Enter this password: Amplify1-davislangarts
From the Home page, scroll down to the robot and “Click to go to the Hub“
From the Hub, click the Grade button to select the grade.

Access CKLA Student Digital

Welcome, Science Review Committees!

We’re so honored you’re considering Amplify Science to meet the needs of your district.This site is designed to support your committee members in conducting a thorough review of Amplify Science.

Ready to get started? Click your grade level band to continue or scroll down to connect with a team member.

Grades K–5 Grades 6–8

Two students examining a container and taking notes, a girl looking through a microscope, and a digital display showing plant mortality and pest data.

Your team

Looking to speak directly with an Amplify Science representative? Get in touch with a team member to learn more about reviewing and using the program.

A smiling man in a dark blazer and blue shirt, looking directly at the camera against a plain white background.

Dan Pier

Vice President, West

(415) 203-4810

dpier@amplify.com

Smiling man with short hair and a trimmed beard wearing a light blue collared shirt against a plain white background.

Robert “Bob” McCarty

Senior Account Executive

(435) 655-1731

rmccarty@amplify.com

A man with a bald head, glasses, and a goatee smiles slightly. He is wearing a light gray dress shirt and a dark gray tie, posed against a plain white background.

Francis Ogata

Science Specialist

(916) 521-1467

fogata@amplify.com

S2-05: Moving students forward with project-based learning

A promotional image for the podcast "Science Connections" featuring guest Janis Lodge and the topic "Moving students forward with project-based learning." Season 2, Episode 5.

In this episode, Eric Cross sits with K–5 educator Janis Lodge to chat about building on her own science curriculum to create meaningful project-based learning experiences. Janis shares her work teaching Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), and how to use those practices to help accelerate the learning of all students. Eric and Janis also talk about making time for science within K–5 classrooms. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Janis Lodge (00:00):
To me, the reward of having those kids feel like they accomplished something and the way that they can take ownership of it and go in so many different directions, I cannot take that away from them. That’s such an opportunity that if I have the means to do it, I have to just take it and run with it.

Eric Cross (00:18):
Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host, Eric Cross. My guest today is Janis Lodge. Janis is a third-grade teacher in Orange County, California, with a specialization in gifted and talented education. Recently, Janis was awarded the Orange County Council for the Gifted and Talented Education Classroom grant. This grant funds a project that provides an extension to her third-grade science unit about environments and survival. Through this project, students will think like a biomimicry engineer as they design a robot that is inspired by an innovation found in nature. In this episode, we discuss how she uses interdisciplinary teaching practices to make time for science learning; why gifted and talented education strategies can benefit all students; and her process for creating a problem-based lesson that ultimately earned her a grant for her classroom. And now, please enjoy my conversation with Janis Lodge. One, welcome! Thanks for being here.

Janis Lodge (01:14):
Of course, I am happy to do it. I’m excited for the opportunity.

Eric Cross (01:17):
Of course! Yeah. Elementary school teachers in science, I feel like there’s so many things to have conversations about. And some of the things that you’ve really focused on, I think, are, really, really important. But I wanna start off with your journey of you becoming a teacher in the classroom. And so, would you kind of give your background, your origin story? How did you end up as a third-grade teacher?

Janis Lodge (01:37):
Well, my story is definitely not a traditional story. Before I was a teacher, I was actually living in Maui, Hawaii. I moved there right after college. I went to Chico State in Northern California. And I got a degree in graphic design. And after I graduated, well, I should give a little bit of a backstory. My last summer before graduating, I spent the whole summer in Maui and I just fell in love with it. So when I graduated, I decided instead of applying for jobs in Northern California, I’m just gonna put some resumes out in Maui and see if I can get a job. And I did. I ended up getting a job doing graphic design and marketing for a kite surf company out there. And I ended up just staying for seven years on the island. And after about seven years, I kind of got a little bit of island fever and decided I wanted to come back to California. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I just had this calling that I need to do something a little more fulfilling with my life. And I started thinking about different ideas and dreams I had. And I actually started thinking about when I was younger, right? I had this dream. If you were to ask me when I was 10 years old what I wanted to be when I grow up, it would be elementary school teacher.

Eric Cross (02:48):
Really?

Janis Lodge (02:48):
Believe it or not. When I was younger, I transformed my bedroom into a classroom. My stuffed animals were my students. I just thought I’m gonna be the next best teacher ever. And you know, as I went through life and kind of went in different directions, I kind of lost sight of that dream a little bit. But for some reason, when I decided to change careers, I just remembered that. And so I just decided to go get my teaching credential and see if it worked out. And it was probably the best decision I made. I feel like everything just fell perfectly into place. I ended up getting a job at an amazing school, and now, five years later, I’m a third grade teacher.

Eric Cross (03:28):
So one of the questions I have to ask, and talking to elementary school teachers, this comes up a lot: How do you make time for science as an elementary school teacher who’s teaching everything? And let me kind of premise this with, at least for those of us in California, and I’m sure the rest of the states too, but we know this; There’s kind of this pressure with pacing and then even, depending on what school you’re at, math and English tend to get the bulk of things. And maybe there’s this perception also of like, well, I gotta teach math and English, and sometimes science gets put to the back burner for different reasons.

Janis Lodge (03:57):
Well, you’re exactly right. The beginning of the year, we were provided with a pacing from the district. And you know, they try to keep us on track, saying, “You should be starting Unit 2 at this time.” But other than that, there’s really no specific guidelines of how many days we’re supposed to be teaching or for how long. But one kind of secret that I’ve discovered is that I can weave science into the other subjects, specifically with language arts. So quite often what I do is I take a look at the language arts standard, and if it’s identifying the key details and the main idea, well I can do that with the science books used from the curriculum. So I’ll just pull those readers and we’ll do the exact same skill, start with the same standard, but we’ll use the content from science. By doing that, we call that kind of like interdisciplinary study. And the students really enjoy that more, too, because they’re using the same skills but they’re diving deeper into the content.

Eric Cross (04:54):
Right.

Janis Lodge (04:55):
And so also that helps build the background knowledge. So then when it comes to time where, if I want to do a science lab or a science investigation, now they already have that background knowledge ’cause we already dove deep into the reading and they can apply that pretty quickly right away into their lab or whatever activity they’re doing.

Eric Cross (05:12):
Can you give an example maybe of how you might pull out something that might be a skill that you’re trying to develop, maybe in an English content, but you would pull that out in a science lesson, maybe? What would you do?

Janis Lodge (05:25):
We’re actually doing that right now. So we’re in our second unit of science and they’re studying inheritance and traits and they’re looking at different organisms to see how they have adaptations to help them survive in their environment. So coincidentally part of the literacy skills is to look at multiple sources, do research, and summarize and make analysis of what they’re reading. And so we have different varied resources. I have websites; I have books, ebooks, videos, and pictures. And they’re choosing which four sources they want to use. And then, then they’re coming up with a summary at the end and then putting together a Google Slides presentation based on whatever organism that they chose.

Eric Cross (06:05):
Did you have a science background before becoming an elementary school teacher?

Janis Lodge (06:11):
Um, none. Besides what I, you know, took in high school and college.

Eric Cross (06:16):
Did you find it easy to kind of lean into the science, or was it something you just kind of jumped into and said, “All right, I’m gonna get after it”?

Janis Lodge (06:23):
What’s interesting is if, you know, throughout my education, my favorite subjects were English and reading and writing and art. And quite honestly, science wasn’t my favorite subject. But I think because of that, that inspires me to come up with creative ways of presenting the information to them and making it exciting and engaging for them, because I don’t want them to feel that way. I want them to be excited about all subjects. And I think that’s the beauty of combining the different subjects like I mentioned before. Like I say, you know, “What would a scholar do? Think like a wildlife biologist. And like with my project, think like a biomimicry engineer.” And so it kind of shifts their thinking. Like, it’s not just, “Oh, we have to study science.” It’s like, “No, you are the scientist; you are a meteorologist; or you are an author. How would an author write about this? How would an illustrator capture this in a photo or a comic strip?” And so, when you really combine those disciplines, you can take it to another level. So even if science isn’t their favorite subject, like maybe it wasn’t for me growing up, they can still take something they’re passionate about and apply the science content to it and they really resonate with them.

Eric Cross (07:37):
You leaned into your strengths. Which are more like, coming into it, you had all these kind of creative strengths. You have that background as a graphics designer. You were into the arts. But then with those strengths, did that kinda give you more confidence to dive into the science work, because you approached it from your assets that you were already coming to the table with?

Janis Lodge (07:55):
Yeah.You said it perfectly. If you look at it from a different lens, there’s all these different ways you can approach science.

Eric Cross (07:59):
I find it in my own science class, too. We’re all teaching the same standards. But how I approach it is through Eric Cross’s kind of personality and understanding and my angle, and another teacher might do it a different way. But we’re all leading to the same destination.

Janis Lodge (08:14):
Exactly.

Eric Cross (08:15):
That kind of leads me to my next question, and this is having to do with the project that you just alluded to. The biomimicry project. So you did a biomimicry project. Would you consider that like a project based-learning assignment?

Janis Lodge (08:26):
Well, this will be the third year that I’ve taught this unit. And when I wrapped it up last year, it’s through the Amplify Science program, and they do a wonderful job of having a lot of investigations and really thinking like a biomimicry engineer. But the final part of the unit was to design a robot inspired by a giraffe, to eliminate invasive plants in a particular environment. And the project part of it at the end was to create a model using Popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners. And then the other part of it was a digital simulation where they would put in different shape structures of teeth, and kind of reconfigure the shape of the mouth. And then they’d put in what they think is effective, and then the computer would say, oh, you’re 98% successful or 70% successful. And I remember at the end of it the students were like, “OK, well when do we make the robots?” And I thought, “Well, we’re just doing the simulation, or we’re just doing this model out of Popsicle sticks; we’re not actually gonna make a robot.” And they just seemed so disappointed. And that’s kind of how the wheels started turning my head like, “Well, what if they actually could make a robot? The only thing stopping me is I don’t have the materials to do it.” So, shortly after that unit wrapped up, coincidentally I saw the email about this grant opportunity that was being offered through the Orange County Council for Gifted Education. And they said, If you have a project that you wanna get funded that would promote GATE strategies within the classroom, then you can submit this proposal. So that’s how the ball got rolling for that proposal. And I researched different robotics kits and different companies and I found one that was really user-friendly for third graders, and not so difficult for me to learn as well.

Eric Cross (10:10):
You’re a risk taker. Like, I’m already seeing this as I’m talking to you. Is that just who you are or do you have a network? Like what keeps you taking these risks?

Janis Lodge (10:18):
I don’t really consider it a risk, because it’s exciting for me. Like I said, I don’t know that much about robotics, but the idea of learning more and then teaching that to my students is exciting. And you know, there was a little bit of risk ’cause I’m deviating a little bit from the curriculum, from the standard lesson, but to me, the reward of having those kids feel like they accomplished something, and the way that they can take ownership of it and go in so many different directions, and on top of that, develop coding skills and computer science skills and robotic skills, to me it was just like I cannot take that away from them. That’s such an opportunity that if I have the means to do it, I have to just take it and run with it. So I think just being inspired by the potential outcomes of what could happen is what made me take that risk.

Eric Cross (11:05):
Did you just kind of create this from scratch? Did you work with a team of people? How did you come to the point where you were ready to present this for the grant?

Janis Lodge (11:12):
Pretty much from scratch. Like I said, the Amplify unit, it does teach them about robotics that were inspired by nature. So some of the materials that they read, and there’s some videos that show really great examples. There’s like a robotic arm that was inspired by an elephant trunk. There’s a book that shows what this field is, biomimicry engineer, they actually show like what they do in that field. And I thought this is a perfect way to apply it because the curriculum’s already pretty much set it up for me; now I just have to add this one final component to it. And essentially it becomes project-based learning at that point, because they’re taking their knowledge and their skills that they’ve learned up to that point. Even the unit that we’re doing doing right now is building up to it. So it’s kind of that final—instead of giving them a test at the end and saying, “OK, tell me what you learned about inheritance and traits and environments,” they can actually take that knowledge and apply it to an innovation or creation that comes out of their own mind, which is so much more powerful.

Eric Cross (12:11):
Do they connect to any other learning goals as they’re doing these projects?

Janis Lodge (12:15):
Well, I think first and foremost, the 21st century skills that from day one I tell them, the four Cs: collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking. All of those are woven in through this lesson. From the beginning, we talked about the whole engineering design process. So from the beginning, they start with a question and oftentimes that actually can be the hardest for them to think about, “What’s a scientific question or a problem that I wanna solve?” If they’re passionate about, maybe, a sport or the environment or something within their school, I go, “There it is. OK, that’s the problem. How can you design something inspired by nature to solve that problem?” And then, from there they go into the planning and the designing and the testing and then the improving. So going through that engineering design process, I think, is what really makes them feel like they are the engineer going through this. And they can make mistakes. They can take risks. A lot of my students I’ve found are afraid to take risks. They wanna make sure they succeed. And they need that challenge to know that if they do fail, that’s OK. We can just revisit this. We can test it. We can look at it in a different way.

Eric Cross (13:27):
You maybe wonder about, how do you assess something like this?

Janis Lodge (13:30):
I think that’s where all those stages along the way are important. Because I wanna make sure that they have a plan and that it’s based on the knowledge that they’ve gained in the unit. I think one of the other things about project-based learning is the final product of how they demonstrate their mastery. And in my classroom I oftentimes give them a choice of how they’re gonna present that to me. So maybe they’re going to write it out like an essay. Maybe they’re gonna create a Google slide. Maybe they’re gonna make a video. Maybe they’re going to—obviously in this part they will have the model, but they’ll have to have some way to explain it to me. And I think giving them that choice gives them the opportunity to show it in the way that’s meaningful to them.

Eric Cross (14:14):
And are you using like a rubric when you’re grading these assignments? Or, how do you actually grade it?

Janis Lodge (14:20):
Yes. So we have a rubric that’s provided to us for the written component that all the students will do at the end. But I can take that same rubric and see if they’ve applied that to the project. So even the verbiage wouldn’t really need to change. I think it’s still important that the students are able to demonstrate this in written form and so all of them will still complete that written component, but to also give them the opportunity to show that in the modality of their choice. I think is really important too.

Eric Cross (14:48):
Right. And you have some students that feel much more comfortable being able to present orally versus—

Janis Lodge (14:53):
Exactly.

Eric Cross (14:53):
—versus writing versus maybe doing a video. I mean, we see that in middle school and in high school too. Students show their knowledge or their understanding of a topic depending on the medium in different ways, and some better than others. Some may find that they can communicate it a lot better orally, but when pen goes to paper or fingers go to keyboard, you might grade it completely different, ’cause they’re not able to transfer what’s in their mind into writing. And the way you’re doing it, and giving that student choice, they probably have so much more buy-in, I’d imagine, because they get to pick what they get to do.

Janis Lodge (15:21):
Right.

Eric Cross (15:22):
You said something earlier and I wanna come back to it. So you mentioned GATE, and GATE is not something that I hear a lot in my world, but it was something I heard a lot when I was in school. There were kind of all of these perceptions and ideas about GATE. You’re a GATE teacher, correct?

Janis Lodge (15:38):
Right.

Eric Cross (15:39):
What is GATE, and what is it like being a GATE teacher? What are the misconceptions, if any, that you might have heard or come across?

Janis Lodge (15:46):
Well, so GATE stands for Gifted and Talented Education. And first and foremost, I think a misconception is that we’re just kind of doing whatever we want; we come up with our own lessons and teach a totally different curriculum. Which is definitely a myth. Because we start with the exact same standards as any other third grade class that you’d walk into. That’s definitely where we start. But I think in addition to the standards, we also implement what are called GATE standards: So they’re Depth, Complexity, Acceleration, and Novelty. And there’s a lot of tools that we use in the classroom, different strategies. You’ll see things like the prompts of Depth and Complexity. We’ll use things like “think like a disciplinarian”; I’m doing “think like a biomimicry engineer.” But really, all they are are just thinking tools and strategies to elevate students thinking and kind of go below that surface level of the content to dive deeper. It also provides opportunities for acceleration. So for example, our last science unit, it was on magnetic force, and there was a handful of students that just grasped the concepts right away, and they’re ready for something else. They’re ready for more rigor. They need some challenge. And so at that point I can kind of pull that group aside and provide some differentiation for them. And I said, “OK, well, you understand the concept of magnetic force, balanced forces. So now what I want you to do is think about something that you’re really passionate about, and how could you use magnetic force somewhere in that field—again to solve a problem, problem-based learning—and present it to me?” So they create this form, it’s like a “think like a disciplinarian” frame, and one of them was “think like a hockey player.” And he’s trying to think of a way that he can incorporate magnetic force. Anyway, I could go on and on. But basically it’s finding what these students’ passions are. And I do that with all my students. And I should probably preface this by saying that even though these are standards that I implement in my classroom because it’s a GATE classroom, these are practices and tools that can be applied to any learner, at any age. And they really just enrich the education for all students.

Eric Cross (18:02):
So your classroom is, is a mixed classroom. There’s GATE students and then general—

Janis Lodge (18:05):
Right.

Eric Cross (18:07):
—students, non-GATE students, in the same class. It’s interesting because I imagine GATE is kind of scaffolding up to a higher level, but then, you also said something that I’ve noticed when I’m creating scaffolds for my students to support them, who may not be at a grade level, maybe in reading or literacy or math, those same scaffolds can help all students.

Janis Lodge (18:27):
So yeah, I don’t just go, “OK, you’re my GATE students; I’m gonna use these practices on you.” I use it for the whole class. But I’m also surprised by having that mix of these different learning styles. A lot of times students are inspired by other students, or, you know, we have this big thing about one of the prompts is Multiple Perspectives. I try to do that as much as I can, because students are inspired by the ideas of their peers. And quite often, if they hear it from a peer, it could be exactly what I just said, but they heard their student say it in a different way and it just clicks and they’re like, “Wow, I get that.”

Eric Cross (19:00):
I think a lot of teachers struggle or, or maybe feel ill-equipped, to support higher-level students. Did you get trained to be a GATE teacher? First lemme ask that question: Did you get special training for this?

Janis Lodge (19:13):
Yes. I went through a course, I think it was like a six-week certification course, through my district.

Eric Cross (19:19):
OK, so you got a special training, which—I’ve been in the classroom for nine years; I teach at a university as an adjunct professor; but I’ve never been trained on teaching gifted or accelerated students. And I’m kind of wondering now, like, do you feel like it made you a better teacher?

Janis Lodge (19:33):
Absolutely.

Eric Cross (19:34):
And if so, how do I get to do this?

Janis Lodge (19:36):
Well, it’s through the county. I mean, anybody can get trained and certified how to teach this way. But, just like you said, I think coming out of that, my eyes were just open, and my biggest takeaway is that these practices, even though they are designed for gifted and talented, it really kind of reshaped my thinking about how I, number one, present material to the students, that I’m doing it in an engaging way, and I’m not just lecturing at them; there’s opportunities for them to collaborate and communicate and use multiple resources. So, you know, how I’m teaching has changed. And then also, how I’m providing opportunities for them to demonstrate their learning. And a lot of that is project-based learning, because once they have the knowledge and skills they need to do something with it. I mean, that’s really the true definition of innovation, is taking the skills or taking something that you’ve learned, and now go with it. Run with it.

Eric Cross (20:32):
How can we take what you’ve learned and then kind of spread it, so teachers have this in their toolkit, too? Like for me, I have multiple ways to be able to support reading and literacy and math and tools and sentence frames. And my students who have special learning plans, I have a have a lot of tool sets for that. I wanna build my tool sets for this other area for my students who want to continue, who wanna run, or go beyond, or even stretch themselves. I think we need to take some of the things that you’re doing and not make them kind of like this exclusive group, but also let’s share it with everyone, ’cause if everybody can access it—

Janis Lodge (21:03):
I agree.

Eric Cross (21:03):
—we might see a lot more potential or a lot more opportunities for students who might not otherwise have them.

Janis Lodge (21:08):
And one thing: My school, I’m really proud to say that my principal has seen that. You know, he’s like, “Well why are we just keeping this in the GATE classroom?” So he’s working on getting all of our teachers certified.

Eric Cross (21:19):
No, I love what you’re doing and your principal sounds, sounds awesome for doing that and recognizing that this can benefit more students than just the ones who, you know, pass the Raisin Test, I think it’s what it was called when I was taking it, or whatever it is back then.

Janis Lodge (21:31):
Exactly.

Eric Cross (21:32):
We’ve talked about project-based learning, the GATE classroom…I kind of wanna come back to you as we wrap up. Thinking about, like, the jobs that you and I do, and the people that listen to this podcast, we have one of the few jobs that people remember us for a lifetime. And I wanna ask you, who was someone that was maybe inspirational in your educational career, that inspired you, or is maybe one of the most memorable? You might have several…but who is someone that was memorable to you in your career, and why? Why were they memorable to you?

Janis Lodge (22:02):
Yeah. Well, obviously, when I was younger, I was definitely inspired by all my teachers. The fact that I turned my bedroom into a classroom…I just was just in awe of this profession. But I think one that really resonated with me was my junior year in high school. I was taking a newspaper class and the teacher was Mrs. Kavanaugh, and she really taught us everything from writing the articles to the editing, to putting the pages together. And I remember in that class I was working on this program called QuarkXPress. I don’t even know if it exists anymore. But I was just fascinated with putting all these pieces together that we’d worked on for so long and getting the articles, picking the pictures, the illustrations and the titles. And I remember her looking at me saying, “You really enjoy this, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah.” And she said, “Well, I have a computer graphics elective class that you should take next year.” And I thought, “OK, I’d love to do this, this opportunity to expand my knowledge and my skills.” So because of that, I took the computer graphics class the next year and I just remember throughout the whole time, she was just constantly encouraging me and acknowledging my skills. And I find myself doing that as a teacher as well. ‘Cause that really resonated with me. And it’s funny, this summer I was going through some boxes of some old stuff from high school, and I found this handout that I had made, because I remember my senior year of high school, she said, “Janis, you know what? You’re doing such a great job; we have these new, incoming students coming into the newspaper class, and I’d love for you to actually teach them how to do this pagination on this QuarkXPress program. I want you to put something together and actually teach it to them.” I thought, “Wow, she believes in me that much that she’s gonna let me teach this to the incoming students.” But I think my takeaway from that was that she gave me the opportunity to take those skills and actually do something with them, to apply them right away.

Eric Cross (23:53):
Mrs. Kavanaugh. Miss Kavanaugh. Shout-out to Miss Kavanaugh. As you told that story, I heard you as a teacher because I’m hearing she’s applying these GATE strategies in that situation. That’s what that’s what I heard.

Janis Lodge (24:08):
Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Cross (24:09):
She personalized this learning. She created a specialized opportunity. You presented to a real audience that was authentic. It had this personalization in it and this rigor and this challenge and it made a huge impact. And it’s just amazing to listen to you and hear this come full-circle, and now you’re doing this with little ones. And I just wanna thank you for your time in doing the interview, sharing your story with how you became a teacher, your students, the projects that you do. And just like so many teachers, going the extra mile for your kids and bringing in these really important 21st century skills; they’re gonna be so much better off for it. And I know it makes my job easier when I get them in the classroom, so thank you.

Janis Lodge (24:49):
Yeah. Well, thank you for the opportunity.

Eric Cross (24:51):
My pleasure. Thanks so much for listening and we wanna hear more about you and the educators who inspire you. You can nominate them as a future guest on Science Connections by emailing STEM@amplify.com. That’s S -T-E-M at amplify dot com. And be sure to click subscribe, wherever you listen to podcasts, and join our Facebook group, Science Connections: The Community. Until next time.

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What Janis Lodge says about science

“The reward of having kids feel like they accomplished something and take ownership is such an opportunity [with project-based learning] that I have to run with it. Being inspired by the potential outcomes of what could happen is what made me take that risk.”

– Janice Lodge

3rd Grade Teacher, De Portola Elementary

Meet the guest

Janis Lodge is a third grade teacher in Orange County, California. Her career in education started six years ago when she decided to follow her passion of making a positive difference in the lives of young scholars. Prior to teaching, Janis lived in Maui, Hawaii for seven years, working in the field of graphic design, marketing, and hospitality. She has found that her interest in innovation, project-based learning, and inquiry-driven exploration has helped shape her into the educator she is today. STEAM is integrated regularly into her classroom, and her students continually develop 21st century skills through a variety of unique projects. Janis is also a PAL (Peer Assistance Leadership) Advisor for her school, where she helps young leaders (4th-6th graders) cultivate their leadership skills and empowers them to make a positive difference in their school and community. Janis was recently awarded the Orange County Council for the Gifted & Talented Education Classroom Grant, which will provide an extension to the third grade Amplify Science Unit: Environments and Survival.

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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!

Welcome to Grade 3

BACK TO MAIN TK–5 PAGE

Amplify Science California is so effective you can cover 100% of the NGSS in half the time of other programs.

You can breathe a sigh of relief knowing all you need is:

88 days per year
2-3 lessons per week
45 minutes per lesson

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What students learn

Lauren Learner loves science. Watch this video to find out what she learns in third grade. >

When you’re ready:

Find a summary of each unit below including each unit’s student role and anchor phenomenon.
Click on the orange “See how the unit works” link to download a helpful Unit Guide. These guides make great companions to busy reviewers looking for a big-picture understanding of how each unit works.

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Unit 1

Balancing Forces

Student role: Engineers

Phenomenon: The fictional town of Faraday is getting a new train. Unlike typical trains, this one floats, which is causing some concern among the town’s citizens.

See how this unit works

Illustration of a forest scene with a bear, a moose, birds on a branch, and a pack of wolves in the foreground. Hills and trees are in the background under a clear sky.

Unit 2

Inheritance and Traits

Student role: Wildlife biologists

Phenomenon: An adopted wolf in Graystone National Park has some traits in common with one wolf pack in the park and other traits in common with a different pack.

See how this unit works

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Unit 3

Environments and Survival

Student role: Biomimicry engineers

Phenomenon: Over 10 years, a population of grove snails has changed. Populations with yellow shells have decreased, while those with banded shells have increased.

See how this unit works

An orangutan with orange fur hangs from a vine in a dense, green jungle with trees and plants, while the sun shines in the background.

Unit 4

Weather and Climate

Student role: Meteorologists

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

See how this unit works

How teachers teach

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When you’re ready:

Scroll down and take a closer look at your classroom resources.
Click on the orange links below each component to see grade-specific samples.

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Classroom Slides

These customizable PowerPoints are available for every lesson of the program and make delivering instruction a snap with visual prompts, colorful activity instructions, investigation set-up videos and animations, and suggested teacher talk in the notes section of each slide.

Video introduction to Classroom Slides

Sample Classroom Slides

Sample Classroom Slides (Spanish)

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Teacher’s Reference Guide

Available digitally and in print, our unit-specific reference guides are chock full of helpful resources, including scientific background knowledge, planning information and resources, color-coded 3-D Statements, detailed lesson plans, tips for delivering instruction, and differentiation strategies.

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Materials Kits

Our kits include enough non-consumable materials to support a class of 36 students and enough consumable items to support 72 students. In other words, each kit can last two years! Plus, our unit-specific kits mean you just grab the tub you need and then put it all back with ease.

List of investigations by unit

List of materials by unit

Student Books

Our award-winning Student Books include content-rich nonfiction and informational texts designed to introduce concepts and also deepen understanding. Books are read to, with, and by students with ample scaffolding and support provided by the teacher in whole-class, small-groups, and student pairs.

List of Student Books by unit

Sample Student Book

Sample Student Book (Spanish)

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Practice Tools

Our digital Practice Tools feature easy-to-use drag-and-drop and data-entry activities that support the practice of important SEPs like sorting, modeling, or visualizing information. Practice Tools can be used as a whole group, in small groups, or with a partner.

Video overview of digital tools

List of digital tools by unit

Device calendars by unit

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Consumable Notebooks

Available for every unit, our Student Investigation Notebooks contain instructions for activities and space for students to record data and observations, reflect on ideas from texts and investigations, and construct explanations and arguments.

Sample Student Investigation Notebook

Sample Student Investigation Notebook (Spanish)

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Mystery Science

Our exclusive partnership with Mystery Science means you get our NGSS core curriculum plus two years of free access to Mystery Doug and his extensive library of captivating videos that deepen students’ understanding of each unit’s phenomenon.

Mystery Science lesson alignment

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Coming Soon

Unlike other publishers, we don’t make you wait until your next adoption to get the latest and greatest from Amplify. We’re always launching new and exciting features. What’s more, we’ll push them out to you even after you adopt us!

See what’s coming for 2020-2021

Navigating the program

Watch this video showing you how to navigate our digital platform. Then following the instructions below. >

Click the orange button below to access the platform.
Choose the resources you’d like to review.
Pick your grade level from the drop-down menu.
Scroll down to find additional grade-level resources.

Access the digital platform now

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[VIDEO] TG Walkthrough

Watch this video to get familiar with the organization of our printed TG.

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[Grade 3] Balancing Forces

Get a big picture overview of this unit with an at-a-glance view of each chapter…

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[Grade 3] Inheritance and Traits

Get a big picture overview of this unit with an at-a-glance view of each chapter…

A spiral-bound teacher's guide and a laptop display both show the cover of "Environments and Survival: Snails, Robots, and Biomimicry" with an illustrated snail in a natural setting.

[Grade 3] Environments and Survival

Get a big picture overview of this unit with an at-a-glance view of each chapter…

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[Grade 3] Weather and Climate

Get a big picture overview of this unit with an at-a-glance view of each chapter…

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[Grade 3] English components

Take a closer look at our grade 3 program components.

[Grade K–5] Spanish components

Learn more about what components are available in Spanish.

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[Grade 3] NGSS Alignment

See how our program addresses 100% of the NGSS Standards.

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[Grades 3–5] Pilot support brochure

S3-01. Making math viral with Howie Hua

Promotional image for "math teacher lounge, season 3 episode 1," featuring a smiling man named Howie Hua, described as a Fresno State mathematics lecturer and math podcast host.

In this episode Howie Hua (you may know him from his viral TikTok videos) joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss making math accessible for students through multiple social media platforms, creating an engaging space for students to share their ideas.

Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page.

Download Transcript

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 Howie Hua says about math

“I think that the beauty in math is found in the process, not the final answer.”

– Howie Hua

Mathematics Lecturer, Fresno State

Meet the guest

Howie Hua is a math instructor at Fresno State University who teaches math to future elementary school teachers. He is passionate about finding ways to humanize the math classroom, listening to how students think about math, and building mathematical confidence in students. In 2019, Howie was named Outstanding Lecturer for the College of Science and Math at his university. Outside of school, Howie likes to play piano, go on walks, make math memes, and make math explainer videos.

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About Math Teacher Lounge: The podcast

Math Teacher Lounge is a biweekly podcast created specifically for K–12 math educators. In each episode co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson (@lockhartedu) and Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) chat with guests, taking a deep dive into the math and educational topics you care about.

Join the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group to continue the conversation, view exclusive content, interact with fellow educators, participate in giveaways, and more!

S1-04: Connecting with students and caregivers in the science classroom: Ryan Rudkin

Promotional graphic for "science connections", season 1, episode 4, featuring a smiling woman named Ryan Rudkin, themed with science illustrations like atoms and a globe, highlighting how to engage students

In this special episode, our host Eric Cross sits down with veteran middle school teacher Ryan Rudkin. Ryan shares her expertise after almost two decades in the classroom, discussing ways to incorporate aspects of problem-based learning into the K–8 science classroom. Eric and Ryan talk about how to increase parent engagement, involve community members, and add excitement to lessons.

Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

Download Transcript

Ryan Renee Rudkin (00:00):

I know there’s other goals in mind, you know, standards and test scores. But at the end of the day, I wanna come back and I want them to come back.

Eric Cross (00:35):

My name’s Eric Cross, host of our science podcast, and I am with Ryan Rudkin, middle-school teacher out here in California just to the north up near Sacramento? El Dorado Hills?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (00:46):

Yeah. 20 miles east of Sacramento.

Eric Cross (00:49):

Nice. And I am down here in San Diego. And so Ryan, to start off, what I wanna do is ask you about your origin story, like a superhero. So how did you become a middle-school science teacher to become part of this elite profession of science folks that get to do awesome things with kids?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (01:08):

I would agree with you that it is definitely an elite profession. I got my credential and I thought I was gonna teach third or fourth grade elementary school. And the second day I got called for a sub job for middle school. And I just thought, “We’ll take it,” you know? And by second period, I knew: This is where I belong. The kids, middle school, students are just a species of their own. And you have to appreciate them. And if you do appreciate them, then you’re in the right spot. And I quickly looked at my coursework and I was able to get authorizations in science, history, and English, and I love science. So I chose science. And the rest is history. It’s been a wild ride and I wouldn’t have changed or asked for anything different. I love it.

Eric Cross (02:02):

I definitely agree with you. So, your history—you’ve been in various middle-school classrooms. Can you tell us a little bit about that? What classrooms have you been in? What disciplines of science have you taught or are currently teaching?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (02:14):

I was hired for seventh grade life science, and then I did that for a few years and then I got moved into eighth physical science, and I was there for 12 years. Love eighth grade science. I love eighth graders. Chemistry and physics are my favorite. There’s just so much opportunity for just awesome labs, great conversations, student discourse, all of that. And then the past three years I’ve been in sixth grade and now we’re integrated. So,a sixth grade integrated science and I also teach social studies and a technology design class.

Eric Cross (02:52):

Oh, nice. What do you do in your technology design class? That sounds cool.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (02:56):

Right now it’s mostly internet media and we use WeVideo, it’s an editing-video program, and we produce and put on our school weekly news bulletin. And then we weave in other projects. We do some interdisciplinary projects. Right now my students are working on a mythology God, Goddess, and Monster project that relates to our social studies curriculum. And we’re learning about Greece. So yeah, we just try to give them added projects and they’re using the WeVideo platform. By sixth grade, they’re coming to us now with wonderful skills with all the tech. I mean, if I need help, I ask them like, “How do you do something on Google Docs?” Or, “How do you do something on Drive?” The kids are definitely tech-savvy.

Eric Cross (03:49):

They must love being the teacher in the classroom. They get to—it kind of switches power roles, where they get to teach the teacher something.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (03:56):

Yes. And especially WeVideo, sometimes we’ve had some hiccups, and the kids show everybody, and that’s part of the design class. They’re trying to solve—we’re teaching them how to solve their own problems. So if there’s any kind of issue with anything with the technology, honestly, I usually tell them, “Go ask a friend,” or we kind of shout out, “Hey, who knows how to troubleshoot this?” And the kids are eager to help each other, which is nice.

Eric Cross (04:21):

And they have this authentic experience where they’re actually doing real problem-solving, as opposed to something that we manufactured. Like, those are real things that we have to deal with in life. And that’s exactly like how we solve it, right? We just go ask people! We look it up, and the ahas are genuine too. Throughout!

Ryan Renee Rudkin (04:36):

Yes, especially thinking on the fly. Especially yesterday, I was in the middle of teaching and my laptop froze, and it’s like, “OK, everybodytake a couple minutes, you know, work on this, this, or that while I switch out laptops!” And so I’m modeling, too, how to solve my own problems. And I think it teaches the kids how to do that too.

Eric Cross (04:59):

I’ve always thought it was interesting that when teachers get to teach in real time, how do we handle stress and frustration when it’s really happening? And I think the tech—at times, failure is the real one where you feel this chill or this sweat that kind of comes over you and you’re trying to present or cast or the video won’t play and things like that. I think I’ve done enough times in my years of teaching where now my students know what to do, or they want to come up and help, and we’re good with it. But I remember in the beginning when those things would kind of glitch or go wrong or the wifi goes down, and you’re like, OK, what do we need now?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (05:33):

I think it’s honestly, after the fact, when I think in the moment, I’m not thinking of feeling stressed, but just afterwards, then I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this has just been a wild day.” But yeah, you just have to kind of go with it. And that’s just the beast of middle school. I just added to the list of why we love it.

Eric Cross (05:53):

You said something about interdisciplinary work, and I wanna kind of ask about that. Because it sounds like you’ve had your hand in several different areas of science and grade levels. Working, doing design courses, working with tech. Are there certain lessons that are your favorites to teach? The ones that you really enjoy, or that no matter what, you’re like, “We need to do this; this is such a rich experience for students”?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (06:17):

Yeah. I definitely try to do lessons or activities along the way. I like to do projects at the end of my units. When I taught physics, we did a project and it was mainly an assessment tool called the Wheeling and Dealing. The kids, they would all get a different car. And then they to sell their car. And so they had to pretend to be a car salesman, and they did that with their knowledge of the physics unit. So everything we did on forces and speed and motion. So I like doing culminating projects like that. And you’re kind of tricking them into assessing them.

Eric Cross (06:57):

When I think about your car salesman project, I’m thinking of a bunch of students, but they’re like on Shark Tank, but they’re just littler versions. And they’re doing these sales pitches, but they’re speaking in scientific terms as they’re trying to do it. Do you record these or do they just exist in the classroom?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (07:12):

No…And that was a long time ago, when I taught eighth grade. I wish I had; I wish I had recorded. That was definitely—it was fun, ’cause the kids, they would get their little piece of paper and they—some of ’em didn’t know what car it was. And so they’re like “A Boo… A Boo-gatti? What’s a Boo-gatti?” And then someone from across the room would be like, “Ooh, I want it! Here, I’ll trade you my Ford Focus!” And <laugh> so they would kind of wheel-and-deal which car they would…and then once they got their choice, then they would do the project.

Eric Cross (07:44):

So they’re really embodying this persona of a car salesman. The wheeling and doing back-and-forth and trying to trade a Bugatti for a Ford Focus. <Laugh>

Ryan Renee Rudkin (07:53):

I know. <Laugh> I like to make my class, my learning environment, enjoyable. You know, I gotta be there; they gotta be there. So I know there’s other goals in mind—you know, standards and test scores—but at the end of the day, I wanna come back, and I want them to come back. And I just have that as a priority.

Eric Cross (08:18):

Well, based on the projects that you’re doing and the way that you approach education with students, I can see why middle-school students would want to come back, even if they had the option not to. Just because of the cool things that you’re doing. Now we’re on this—hopefully, fingers crossed—tail end of COVID in the classroom and schools, and I know it’s impacted all of us differently. Has student engagement changed since COVID and if so, how, and what have you done in these last two years to maybe adjust your approach, to continue that engagement and that richness that you provide for your kids?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (08:57):

I definitely—I think for me, I recognize that when the students are in my classroom, I want them to, I dunno, for lack of a better word, just escape the noise at home. And I know we’ve always had students that are going through divorce situations or their dog died, other things, but I think with COVID, it’s definitely been compounded. And just creating a safe place for the kids to want to be and…it’s hard. We’ve had a lot of students that have been out, absent, for various reasons and on quarantine. And they’re struggling with doing work from home, ’cause their parents are stressed and their parents are dealing with their work issues. And so I think just having grace for the kids and just keeping…I don’t know, I guess like I said, I’ve always had student engagement as top of my list.

Eric Cross (10:06):

It sounds like—the things I hear you say really have to do with who these students are as people.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (10:12):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (10:13):

And then as a second, who they are as students. How do relationships fit into your engagement? ‘Cause I’m hearing this connection that you seem to be making with kids as you’re talking about things that are beyond academics: their home life, how they’re impacted.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (10:28):

Yes.

Eric Cross (10:28):

Is there anything that you do to build these relationships, or to connect with your students, to make them feel wanted or feel connected to the classroom or to you?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (10:37):

Yeah, I do. I do a few things to build those connections. And again, this timeframe in their life is so out of their control, their peer relationships, relationships with their parents. And when they’re in my classroom, I want them to feel loved and appreciated. Something I do it’s called Phone Fridays. And in one of the social media groups, someone posted about it, and I’ve been doing it for over a year now, actually. So on Fridays I call parents and give good news. And so I’ll pick maybe one or two students. And it could be academic reasons. It could be behavior, I’ve seen a slight improvement of behavior. Maybe a role model in the classroom. And my goal is to get everybody every trimester. So everybody gets a phone call by the end of the trimester. And it’s funny ’cause sometimes the parents are a little like “Uh-oh”! When they pick up, they see the caller ID, and their school’s calling. ‘Cause Some kids don’t get good calls. So it’s a really—I would say every single parent that I’ve called, I usually get a follow-up email, either to me or my admin, just saying it’s such a cool idea I do this; thank you so much. And yeah, I just call and give good news and just put ’em on the spot. And usually the kids are a little embarrassed, but you can tell, even though they’re kind of—I think they’re faking it, that they’re embarrassed! ‘Cause You know that they got the Phone Friday, and everybody’s like, “Who’s gonna get the phone Friday?!” And so it’s a very big deal in my class.

Eric Cross (12:07):

What a great way to—I mean, it seems like that hits on so many levels. You’re making these positive calls home. You’re praising publicly, which a lot of times can happen where students can get criticized or redirected publicly and then praised privately, which is a lot of times the reverse what we should be doing. But here you are praising them publicly. And then you’re not only building a relationship with yourself, but you’re also connecting them with their parent or whoever is caring for them, because now when they go home, there’s this, “Hey, your teacher called; you’re doing awesome!” So it’s this kind of triangle that’s forming there. I think that’s super-cool and a great thing for teachers to do.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (12:45):

It takes, you know, the last five minutes of my class. I do it every class. And then I have a system. Like I said, I keep track of all the kids. That way, by the end of the trimester I’ve gotten everybody. Sometimes I let the students, whoever I call first, then I let them pick a peer and I tell them, “OK, we have to have a solid reason. Why are we calling?” And a couple times they’ll have a student, like one of my energized ones, they’ll raise their hand. “How About me? How about me?” And I and the kids kind of laugh a little and I said, “Well, how about this? Let’s make a goal. How about next week we’re gonna make a goal and we’re gonna have a reason to call home.” So just working on the kids that need a little push in the right direction. That’s other reasoning to it. But yeah, it’s fun. I love it.

Eric Cross (13:33):

And you have the community. You have this goal setting. We were talking a little earlier about this transition—so you’re becoming this…your school’s going through the IB process, is that right?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (13:44):

Yes.

Eric Cross (13:44):

And we were talking about the ATL skills and one of them is goal-setting management. You already kind of organically do this in your classroom, which is really neat. I know being an IB teacher, a lot of times I find the things that I’ve already been doing and find, “Oh, this is actually an approach to learning!” or “This is something that has a title!” I just thought it was just being helpful! Ah…So the kids are connected. You have this process where you’re calling parents; it’s working; students are involved, so it’s building this community. Now you’re engaging students. Do you have any favorite student engagement tools that you use in your classroom or when you’re teaching that you feel like you get a lot of bang for your buck? There’s so many things out there these days. And so many approaches, tools, web apps. Do you have any favorites that you use?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (14:40):

No. Nothing comes up top of my mind right now. Mostly just projects, like I said. And being excited. I think having my students see me excited about something…and I’m honest when we’re doing something that’s not quite my favorite, then I’m honest about that too. But just having my—like, we just started thermal energy this week and I told my students, I said, “OK guys, I’m gonna weave in some chemistry in there. I’m gonna weave in some particle motion,” and they’re like, “Oh! That’s when you taught eighth grade, huh!” Cause I talk a lot about when I taught eighth grade before. I don’t know, just showing my own enthusiasm, I think, is a good payoff to me. That’s a bang for your buck. Other things…I try to give ’em cool videos and Mark Grober, he’s definitely a favorite of mine I like to show my students. I like to bring in guest speakers from our community. When I taught eighth grade for physics, I always brought in a local CHP officer and they would bring in the radar and lidar guns and the kids would mark off the parking lot and they would calculate their speed. And then they would verify it with the radar gun. Two years ago when I taught math, I brought in a local landscaper company, a father-and-son outfit, and they showed the kids how they would do bids on jobs. And so, relate it to our chapter on volume and area. So just making that connection with real life. Plus it’s just a nice opportunity, too, for the community to come in. With our design class, put on our newscast. And then one of our units in our sixth grade curriculum is weather. And so I brought in a local weatheruh, chief meteorologist. And he actually talked to the students about his job as a meteorologist and then also being on the news and putting on a newscast. So we got him on our green screen and did a little like Mark Finan, you know, little cameo on our newscast for the week for school. So that was kind of cool.

Eric Cross (16:45):

They must have been excited.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (16:47):

Yeah. They’re pretty starstruck by him. So that was pretty fun.

Eric Cross (16:51):

This person was on their local news? So they would know him?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (16:56):

Yeah, he’s on Channel 3 out of Sacramento. Yeah. KCRA Channel 3, Mark Finan.

Eric Cross (17:00):

So all these guest speakers that you have…how do you reach out to these people? And you sound like you get a lot of success. Do you ever get nos? Like if I’m sitting here listening and that inspires me, but you’re getting celebrities and you see a few people…like, how do you reach out to them? And does everybody say yes? How does it go?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (17:21):

Well, usually at my back-to-school night, I always ask the parents if they have a career or hobby that could lend itself to the curriculum. And so sometimes I’ll hear about—students will talk about, like, “My mom’s a doctor.” And so I’ll reach out to parents and just say, “Hey, you know, your kiddo said, you’re a doctor. May I ask what type?” And most of the time the nos that I’ve received are just because of schedule conflicts. You just have to get creative! Look in your community and see what you have. People want to come and talk to kids. I’ve had some presentations that the person is so intelligent and amazing, but they just, weren’t very kid-friendly. I mean, that happens. Butsomeone knows someone. And just ask! I mean, it doesn’t hurt to ask to have ’em come out, come hang out for the day, with my students. Andone time I had a nurse practitioner she was in the cardiac unit. And so she brought in hearts and led a heart dissection with my students. And we did a station set-up. I’ve had elaborate ones like that, or just a mom come in to tell my students about her job as a nutritionist and relate it to our unit on metabolism. And so just did like a little 15-minute Q&A with the kids on nutrition. And I would just say, look at your community and/or post on social media. I always do that. Post in your school’s PTA groups. So the parents know someone, that’s for sure. Or someone’s retired. One time I had—I think he was a grandfather of one of the kids—he was into rocks. And he had a bunch of meteorites <laugh> and brought in his meteorites.

Eric Cross (19:15):

Bring in your rocks!

Ryan Renee Rudkin (19:15):

I know! Right? And he <laugh> just brought in his meteorite collection! I was like, sure, come on in!

Eric Cross (19:23):

That’s one of the things I love about being a middle-school teacher is that my students have such varied interests and I’ll get the Rock Kid every once in a while and he’ll come in and he’ll have all these rocks and crystals. And a lot of times there’s a grandfather that’s responsible for this inherited geologic treasure that they have.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (19:45):

Yeah, something like that—I mean rocks are not my favorites, but I don’t really tell the kids that. I was like, “Sure, yeah, come on in! We can have a whole-day lesson on rocks!”

Eric Cross (19:55):

<Weakly> “This is great!”

Ryan Renee Rudkin (19:58):

Just utilizing your resources. That’s all it’s about.

Eric Cross (20:02):

Well, I think the back-to-school night was really helpful. That’s something that’s super doable. You have a bunch of parents and you just simply ask, “Who do you know? What do you do?” And then just collecting that and then just asking people to come in. I’ve I’ve been reluctant to do it more often than I’ve wanted to, because I haven’t figured out—and maybe you can help me with this—I have three class periods a day plus other class periods that are not necessarily science. And I don’t want to dominate a person’s schedule. Do they tend to be willing to stay all day? Or do you do, one class gets it, and you record it? Like, how do you balance out the speakers with your school schedule?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (20:39):

Mostly they’ll they’ll just come for the whole day. When I taught eighth grade, I had five classes, so that was easy. That was an all-day thing. And then usually I’ll offer to call lunch, have lunch delivered, or snacks during the day. I mean—

Eric Cross (20:53):

Feeding them is key.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (20:54):

Yeah. Just something kind of nice. Donuts in the morning. I mean, you’d be very surprised. Most people that are in the field or retired, like I said, they’re more than willing to come. And even if they have to wait an hour, while you teach another class that doesn’t pertain to it, then they’ll either leave or come back or just hang out in the back and pretend to be a student during that history class that you have.

Eric Cross (21:20):

It’s my own limiting belief where I feel guilty. I don’t think about it. I need to think about it through the perspective that you do, that these people WANT to talk. I just assume everybody’s so busy. But I do know, the times I’ve had speakers come out, at the end of the day, they’re so energized or they’re so happy or they’re so grateful. ‘Cause They’re like, “This is what it’s like to teach every day?” I’m like, “Yeah, this is what it’s like.”

Ryan Renee Rudkin (21:42):

I think too, a lot of parents…usually being being in the stops at elementary. A Lot of parents don’t get the opportunity to come help out in the classroom, because the middle school kids, you know, it’s not very cool or it’s just not needed like in the elementary classes. So a lot of times, like I said, you’d be surprised. A lot of the parents they’re more than happy to come and hang out. And again, some students, they don’t want their mom or dad to be there, but then I talk it up. I’m like, “Everyone’s gonna be so like impressed that your dad’s a doctor,” or “your mom’s a doctor” or —so then I kind of like downplay it. Like, “Oh, whatever, you’re you’re faking it. It’ll be fine. Don’t be embarrassed.” Leading up to their parent coming into the classroom.

Eric Cross (22:36):

Right. Kind of redirect that energy toward something positive. With guest speakers, projects, pacing, all these awesome things that you have going on, how do you find balance as a teacher, as a person? And what encouragement would you give to new or aspiring teachers? We work in a profession that will take as much as you give it. And you fall asleep at night worrying about other people’s kids and we love it. And teachers by personality can just give and give and give and give. But in order for us to last—I’m thinking about those new teachers who are going into it, who are gonna go in and be there before the sun gets up and stay after the sun gets down. How do you maintain balance, taking care of yourself? You’ve been in education for—how long have you been teaching for?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (23:29):

Sixteen. This is my 16th year.

Eric Cross (23:31):

Enough to be that veteran. So how do you find balance? And then, what encouragement would you give to new or aspiring teachers?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (23:39):

I would say each year, pick one or two things to add on. You can’t add on 10 things, even though you’re gonna find 10 things that are awesome. But just make a little list, put ’em in a file, and every year, just get good at what you do and then just add on one or two things. And reflect on what’s not going well that you can get rid of to make room to add something else. Try to be patient with yourself. And don’t reinvent the wheel. There’s so many things out there that you can borrow and make it your own. Again, I think that’s a time-saver, just leaning on your colleagues. And take lots of notes, because then when you do it again next year, you can refresh yourself and, “Oh yeah, this lesson, wasn’t the best…” What can you add in to make it a little bit better? And yeah, I would say just take on one or two things each year. And then by the time you get to, you know, being a veteran, you can do all these awesome things and it’ll feel natural ’cause you’ve been practicing and just adding in one thing at a time. I coached Science Olympiad a bunch of years ago, and Science Olympiad is so rewarding. It’s just so amazing.

Eric Cross (24:59):

What is Science Olympiad, for the people who’ve never heard of it?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (25:03):

Oh, Science Olympiad is so awesome. Google it. I think it’s just ScienceOlympiad.org. It’s 23 different events across all disciplines of science, different topics. And then you have a team of 15 students. And so your 15 students have to cover the 23 events. So for example, if the student’s on the anatomy team, usually there’s a team of two kids they’re gonna study and learn. They provide all the rules and the guidelines. So the students learn and study whatever the parameters are for that year. And then they take a test. And then they compete against other schools. And there’s build events, the engineering events, they can build things like trebuchets matchbox cars or mousetrap cars. Oh gosh, there’s all kinds of things. There’s like a Rube Goldberg device. It changes every year. And it’s so rewarding to see the kids; they pick their area of science that they love. And sometimes you have to put them on an event that they don’t know, and then they end up loving it. It’s so rewarding as a teacher to see these kids that are just on fire and you know that one day they’re gonna go off and do amazing things. They just commit. They commit to their event. And then they blow it outta the water and they win medals and just the recognition…it’s super, it’s just an amazing program.

Eric Cross (26:42):

One of the competitions that’s really low-tech that I’ve taken into my classroom is Write It, Do It. Have you done that one before?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (26:50):

Oh, yes. Yeah. That’s one. Yep.

Eric Cross (26:52):

It’s such a low-tech, simple one to do, but it teaches such great skills. And for those people who haven’t heard of the Write It, Do It project, you create kinda some abstract art out of random crafts. That’s very difficult to describe. You have pipe cleaners and foam and balls and you know, all these different things. And you make it. And then one person on the team is the writer, and they look at it and they write the procedures, and then their teammate, who’s in a different room and doesn’t get to see it, gets all the materials to build it and the procedures, and they have to rebuild it as closely as possible to the actual original. Even though they don’t get to see the original. So they have to rely on their partner’s ability to write procedures step-by-step. And it was fun to watch my students become teammates in that. And they learned how to communicate in a really fun competition. So I expanded it to do it with all of my students as an activity, just to teach them how write descriptively, to write procedurally, to be technical writers. And it’s, it’s fun! It’s fun to see what they build based on what the students say. <Laugh> And it’s also fun to watch them interact with each other, which for seventh graders, usually it’s conflict. <Laugh> But, like, playful conflict. <Laugh> It’s pretty funny to see what they build.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (28:11):

They’re like, “Man, what are you talking about? That doesn’t mean this; it means this!”

Eric Cross (28:16):

<Laugh> I know part of me feels guilty, but not enough to stop the project. ‘Cause I know for some of ’em, it’s gonna be a really trial by fire being able to practice their skills with writing procedures.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (28:27):

But they’re learning among themselves how to provide more details and to be more thorough with their writing and and their thoughts, put their thoughts onto paper. So yeah, that’s a funny event. Definitely.

Eric Cross (28:41):

Earlier you had mentioned something about connecting your kids with kids and students outside of your classroom. What is it that you do with that? Because I thought that was a really cool project. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (28:57):

Yes, I’ve done—they haven’t had it in a few years, but there’s something called the Pringles Challenge. And if you Google that, I’m sure it’s on the Internet still. So you sign your class up, or your classes, and you get partnered with another school somewhere in the U.S., someplace else. And you decide individually teams, whatever they build. And they make a package to ship a single Pringle chip through the mail. And then you actually mail a Pringle chip through the mail. And then your partner team or partner school, they send their chips to you and then you open everything and then you can take pictures and video. And then there was a whole scoring process where you would score when you receive the chips. And then you input all the data on the website so you can see like how your—and most schools would trade pictures, so that the kids found out how their chip survived. March Mammal Madness is so much fun. Again, Google that.

Eric Cross (30:01):

Did you say March Mammal Madness?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (30:02):

Yes.

Eric Cross (30:03):

Like March Madness, with mammals?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (30:05):

Yes.

Eric Cross (30:05):

What is this?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (30:06):

It starts up in March. And you can sign your students up. And that one—it’s not too interactive with other schools, but this is opportunity to get the kids interacting within your site or within your district. Or if you have teacher friends at other schools. There’s like 60…I think it’s 64 animals? And they have this massive bracket that they post. And then you can have the students, I did it—it would be very time-consuming to have the kids individually research each animal. So I just gave one animal per student and so as a class we researched all the animals and then, I think it’s every three days or so, they have these bouts. And it’s all posted on YouTube. Google it. It’s kind of fun.

Eric Cross (30:56):

I’ve already got the website up, ready to go! Folks, everybody who needs to Google this: <articulates carefully> March Mammal Madness. And is it Arizona State University? Is that the main site, ASU?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (31:04):

Yes.

Eric Cross (31:04):

So people, listen to this. Check it out. March Mammal Madness. Look, I’m doing this! I’m already,—you’ve already sold me on this.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (31:14):

It is so much fun, oh my gosh. And then, then the kids—each round, they pick their pick, just like basketball. They do their picks and then you wait for the video. And they do it live on—I think it’s live on Instagram, or the next day on YouTube. And then the kids get all excited. And then usually the kids, whatever animal they got as their research animal, they’re rooting for that one to win, the whole thing.

Eric Cross (31:42):

But we still have time; we still have time to—

Ryan Renee Rudkin (31:45):

You can jump in anytime. Even if it’s already started, you can jump into it. It usually lasts—I believe it’s a two-week from beginning to end. When they do the first round, the wild card, and then all the way to the winner, I believe it’s a two-week process. Oh, maybe three, actually.

Eric Cross (31:59):

I’m already seeing this lead-up to the video being watched in class to see…I’m already thinking about like, “How do I prevent my students from finding the video?” Or like, “When does it go live so that I could be the one to show them so they didn’t go find it early?”

Ryan Renee Rudkin (32:13):

It takes time out of the class, but I believe it’s one of those things where you have to just…it takes 10 minutes out of the class, but it’s important. So when they each round and then the next day, they release the YouTube video. Last year, when it got down to the final round, we were on spring break. And so I told my students, “You guys, let’s do some optional Zooms. And so I had a bunch of kids log on and we all watched the videos together. So that was kind of fun. And then this year, the other thing, the first time I’ve ever done this and it’s going really well is—on social media, I was talking with one of the teachers from Ohio who teaches science and she and I decided we’re gonna do penpals for our students this year. Paper-And-Pen penpals. So that’s been a lot of fun. We just partnered up all the students, her students and my students, and once a month we send and receive the letters to each other. So that’s been a really cool experience.

Eric Cross (33:14):

If you keep doing that, and you need more teachers to be involved, can my students be penpals with your students?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (33:20):

Yeah!

Eric Cross (33:20):

If you open it up to more people? I think that, to get a letter, old-school? Letter in the mail? It would be so exciting.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (33:28):

It is. We mail them, the teacher and I, we just put them all together in one package. But yeah, it’s an actual handwritten letter.

Eric Cross (33:37):

The only letters I feel like I get in the mail now are bills.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (33:42):

Right? Exactly.

Eric Cross (33:42):

But I feel like the digital version of that is if someone calls me, it’s probably bad news. I don’t know if I’m the only one that’s like that, but I’m like, “Who’s calling me? Why aren’t you texting me? What’s going on? Text me first, then call! I need to know who’s going on, and if you’re unknown, you’re going to voicemail.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (34:00):

Exactly. The penpals has been a lot of fun.

Eric Cross (34:03):

You’ve been in education for a while. You’re on the other side of what it’s like to be a student in the classroom. Which can be surreal in itself, when we think about our own experiences as being a student. Is there a teacher or a learning experience that’s had an impact on you while you were a student in school that really stands out to you? And you can interpret the question however you want. But is there someone that’s memorable or an experience that’s memorable that you still carry with you today?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (34:32):

Definitely. My favorite teacher, and we actually still keep in contact on social media is Mrs. Sheldon. She was my fifth and sixth grade teacher. I had the pleasure when I was in elementary school, I was in an all-day contained GATE class—Gifted and Talented Education class. I vividly remember doing so many amazing projects. We built this big, giant—she brought in a big ol’, like, TV box. It was big, big, big. And you could stick like three kids inside there, standing up shoulder-to-shoulder. And we built this big dragon. The head, and we had the whole rest of the class in a big sheet behind us, and we would do a little parade around the school. And she had that thing for years after. They had to repair it every year, and they would do the little parade around school. She did a lot of traveling and when we would go on vacation and then come back, that was always the big deal: “Where did Mrs Sheldon go?” And she had sand from Egypt and pictures from the rainforest. And later when I became a teacher and then I looked her up and we reconnected I did ask her, “Did you go to those places? Or did you, like, lie about it? <Laugh> To get us engaged?

Eric Cross (35:52):

You went for the real questions!

Ryan Renee Rudkin (35:54):

I did. And she laughed and thought that was funny. And she did travel for real. But yeah, she’s an amazing woman. We still keep in contact. And I remember, you know, little things…like we would be out there doing our PE time and she’d have her long skirt, you know, dress on, with her tennies, and she’s out there playing kickball with us. Just a very kindhearted, smart, amazing woman. I’m very fortunate and I’m grateful that we are able to keep in contact. Love social media for that reason. So.

Eric Cross (36:33):

Yeah. And that’s Miss Sheldon?

Ryan Renee Rudkin (36:35):

Mrs. Sheldon. Marlene Sheldon. Yeah.

Eric Cross (36:37):

Shout-Out to Marlene Sheldon influencing the next generation of teachers, with engagement with your world travels and all those different things.

Eric Cross (37:04):

Ryan, thank you so much for one, serving our students. And in the classroom, our middle-school students who need us. I think that middle school especially, elementary school, those years are when students are really starting to decide, “What am I good at?” And the experiences that we create for our students really shape what they believe they can do. These really cool, engaging experiences, these projects that you’re giving them, whether they’re doing these car sales, Shark Tanks, or they’re doing penpals, or you have guest speakers, or they’re designing planets. These are things that students don’t forget. And then when they move on to higher grades, they remember more than anything, I think, how they felt about something. And it sounds like you’re crafting these awesome experiences. And so I just wanna thank you for your time. I know as a teacher it’s very short. And I thank you for being on the podcast with us.

Ryan Renee Rudkin (38:04):

Thank you. This has been a great experience. I just—I really enjoy my students. And I feel very, very grateful and very blessed for finding where I belong.

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What Ryan Rudkin says about science

“I like to make my class and my learning environment enjoyable. I know there’s other goals in mind… but at the end of the day, I want to come back and I want [students] to come back. It’s so rewarding as a teacher to see these kids that are just on fire… and you know that one day they’re going to go off and do amazing things. ”

– Ryan Renee Rudkin

Middle school science teacher

Meet the guest

Ryan Rudkin is a middle school science educator near Sacremento, California. Although she originally thought she would teach elementary students, Ryan connected with middle school and never looked back. Now in her 16th year in the classroom, Ryan also supports teachers in her district with professional development. Ryan’s favorite part of teaching science is seeing students grapple with concepts and explore phenomena.

A woman with shoulder-length blonde hair smiles at the camera, wearing earrings and a dark top. The background is blurred green and gray.

About Science Connections: The podcast

Welcome to Science Connections: The Podcast! 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.

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.

Download Transcript

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):

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.

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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

S1-06: Supporting students with a creative twist: A conversation with Kentucky Science Teacher of the Year, Shad Lacefield

In this episode, Eric sits down with the Kentucky Science Teacher of the Year, Shad Lacefield. Shad shares his experience teaching during the first year of the pandemic, where Shad dressed up in over 100 costumes to create a unique and engaging online learning experience for his students. Shad also explains ways he connects with his students to celebrate student success, as well as large-scale efforts he leads within his school to cultivate the love of learning science content. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

Download Transcript

Shad Lacefield (00:00):
When you stay relevant, it’s being engaged with your students and figuring out, or what are, what are they liking? And every year it’s gonna be different. And that helps you stay relevant. When you have conversations and you build relationships with your kids,Eric Cross (00:13):
Welcome to science connections. I’m your host. Eric Cross. My guest today is Shad Layfield. Shad is a teacher at garden Springs elementary and a part-time professor at Asbury University in Kentucky during the first year of the pandemic, Mr. Layfield dressed up in over a hundred costumes to create a unique and engaging online learning experience for his students. He also created Vader visits, where he visited students at their homes, dressed as Darth Vader to celebrate their online successes and keep them encouraged. During a challenging time. In this episode, we discuss how creativity impacts engagement, transferring lessons learned from distance teaching back to in-person instruction, and how upper grades can apply the same principles to improve student learning. I hope you enjoy this discussion with shad lays field. So you’ve been in fourth grade for four years, and then you were in second grade and fifth grade. And so like how long have you been teaching for like total?

Shad Lacefield (01:09):
So this is my 15th year teaching.

Eric Cross (01:12):
Really? Yeah. You’ve been in the game for a while.

Shad Lacefield (01:15):
Yeah. Yep. It, it doesn’t, and it’s always surprising to parents too during that, that first like, come in and meet your teacher. And I walk in, I’m like, yeah, I’ve been teaching for 15 years and every time it gets ’em, they’re like no way. And I’m like, yeah,

Eric Cross (01:28):
That’s, that’s a good thing though. That’s a good thing. Right?

Eric Cross (01:31):
You know? So like, well the energy and then, and you’re just how you’re perceived. Like you’re, they’re just, I don’t know. It’s something about work with young people. Like it keeps you young.

Shad Lacefield (01:39):
That’s what it is. Absolutely.

Eric Cross (01:41):
So how did, how, like, what’s your origin story? Like, how did you become a teacher? Like what, what was it? Was it something like you knew second career, like right outta school? Like how did you end up in the classroom?

Shad Lacefield (01:53):
Yeah. No, and I love this question cause I’m a big Marvel and, and superhero. So origin stories are all, I love a good origin story. So I grew up on a 13 acre farm in a little bitty town called Gustin, Kentucky, and very early on, like we were instilled my parents, amazing, amazing parents. But they really instilled like a, a super important work ethic in our lives of like, it’s, it’s all about hard work and it’s important that you’re working hard in whatever it is that you do. And I’m one of six kids as well in my family.

Eric Cross (02:24):
Where are you in the–

Shad Lacefield (02:25):
I’m second to last.

Eric Cross (02:26):
Second to last. Okay. So you’re the second youngest.

Shad Lacefield (02:29):
Yes. Okay. And and so, and so growing up, like with that, like, you know, I worked in tobacco, I worked in hay, you know, we did things being on the farm and stuff like that. And within my family as well, there’s four boys. And so when I decided to go to college I was the first guy in my family to go to college. And the first and only boy that ended up going to college. And so it was like this big deal, like, oh, you know, we got one of our boys gonna go to college. So what is he gonna be? And I was like, well, if I’m gonna put forth the, the time and effort and then the financial strain that it would cause cuz we were not poor at all. My dad worked two jobs to make sure, but I really felt the responsibility of like, if I’m gonna go, I’m gonna work in a profession.

Shad Lacefield (03:09):
That’s gonna make a lot of money. And here I am as a teacher now. So I didn’t go to college to be a teacher. I actually was pre dentistry. I thought, now here’s a profession. You can, a lot of money. You don’t work weekends or holidays, you know, I can still be the doctor thing. And so I’m gonna be pre dentistry. But like all good origin stories. There was a, there was a flip. So in my first year I started working at the most majestic place that you will ever go. It’s called Squire, boon, caverns. It’s a cave in Southern Indiana. And it’s an amazingly beautiful little place. You have to like one lane highway, like road to go back there up and down. Like you, you think you’re never gonna make it. And if it rains too much, the bridge will flood and you actually can’t even get back there.

Shad Lacefield (03:52):
So that’s how we’re talking like way back in the sticks. But once you get back, back there totally worth it. And as part of the job you were a tour I also did grist mill demonstrations and gym mining adventures, or, you know, as they’re gym mining and stuff like that. And within that, I started working with school aged kids and on very large tours and stuff. And my manager at the time, Claudia, I’m still great friends with and we still take our kids back there. Every summer she, to me, you’re really good with kids. Like you’re really good with kids. We have this scout program that’s on the weekends. And then during the summers and you would be teaching kindergarten through eighth grade kids, geology and forestry. What do you think about doing that? And I said, well, right, let’s try that out. And then I got the teaching bug and it hit and I was like, oh my gosh, like I don’t wanna spend my life doing something that is all about money or, or that is like, this is where it’s at. Like, I love this, I enjoy this. I enjoy the response that I get when I’m talking. And kids are excited about learning and getting new information and learning new stuff. And so then I change my major and here I am now, all these years later teaching instead of being a dentist,

Eric Cross (05:04):
Are there, are there days, do you ever have days where you’re like, you know, dentistry, it’s still an option. Like I can, I can go back.

Shad Lacefield (05:12):
Oh, rare, rare occasions. Rarely. Yeah.

Eric Cross (05:16):
Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. Fair enough. I, I, I always joke and say that like we have, you know, sometimes I have my, my alternate job on the hard days, which is for me, it’s working at the gap where I just want to fold clothes and go home at the end of the day, you know, on those really rough days. And you know, it’s never the kids, right. It’s always other things. The kids are like the great part. And then there’s all these other things. And I just wanna work at the gap. I just wanna work at the gap. Fold some clothes. Yes, sir. Yes. Ma’am absolutely. I can find that size for you. And then I just go home cause about their job when they go home at the end of the day, when you work at the gap, at least sorry, gap workers. I’m sure hard of that, but my perception in my mind is that you close up shop and then you’re done. Yeah,

Shad Lacefield (05:52):
Absolutely. Like you said, they can turn it, like it’s a turnoff at the end. Exactly. As teachers we know, like you don’t ever turn it off, it’s always there.

Eric Cross (06:00):
Yeah. So one of the things that I was super excited about when I, when I first heard about you is I went on your website and there’s so many things I feel like I can just talk about your website and just the, the content that you’ve produced. I, I, there’s so many directions I can go. But one, one of the things I want to ask you is, is about that. Now, one of the things that’s on there, and this is coming from a fellow star wars, Fisha who finished Bobba FET and the Mandalorian recently and is Jones in four OB one to come out.

Shad Lacefield (06:33):
Oh, so yes,

Eric Cross (06:35):
I live in Southern California next to Disneyland visited Galaxy’s edge star wars. You have these things called VA Vader visits. And so what do you do in those? And like, where did you get the idea for these Vader visits?

Shad Lacefield (06:50):
So the costumes were bringing the kids into the classroom. But when they left my room because you would, we only had them for a certain amount of time. There was still a lot of extra work that they needed to get done. And what I was seeing was I could get them to come in and they were really engaged during my lesson. But then afterwards, when it came to work completion or getting things done, there was, it was starting to fall off. As you know, we were experiencing, you know, more and more craziness of what’s going on. So then as an incentive, I decided if you have everything turned in, by the end of the day, I’m gonna dress up in my Darth Vader outfit, full costume, the, you know, the, the full helmet, like everything. And I’m gonna show up to your house and we’re gonna hang out and play any game at all that you wanna play.

Shad Lacefield (07:34):
So then it was a way of rewarding. My kids for getting everything turned in. But same time I felt like it would also help me build a relationship with them. That was a very challenging part of online learning. Like, again, I want you to feel like you’re a part of my classroom. I wanna feel like I’m invested in you and wanna learn about you. And it was a commitment because some of those kids put me through the ringer, whether it was we’re gonna do gymnastics on a trampoline. And again, I’m in full costume doing gymnast on the trampoline, or we’re doing soccer drills with their soccer coach at their house playing football games. I mean, all kinds of stuff. I made a Yachty game for a kid that loves Harry Potter. And it was really a big part of getting work turned in because, and it’s the crazy thought they wanted to spend time with me. Like that’s what it was. And so it was like, yeah, absolutely. I’ll keep dressing up. I did over 50 plus Vater visits. It wasn’t just for my homeroom. It was for all of fourth grade. So I went over 50 visits and it was cool to see kids in their home and talk to them and meet their parents. It was a great opportunity for me to engage with parents as well. How is online learning, going, what can I do to support you? Do you guys have any questions and stuff like that? So

Eric Cross (08:39):
This thing of relationships is like leading to work completion, which isn’t, which isn’t always the, the thing that we think to as educators of like how, you know, work completion. A lot of times we think of like structures or you know, certain protocols that you do in class get work completion, but here you are addressing as Darth Vader. And, and you said students were turning in more work because they’re connected to, you saw an increase in, in yeah. Engagement.

Shad Lacefield (09:07):
And absolutely. And, and I remember even saying that to myself, like this is, this is what’s getting them. But it, it was, and as part of the Vader visit as well with the videos we recorded all of them and I said, I’m gonna make you a YouTube star. And so I would, I, I recorded them. I put ’em on my YouTube channel. And so a lot of the videos that are on my website, all those Vader visits are like the kids showing off and playing against the teacher. And I promise you, I didn’t take it easy on any one of those kids. Like when it was like a verse match, I went all out and I told ’em. I was like, if you beat me, you know, it’s gonna be like, you earned it.

Eric Cross (09:38):
What a great way to leverage, just what, what is relevant to our students? Like you used your platform and then now you’re showcasing them on your, you know, your platform or what you were using. And then they’re seeing each other. And I could just see, regardless of the grade level, like just students, like beam from, from getting that kind of positive praise through, through, you know a medium that doesn’t, that tends to be more of a, just content consumption, but you’re kind of watching other folks do stuff, but now it’s about them. Like, and they’re, they’re getting that attention directly. Now I have to ask about the Vader costume. Did you, did you buy it for this event or did you already have that Darth Vader costume in your closet?

Shad Lacefield (10:19):
I had parts of the costume, but not the complete costume. And honestly, the very first Vader visit I had, I had the Vader mask that makes sounds, and like you could talk and it makes you sound like Vader.

Eric Cross (10:29):
My dark saber is on order. Yes. And it keeps getting delayed from best buy. It’s supposed to arrive in April, but I do have dark staple and order that I ordered back in November. So the best to your point, I don’t know who doesn’t have one, I’m waiting for mine though.

Shad Lacefield (10:42):
There you go, come on. Best buy come through for us. So

Eric Cross (10:44):
You, you did all this investment in time and, and you created all this content, but then we went back in person. Were, were you able to bring this back into the classroom or any of the things that you had generated during distance learning back in the classroom? Or are you, are you using some of the things that you learned? Like what, or is it just completely separate and you’re just doing something completely different. Now

Shad Lacefield (11:04):
That’s a great question. So I still try to dress up at least once every week, if not once every other week just to make whatever we’re doing fun, cuz I already have costumes that were connected to the content that I was doing. So had I had made a character called captain Soundwave that will use when I’m teaching my amplify lessons over sound. And so then I, you know, I have that or I would have, you know, specific characters that were designed for certain lessons that I would do. And so I still

Eric Cross (11:32):
Lemme interrupt you real quick. Where did you get these character ideas from? Cause they are super creative. I clicked on one random one. And you have had like a, a knitted like skull cap and like some blue shiny like cloak and I like who is this guy? I think, is that him? Is that captain sound wave? That’s

Shad Lacefield (11:48):
That’s hilarious. That was, that was my attempted Elsa. Oh, that was yeah. Started buying more and more costumes and and making characters and putting costumes together. And so yeah, it just ends up being this thing where you never know when I’m gonna show up in a completely random costume and be like today, we’re getting ready to learn about how sedimentary rocks form. And I dressed in my rock outfit, which is the old school rock with the turtleneck and the gold chain with,

Eric Cross (12:16):
Wait, do you have a Fanny pack too?

Shad Lacefield (12:17):
I have a Fanny pack. Yes you have. Yep. You nailed it. And they’re like, what does this guy

Eric Cross (12:22):
Do? He raise the one eyebrow. Can you do the, the rock eyebrow? Oh yeah, you got this. Oh, people on the podcast. Can’t see. Chad’s got it down. He’s got it down. He’s got the, he’s got the eyebrow going. Okay, so you, so I feel like I can go on a tangent and talk about all your costumes that you have, but the thinking about this. So tons of engagement, younger people now taking like some of the principles that you’ve learned from this, how can, how can upper grades like bring this joy to their classroom? Like middle school students, you know, older kids sometimes, you know, they can, they’re still kids, but you know, they might not be the same thing as fourth graders. Like would you, do you have any ideas of like how teachers and upper grades can kind of take these elements that you’ve done and, and apply them?

Shad Lacefield (13:04):
Absolutely. So some of the things that you had talked about, like with YouTube can also be applied to like TikTok videos and things like that, that kids are, are willing to watch and, and be engaged in. And so those things, I feel like I’ve seen other middle and high school teachers really utilize in their classroom. But honestly, and this is a new initiative that we’ve started in our district. Minecraft has been something that a lot of kids play and are really engaged in and has shown an amazing engagement for all of our kids when it comes to science engagement, particularly. And so with that, so there’s 126 million active Minecraft players right now in the world. And Minecraft is one of the largest selling video games. The average age, cuz they’re always like, oh, Minecraft is for kids who actually the average age is like 24.

Shad Lacefield (13:51):
So a lot of the older kids are playing Minecraft as well with the younger kids. And with that in mind, it was a way when I looked at Minecraft and specifically like Minecraft educational edition came out and it was during COVID and it was free. So if you had a school email or it’s like the, what the go 365 account, you could get it for free and all of our kids got it for free. And so then, then we went from playing Minecraft on the computer as like a fun game to me looking at it and saying like, wait a minute. I feel like when I’m doing energy conversions, we can take Redstone and Minecraft and kids can now show how a simple system using different parts and devices can work and understand even more con creates how energy is converted from one form to another.

Shad Lacefield (14:39):
And so let’s make this a, a, a, an actual activity. Let’s take what I’m teaching in the classroom. And if they get done early as an enrichment piece, because there’s not a ton of science and enrichment activities at times for kids to be able to do, like, what do I do when I’m done, Minecraft ended up being that. And so I could have these elaborate worlds that I would build for them that they could then go and play and be super engaged in and show me way more on this Minecraft world, what they knew than what they were writing on paper sometimes, cuz I, you know, you’d get like a sentences out of them on paper, but then all of a sudden when they would build this elaborate system and you just had them record and talk, it was like, oh my gosh, you understand way more than I was thinking that you did with that last exit slip, an assessment that we did.

Shad Lacefield (15:25):
And so like, this is awesome. So then I went to my district and I actually proposed an idea what if we did tire Minecraft build challenges for the whole district? So our district has 37 elementary schools and I was like, I think this could be something that, you know, as we’re looking for science, curriculum engagement and making kids excited about learning science and stuff again, cuz that was always the hard part. I feel like sometimes with COVID everything kids lost this love of, of being in the classroom and, and, and learning and that it was like, you know, getting them to come back into the classroom and, and finding, learning fun again. It was like this, this started to get ’em excited and like, yeah, I get to play in Minecraft and I’m learning at the same time. And it was working for all kinds of content areas.

Shad Lacefield (16:07):
We’re doing a blast off to, to Mars. We it’s called blast off to us. We’re partnering with CLO of the future. They’re working with SpaceX. Our kids will actually get to send postcards to space and yes, it’s, it’s a super cool thing. And I love my district and all of the office of technology, individuals, Ashley Josh and Kelly for putting this together. And so it asks this question if you could a community in space, what would it be like? And the goal is that kids will write on the back what they want. And then we send this postcard off to space, they stamp it saying it’s been in space and the kids get to have it back and, and be able to use it. But what, what we decided, what we could do with Minecraft is what if they actually built the colony on Mars, like really research put time and effort into reading scientific articles about plants and how plants would grow and, and water and, and structures and apply all of that in a massive build challenge. And then that be, you know what we’re doing? That can be the answer to the question. And so it’s not just a couple sentences on a postcard, but it’s like a week or two week unit that pulls all this scientific content and standards that we’re working with and really allows kids to show so much creativity like on my Twitter I’ve been posting like pictures and stuff like that of some of the students builds. And I’m gonna continue to do that throughout the build challenge.

Eric Cross (17:26):
Now, are you using Minecraft EDU?

Shad Lacefield (17:28):
Yes. That is correct.

Eric Cross (17:29):
I love Minecraft EDU. Like it, it, you talking about it inspires me to, to try to dive back into it. One of the things sometimes I feel limited by is the time that I have and the things that we’re trying to cover. And it’s almost, it almost feels like we’re doing something wrong using a video game to teach, but it’s such a great educational tool. Like you said, you just said that students are able to show what they know in, in a way by creating something that’s different than if they would’ve just written it, but they’re actually creating, and this is one of the things, I guess you kind of hit on this, but I wanted to probe it a little more. Is do you have your students creating content like you do? Cause I kind of heard that they, you were, did you say that they were explaining or doing a video recording or describing it? How are they, how are they, how are they doing that work?

Shad Lacefield (18:17):
Yeah. So what they actually do is they’ll write a script and they will use Screencastify to record and then upload to Flipgrid. And then that way they can actually show their build to all of fourth grade. Since we weren’t allowed to be in the same class, like we were all departmentalized, so then we will have voting challenges. So after you record, you get to see everyone’s videos, you get to like and comment and leave feedback on their builds. So you can see what the other kids created. And then then from those initial videos and voting, we selected a certain of kids that then go on to the district level for our Minecraft build challenge. And then those videos are viewed by administration and other teachers to vote again. And then you end up having grade level winners and then an overall winner, which shout out to my boy in fourth grade, who was our overall winner, Eli, super proud of him.

Shad Lacefield (19:07):
He, he made this really, really space saving system, which was hidden stairs that ran off of Redstone and used motion, energy. And again, in his video, he talks about like how motion energy has changed to electrical energy and then back into motion through the process of how this hidden staircase would be in the wall. And then you’d be able to use this lever to then release that staircase. So you could go up and down but it was just, and again, when you, when you let kids talk about energy conversions and you let them build all of a sudden, you have kids making security systems for banks. Another kid that made a feeding system for kids for animals at the zoo, and it was just like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that this was what you guys could run out and do. When I, when I taught you how energy conversions work, that this is what you could produce and come over, like this is mind blowing. I love it,

Eric Cross (19:56):
What our kids can do and what they can create always kind of blows us away when we give them an opportunity to kind of have that freedom to, to create and take their knowledge and actually do something with it versus channel it into what, show me what, you know, but only do it like this. This is, this is the lane that you have to stay in. How do you get these ideas and, and stay, stay relevant? Like so many of the things like you’re touching, like pop culture, you, you have this hand in education technology, you have you’re, you’re doing video editing. Like where are you drawing from? Cause I’m just thinking like, as a teacher listening to this, that might be newer. And they go to the side like, oh my gosh, this, this guy is doing these so many things like where are you drawing from for inspiration or ideas?

Shad Lacefield (20:39):
I think a lot of it is like you say, when, when you stay relevant, it’s being engaged with your students and figuring out, or what are, what are they liking? And every year it’s gonna be different. And that helps you stay relevant. When you have conversations and you build relationships with your kids to figure out, you know, what’s going on. Because I was not a big Minecraft person. It was the group that came in that really challenged me to do Minecraft because it, it showed up on their Chromebooks one day and all of a sudden it’s like, oh, we can play Minecraft all the time. And I said, no, you can’t play Minecraft until that I’ve had training. And I know what’s going on because I’m super nervous about this new thing. And I wanna make sure you guys aren’t doing something that you’re not supposed to.

Shad Lacefield (21:13):
And like, they hounded me hardcore about you better do you need to do that training, Mr. Lacefield, you need to, we wanna play Minecraft. You better be doing this. Right. And so I was like, all right, man, I’ll, I’ll invest. I’ll, I’ll put some time into this training. And I’m so glad that I did yeah, again, that’s it just like building relationships and having those conversations help you realize like, what’s, what’s what are they interested in? What what’s going on and what would be really funny, even connecting that back to the costumes. What would it be really funny if I showed up in you know, today, princess Jasmine.

Eric Cross (21:42):
Yeah.

Shad Lacefield (21:43):
Been yes. Done that. That’s a great one. I,

Eric Cross (21:45):
I, I just went to the social studies page. I, and I stop laughing while you were talking. Cause I saw the princess Jasmine.

Shad Lacefield (21:52):
Oh yeah. Folks.

Eric Cross (21:53):
I’m telling you, you have to go, you have to go to his videos and see what he’s done. I mean, they’re just, they’re just amazing with my middle school students. They, I, I find myself having to be into things that I’m not normally into. And we have these intergenerational relationships, right? Like I think teachers are unique in this I aspect where I can connect with a 12 year old with what 12 year olds are in no matter where this 12 year old’s from. Cuz I get 12 year old culture. But sometimes when I go back into my adult world, like I forget that like, Hey yeah, haven’t watched a new anime you know, or, or whatever, you know, up

Shad Lacefield (22:26):
That. Yeah. No said too. And a kid will show up wearing a, a shirt to school and I’m like, I wasn’t the world’s that like, I’ve never even seen that before. And you’re like, okay, I’m gonna have to learn what that is cuz that yeah.

Eric Cross (22:38):
And then the next student asks you about, Hey, do you like, do you like these this game? I’m like, yeah, yeah, let me go Google that game real quick. Yeah, I’m totally into it. I’m downloading on my phone real quick. And, and now I’m connected to all kinds of obscure random interests, but to your, to what you said, it like, it helps keep us fresh, right? With I, with ideas, there, there is something that is super practical that you’ve done that you’ve created that I’ve encouraged teachers to do. And I think you really nailed it. On your site, you have these video tutorials. When I look at those, I, I think about how much time you must have saved yourself of not having to explain the same exact thing multiple times. Because you’ve created this virtual help section that allows students to log in amplify earth, check, Flipgrid, whatever. Like do you, when you’re, when you’re teaching students, do you, do you use those in direct students there so they can kind of support themselves? Or is that, what, how did that come to be when you, when you made these, these virtual tools? Because I could just imagine these are time savers for you.

Shad Lacefield (23:49):
Absolutely. Cuz again, like you said, it’s it saves on time. So a lot of when you have kids that are already visual learners as well, and they love watching YouTube and they learn stuff from YouTube, why not? I mean, make the video and then attach it to my Google classroom, keeping everything online. Everyone always has access. And by still having those videos, it allows kids to hear the directions multiple time, but on their time and at their pace. So then it’s posted on the assignment. So even though I probably still will give those directions verbally out loud if a kid forgets and maybe they feel a little nervous about asking in front of their peers, like, oh, how do I do this again? Or, oh, I don’t remember how to do that. That video is linked on there. So that way they can go back and watch it.

Eric Cross (24:28):
It’s almost like a little co-teacher that you have like a little aide that’s like, but it’s you, but it’s like a mini you who’s helping you out. I found that putting sometimes those tutorial videos on ed puzzle, where at different points in time, you can set it up so that at a certain timestamp, it asks a question and you can control it. So they can’t move faster past it until they respond to the question and you have the question be about whatever you just said. And then it, it syncs with Google classroom. So you can import all the grades and you can see how far through the video they got. But that was one other layer that I was able to do. So I can have some accountability and make sure that okay, everybody watched it and they answered all five questions of like, how do you do this?

Shad Lacefield (25:07):
Oh, see, now you’re sharing stuff with me, Eric, because I, I’m not as familiar with ed puzzle. I’ve used like near pod and per deck, but I mean just you saying that I’m like, okay, I need to check out ed puzzle and, and see what, what this is all about. Cause that sounds awesome.

Eric Cross (25:20):
Hey, I shared something with Chad and it it’s useful. I’m I’m feeling good right now. I’m feel I’m feeling good. So as we, as we kind of wind down one, couple questions I wanna ask. One of ’em is you’ve been in teaching for, for 15 years and I, I talk to you like right now and I get this energy and this vibe that’s just so upbeat, so positive. How do you stay fresh, fresh. And how did you stay fresh during a time when things have been so hard, you know, and it, and still is for so many educators, how do you stay encouraged? Like what, what have you done and, and to stay in, in education for, for this long,

Shad Lacefield (26:00):
I think it, it even goes back to like when I made my initial decision to switch my major to education, like I, I really felt like I found so thing that I thoroughly loved and enjoyed, and I always feel like you go through seasons. Like, and I definitely, when, when COVID hit, like you went through a season of where you start to feel again, that pressure like do I really like doing this as much as I thought that I like doing this and am I ready for this next thing? And then I just go back to just the, well, why did I do this to begin with? And, and it gets me, you know, excited to be like, I did it for the kids, like, and it’s about the kids. And I get joy when they’re laughing and smiling. So again, with the videos, it’s like, how can I make ’em laugh and smile because if they’re laughing and smiling and having a good time, I’m gonna get, you know, jacked and ready to start teaching again.

Eric Cross (26:48):
And I just hear that so much in what you’re saying is you’re serving your kids is, is being more than that building the relationship, that connection. And then through all that, the learning happens. The last question I wanna ask you is who’s one teacher that created a memorable experience for you or inspired you. Is it someone that you remember when you were in school or learn experience that just, that stands out to you to this day? Cuz as teachers, we remember thi like our kids remember us and it’s weird to be in that position to think that we’re gonna be that person. So is there anybody or anything that stands out to you that you remember from a, a teacher and experience?

Shad Lacefield (27:27):
Gosh, I have, I have a lot that you know, from my fifth grade science teacher, Mr. Goodman, who we did the ecology meet and the ecology team, and we went to OT Creek park and we competed against other schools about science, connected materials to my physics teacher in high school that let us build boats out of cardboard and take it to the only hotel in our town and the pool. And we had like boat races with the cardboard boats that we did. But really I, I go back to Squire boon and Claudia my manager and I remember not only was, she’s such a, a pivotal like getting me into teaching. But I remember the, the curriculum that we were using at the time that I was. And again, it goes back to what if I was to teach that curriculum, I would not still be a teacher because again, as sometimes you experience with curriculum, it can be boring and not engaging. And I was already putting my own flare on it at SQUI boon during the scout lessons. And I said, what if I just completely rewrote this curriculum? What if I made it really fun and put my own, spin on it? And, and she was like, absolutely, absolutely do that. And I feel like that encouragement as teachers, when we encourage kids to be creative when we encourage kids to, to take risk and to try new things we end up getting such amazing results that we didn’t even expect

Eric Cross (28:45):
Thought I out to Mr. Goodman for the ecology meet the physics teacher for the, the boat races, which are hilarious, by the way, if you’ve ever been able to watch students, did you make ’em at a cardboard?

Shad Lacefield (28:53):
We did. Yep.

Eric Cross (28:54):
Yeah. Those are hilarious to watch. And Claudia for giving the freedom to let you be a educational DJ and remix things to make it fun. Thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for your inspiration and for sharing your stuff like publicly and letting other people see it and, and get ideas. It’s, I’m sure there’s more people than, you know, and more teachers than, you know, that are looking at that and getting their own ideas and coming up with their own. It might not be star wars, but coming up with their own inspiration, maybe it’s like Harry Potter or Lord of the rings or some like that.

Shad Lacefield (29:26):
Yeah. Whatever. You’re passionate about. Pull that in.

Eric Cross (29:31):
Thanks so much for joining me and Shad 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. That’s STEM@amplify.com and make sure to click, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts until next time.

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What Shad Lacefield says about science

“It’s about being engaged with your students and figuring out what are they liking. Every year it’s going to be different…when you have conversations and you build relationships with your kids.”

– Shad Lacefield

4th Grade Science Teacher, District Elementary Science

Meet the guest

Shad Lacefield is a teacher at Garden Springs Elementary and part-time professor at Asbury University in Kentucky. Mr. Lacefield leads professional development in his district, and has been a guest speaker for Eastern Kentucky University, Campbellsville University, and Amplify Education. His topics include classroom managment, integrating techology, and student engagement. He earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Campbellsville University in 2007, and his master’s in science from Southwest Baptist University in 2011. Shad has either taught or coached every grade K-12, and in his 14 years in education he has served as a lead teacher in literacy, math, science, and social studies. He currently coordiantes with the FCPS Office of Instructional Technology to plan Minecraft build challenges for elementary students, and is working on setting up a science field trip that turns a golf course into a STEM lab. During the first year of the pandemic, Shad dressed up in over 100 costumes to create a unique and engaging online learning experience for his students. He also created Vader Visits where he visited students at their homes dressed as Darth Vader to celebrate their online successes, and keep them encouraged during a challenging time. His creative teaching style, and over 50 “Vader Visits” with students, have been featured on WKYT-TV, LEX-18, Spectrum 1 News, and several local and college news publications. Shad lives in Lexington Kentucky with his wife Whitney Lacefield and their three children.

Check out his website, YouTube channel, and Facebook account!

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About Science Connections

S1-08: The importance of risk-taking in the science classroom, a conversation with Valeria Rodriguez

In this episode, our host Eric Cross sits down with Miami-based educator Valeria Rodriguez. Valeria shares her journey of serving in the Peace Corps, working a corporate job, and eventually finding her passion as a middle-school science teacher. Listen in as Valeria explains how sketchnoting, a form of note-taking that utilizes illustrations, encourages student choice and creativity in her classroom. Eric and Valeria also discuss the importance of risk-taking within the science classroom, and how their own mistakes can be crucial in modeling resilience for students. Lastly, Valeria shares experiences she had with several teachers who inspired her throughout her career. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

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Valeria Rodriguez (00:00):

There’s so many things that drawing to me makes an essential connection to. It tells me no matter what, I can continue placing lines on my paper and creating the image I want. Some people will say they messed up the drawing. You know what? They gave it character.

Eric Cross (00:19):

Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host, Eric Cross. My guest today is Valeria Rodriguez. Valeria is a science educator, instructional technologist, and illustrator, who is currently part of a steam team where she teaches third through fifth graders in Miami, Florida. Valeria has presented and led workshops at education conferences like NSTA, ISTI, and SXSWEdu. In this episode, we discuss how she uses real-world projects to make lessons more meaningful, and why teaching students how to sketchnote increases their conceptual understanding in science. I hope you enjoy this pun-filled conversation with Valeria Rodriguez.

New Speaker (00:58):

Now you’re in Miami and you have a biology background. We’re like kindred spirits. Like we do the same thing. I teach biology here in San Diego at a middle school called Albert Einstein Academy. So I’m in a seventh grade classroom teaching life science.

Valeria Rodriguez (01:11):

That’s so cool. That’s how I started.

Eric Cross (01:13):

Is it?

Valeria Rodriguez (01:13):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I started teaching middle school science for seven years, doing life science in my biology background.

Eric Cross (01:20):

How’d you get started? Like where did you kind of begin?

Valeria Rodriguez (01:22):

Well, I went to UF for undergrad as a runner, and I thought I was gonna go to the Olympics, but you know, running in college is hard. And you quickly like realize a path as a full-time athlete is really hard. And one of the days that I was having one of those, like “come Jesus moments” of what am I gonna do with my life, I walked by a sign that said life is calling. And I’m like, okay, <laugh>

Eric Cross (01:52):

You literally had a sign.

Valeria Rodriguez (01:53):

There was a sign. So I was like, I’m reading the sign. I’m following the arrows. And it was for the Peace Corps. And so I went to this meeting and everything that I’ve ever done student government, athletics school education, my backgroundmy family’s from Columbia–everything in that meeting came together and they’re like, we need all these skills. And I’m like, I have those. Those are my skills. And they’re like every Peace Corps volunteer teaches. And so I went in as an agriculture volunteer to Panama because of my major and my background in biology. And while I was in the Peace Corps doing the work, I was teaching at the local school. And I realized that the most sustainable way to create any change is through education. When I came back, I was like, well, what do you do if your first job in the world is in the Peace Corps? Like my background was, you know, managing a machete in a field and teaching second through eighth grade in one classroom, on a chalkboard, you know, in English and in Spanish, while teaching the teacher and the students. So I found that going into teaching allowed me to put some of those skills, that wide array of skills that I had collected until that moment, into practice. And it allowed me to do the arts, do the running, do the science, do the connecting with the community in one place here in the states.

Eric Cross (03:34):

I don’t know if I’m just romanticizing, but you were in Panama and you were doing this amazing teaching. I don’t know. Do you compare it to teaching now in the classroom? Is there anything that ever like makes you wish that you were kind of in that environment again? Or are you kind of, do you like the more kind of technology side of things?

Valeria Rodriguez (03:48):

I tell my students all the time that I miss it, because when I was in Panama, I was in Licencia. They looked at me like this, all knowing being. If they couldn’t come to class because the kids literally had to work, they would bring me their assignment, like run it to me and then run back to their parents. Like, “I had to turn it in, but I have to go to work.” And I’m like, oh my gosh. And like here, sometimes I feel like, you know, I have to negotiate and convince my students to want to give me their work. And maybe it’s because we take a lot of things for granted. I mean, I didn’t have running water in my community. Here, you know, we have everything. I miss how we appreciated — like, my parents would send suitcases of materials for me to hand out to my students, like color and stuff, notebooks, things like that — and the kids would like, hold that notebook, like pristine and here sometimes my students aren’t as careful with materials. And I’m like, why are you breaking the crayon box? <Laugh>

Eric Cross (04:54):

I’m thinking about that. Just even just bringing pens and crayons and how that’s valued. And then a culture that’s built around esteeming teachers, and you’re this essential member of the community — and you feel that. It’s palpable.

Valeria Rodriguez (05:08):

Yeah. And here, sometimes I ask students like, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And you get all sorts of answers, but in my community, it’s gonna sound funny, but they were like, we wanna be a teacher. Like, that means that we would know a lot of stuff and they would put their hair up in a bun, ‘cause I always have it in a bun, and they would write stuff when they were playing and they would act me out <laugh> and I’m like, do I, do I do that? <Laugh> I genuinely got a very rich experience in the time that I was there. And what I learned the most was how to try to not do as much, it’s like a lesson that I’m still trying to learn because like I’m here with the U.S. Mentality of go, go, go.

Valeria Rodriguez (05:58):

And they’re like, but we already did, you know, two things like now we stop. And I’m like, but, but why? And they’re like, you can do that tomorrow. And I’m like, but no, like we’re gonna run out of time. For me. It was a lot of struggle of like slow down. And as a teacher, I feel like I’m always like on the treadmill at a thousand speed. And sometimes I have to tell myself like slow down, be in this moment, like a parent texted me today that her daughter was walking with her dad and said, daddy, let’s talk about the layers of the soil. And I was like, I need to stop right now and acknowledge that this happened. She’s in third grade and she’s asking her dad, you know, she could ask him about anything, and she’s asking him about soil. That’s essential for everything. And we don’t even think about soil here. Like my community had tons of erosion and every year there were less and less crops being able to be produced. We’re not talking about that here. And yet, my student asked her dad here in Miami, <laugh> about soil. And that conversation happened because of our class.

Eric Cross (07:03):

And you allowed yourself to be present and experience and feel that that communication came to you.

Valeria Rodriguez (07:09):

Yeah. We put so much stuff out there and we don’t know where it lands. If it lands on dirt or soil, <laugh>

Eric Cross (07:16):

There you go. I like it. Yeah. Bringing it back. But you’re, I think you’re what you’re saying. Resonates with a lot of educators that’ll be listening to this is that there’s so much that you do. And there’s even times when we do get the feedback, there might be a letter or a card or something, but like, to your point, like we look to the next thing instead of stopping, being present and allowing yourself to absorb it. I think I need to put that up on my, like on my wall, like this, just be present. Now you came back and then you went into the classroom here and you started off teaching science.

Valeria Rodriguez (07:46):

I didn’t go straight into the classroom. I knew that I wanted to continue teaching. But I wasn’t back here in Miami. When I moved back, I moved to Austin. And I ended up getting married and there, I started teaching Spanish as a second language like corporate classes. And I was kind of like tiptoeing around, like, do you dive into education? ‘Cause The idea of a teacher here is very different than the teacher idea that I had while in the peace Corps. So he, a lot of people were like, you can do so many things. Why would you teach? And I was like insulted <laugh>. I was like, wait, what do you mean? Like even to this day, I’ve started a blog post, maybe 20 times with that statement because people all the time are like, you’re so talented. Why do you teach? And it drives me crazy because it makes me feel like they’re looking down on my choice <laugh> but I came to terms with it that it’s just like a societal thing. Cause of that quote, like those who can’t do teach. And I was like, let me let this go.

Eric Cross (09:01):

I find though that educators who come in as a second career, come in with a, a, a variety of skill sets that I, I think you can only get when you’re outside of academia. I mean, you can, you can develop them, you know, going kind of K12 education college and then into the classroom. But those soft skills, the business skills, a lot of those things you really develop. And it’s funny ‘cause your, your story almost sounds like some of the people that I know that work in big tech firms, they have this eclectic story and then now they’re, you know, working for Google or Facebook or something, but that actually was a as set to them because they are able to see the world through multiple perspectives. And I’m hearing kind of a distinguish between art of teaching and the science of teaching. Like you had the, maybe the art connecting ideas, these things, and then the science, like the quote unquote like formal teaching. Okay. That had to get built on later. Like am I hearing that right?

Valeria Rodriguez (09:55):

Yeah. The that’s what rocks I’m teaching the rock cycle right now. So I’m, I’m under a lot of heat and pressure <laugh>

Eric Cross (10:02):

We got the funds, we got the funds rolling. All right. All right. So bringing in the, so the, the art side or the science side we have, and then we just have this amazing illustrator. Now you mentioned your website and we’re gonna post it somewhere, but just so we have it here to, and you say, what is your website where all your majors and sketch notes can be found,

Valeria Rodriguez (10:21):

Www dot Valia, sketches.com.

Eric Cross (10:23):

Okay. So folks that are listening, if you wanna check out the art, there’s some awesome stuff on there, as well as Twitter and Instagram. And we’ll make sure we have it handles in the, the bio of the podcast and the notes. Your art’s amazing. I looked, I checked it. I saw inauguration. I saw astronauts. I saw all kinds of different things. How do you use that in the classroom

Valeria Rodriguez (10:45):

To draw connections? The ones? So what I do is I airplay my iPad onto the board. And sometimes as I’m talking, I’ll draw things, draw things I’m saying, or assignments I’ll sketch out different ideas, or maybe like the schedule I’ll have an icon of some sort that represents things. I use it for everything and anything, because just the way that I tell my students that science is everywhere. I, we don’t realize how programmed we are to use images to for, for information they’re in the street. Bathroom signs, we see the zoom little link, like the image, the icon of zoom. And we know that it’s a call the apps. You know, our phone doesn’t have the words for everything that we’re opening. We just have a list of images that represent information. So we’re programs for this. And all I’m doing is showing my students how we’re programmed for it because we’re so used to seeing images, to represent things that we’re taking it for granted again.

Valeria Rodriguez (12:03):

And sometimes my students will like, I’ll write something and I ask them, make your own visual vocabulary. So I give them the word of the definition for every unit, the younger ones, I give them the definition they have to plug in the word and an image, the older ones, I give them the word they have to plug in the definition and an image. But I don’t tell them what to draw because they need to create an image that will help them to remember the definition. Not me. I tell them, I wrote the list. I know the words, you’re the one that needs to think of something that’s going to help you to remember this. You need to draw a connection to this information. Like I use it and I mess up all the time. And I, I scratch things out because I feel that my students or the student that I’ve had in general are risk averse.

Valeria Rodriguez (12:57):

They don’t want to make mistakes. And drawing is one of those things that it taught me that it’s okay to make mistakes. Like people won’t buy commit to buying houses or they won’t commit to things because they’re gonna make a, I’m like, you can sell the house. You can move again. I mean, I’ve lived in a lot of cities. I’ve been married, divorce, gone out with people. It’s worked out it hasn’t you know, there’s, there’s so many things that drawing to me makes an essential connection to <affirmative> that it tells me no matter what I can continue placing lines on my paper and creating the image I want. And if a line doesn’t necessarily go in the direction, I want it to, I can continue shaping it so that the overall image is in the direction I want. And I can look past those line here and there that some people will say they messed up the drawing. You know what? They gave it character. I, I cycle and I have scars everywhere. They give me character and I keep writing. The overall image in my head is I’m a cyclist, not I’m banged up. <Laugh>

Eric Cross (14:14):

I feel like there’s so much to mind in what you just said. This was like a mini-Ted talk. And I couldn’t write fast enough because there were so many gems of the things that you said, but let me say something worse. And this is I’m gonna be surface with this because, and it’s your fault because you got me thinking in puns and you said, take it for granted. And I said, take it for granted because you’re talking about the rock cycle. So that’s what I heard way back. Anyways, you have your students creating what, but it’s low tech, which is really cool because a lot of times we think of creating content and it’s kind of high tech, but they’re creating something. And this is for us, like as biology folks, like you’re using kind of like this neuroscience that exists about students, creating an art to help them learn.

Eric Cross (14:55):

And this is something that I, I feel gets missed a lot in. When we talk about the quote unquote, the formal teacher training is the element of how creating an art can actually lead to improved learning in the classroom. It’s something you have to go to like a conference to kind of go and see or something, but it’s not as, it’s not as pervasive everywhere. And that thing about risk averse. I feel like I, you spoke to my own life. What I see ‘cause with my own seventh graders, I see the same fear or anxiety when I ask them to draw. As I do, when I ask them to give me a hypothesis about a phenomenon that I’m gonna teach and I say, it’s okay to be wrong, but I see them drift to the Chromebook and want to Google it. You know what you just said about just try it and you can always change and giving character, I feel like is just a great message for everybody to hear

Valeria Rodriguez (15:48):

Today. Students made fossil, right? ‘Cause They’re learning about rocks and we made using plaster, but then I put the green screen up and not only did they make it and they excavated them, but then we put it on the green screen. And they’re like all of a sudden at a dig site,

Eric Cross (16:04):

What I’m seeing right now for those of you who are listening is, is students who are on, is this on IMO?

Valeria Rodriguez (16:10):

This is on we video

Eric Cross (16:12):

Video and they’re holding up fossils that they made. But in the background, because there was a green screen, there’s an overlay of like a, a rock dig site. So the students legitimately look like they’re paleontologists or something somewhere.

Valeria Rodriguez (16:24):

Exactly. And so it’s, it’s not just creating lines, right? The sketching transfers to so much be because even the want, not wanting to make a mistake with their fossil. One of the kids today, when he took off the, the Plato, ‘cause we put the Plato at the base. Then we put in either a shell or some sort of artifact that they were going to fossilize. And then we put in the plaster when he took off the Plato, a piece broke off and everybody’s like, I can’t believe you broke your fossil. And I’m like, not the first. Okay. Do you know how many of these guys and girls have been out there? And all of a sudden they find a dinosaur bone and they’re walking and they fall. And this fossil that took billions of years is all of a sudden broken. I’m like this selfie, the original selfies, these animals died in commitment to their selfies.

Valeria Rodriguez (17:19):

And here you are dropping the bone. So they were all laughing, but it was to go away from the fact that, oh my God, you broke it. You made a mistake. You drew the wrong line. You asked the wrong question. Like no big deal. Keep digging, shout out to the teachers that try doing the projects that they have. They don’t feel completely comfortable with or you know, that they take risks doing. Because even though in theory, it’s like suggested and schools want that or communities want that when it comes down to it, people also expect us to do things at work. But part of our job is also taking risks. Like we did a tethered weather balloon launch the other day because we couldn’t get approval to release the weather balloon in the atmosphere since we’re near an airport. And it was too short of a time.

Valeria Rodriguez (18:14):

And I remember a parent said, oh, you’re not releasing the balloon. And I was like, well, this is a lot of work too. <Laugh> we, you know, we’re, we’re doing the tethered launch. This is a hard project. So the other day when I heard that comment, like I went back to my class and I was like, you know what? I took a risk to do this project. I could have played it safe with a handout of a weather balloon <laugh> or you know, a YouTube video. It’s it’s the, the fact that we’re continuing to push. And so I wanna like really thank the teachers that keep trying to do the hard things that aren’t like tried and tested because it’s scary. Yeah.

Eric Cross (18:57):

Yeah. There aren’t a lot of opportunities for them to have adults that they see in positions of authority or that they respect or admire model failure. And I don’t mean failure in the, like the negative pejorative sense, but like things just not working out and then seeing how you respond to it, ‘cause you’re modeling, taking a risk. But like with real stakes, it’s authentic. I had students swab the campus and we put it in auger dishes and Petri sealed it up and then let it grow room temperature, but we kept it you know, cool enough at 75 degrees. So it wouldn’t be able to survive any, anything pathogenic. And then students, you know, I took pictures of them and then showed them the results. So the students never interacted with it and some things grew and some things didn’t, it was mostly, you know, fungi and some bacteria, but I showed them like, how come mine didn’t grow? And I was like, well, you know, it could have been how we swabbed. It could have been some things don’t grow the temperature, we kept it at, but some of the experiments didn’t yield the cool results. And that was okay. But I front loaded the expectation so that if everything did go great, sweet, but managing expectation, I found really helps to mitigate the pressure.

Valeria Rodriguez (20:01):

Yeah. Well another project that we’ve participated in is growing beyond earth where we’re planting seeds that contribute to like a huge set of data for cultivars that are being considered for growth on the international space station. And my students are like, well, you know, we just have six little pots, like what is this? And I’m like, yeah, we have two little seeds in each of these pots. And we are one data set in like hundreds of data sets that they’re collecting. But we are contributing two research on the international space station. You don’t have to be the next bill gates or the next, you know, Steve jobs. Like everyone thinks they’re gonna be the next big thing. Like you can also be a seed. That’s part of a really big project and that is okay. Like everyone can’t be the next big thing

Eric Cross (20:48):

And the other. And the other thing, I think what Gladwell talks about this in outliers and there’s another book called bounce, but a lot of the people that we see is successful or famous, we don’t realize that their background and their exposure to things was one of the things that led them there, both jobs and gates had access, you know, gates had access at, at the university of Washington to like one of the first computers and then jobs at, at Hewlett Packard. The story go goes on and on, but we don’t see the lineage of some of these people and where they come from. We just see the end result. You just see LeBron James winning a championship or something. We just want the, the end result the, the glory, but not the sweat that it takes to get there. They don’t, we don’t really see that as much, which leads me to like the next thing I wanted to ask you is how do you, and I kind of saw it just now, but how do you engage your kids in the classroom?

Valeria Rodriguez (21:36):

Well, I think I’m funny. Some of them don’t do

Eric Cross (21:38):

They like the puns

Valeria Rodriguez (21:39):

<Laugh> some of them do. And some of them don’t get them. They get them later. And I see when they get it, I like to engage them by bringing in real people, real examples of things, real research when possible. Right. I can’t put them in a real dig site. So the green screen helps me do that. But one of my students yesterday, other day before was like, you have such cool friends because I’ll say, oh, one of my friends does blah, blah, blah. Or, or, oh, when we go to Kennedy space center, we’re gonna, you know, talk to one of my friends. Who’s doing research on, you know, chilies in space and they’re like, wow, your friends are so cool. And I took that moment to tell them, be mindful of the people that you collect as friends in your life, like make good choices, surround yourself with awesome people, people so that you can share ideas. Like you connect with friends who you inspire you to do more. I try to engage them by giving them examples of things that people around me are doing that connect to what we’re doing. Do

Eric Cross (22:43):

You, do you explicitly or intentionally teach soft skills or is it just something that you just kind of organically do natural or are you mindful about making sure that you’re doing that

Valeria Rodriguez (22:52):

A hundred percent? You have to be explicit about it with amplify? Actually, we, we did a poster for incorporating social, emotional skills and other soft skills into the classroom because sometimes we just like other things like writing and, and reading, you know, we silo all these things in education and the school counselor, can’t be the one to deal with everything. You know, you have to deal with things as they surface. And sometimes my kids ha are frustrated because I ask them to think I don’t have yes or no answers. I have, you know, we are gonna launch a high altitude weather balloon. We don’t know how high it’s gonna go. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. We don’t, we don’t know if we’re gonna find it when the <laugh>, when the balloon bursts and it lands in the ocean, are we gonna find it? Is the GPS tracker gonna work?

Valeria Rodriguez (23:47):

Are we gonna lose all that money? I don’t know, but we have to do all the steps and find out. But with kids, they don’t have the skills yet. And I can’t wait for the counselor to come in and talk about handle the frustration that they’re feeling over. Not knowing the correct question to ask, because by the time they go meet with her, the moments pass, I have to stop and say, Hey, like check in with, with what you’re doing. It’s okay to be frustrated. You can’t take it out on a classmate. You can’t take it out on me.

Eric Cross (24:14):

So you were, you, you were intentional about teaching these skills to your students and you had the relationship. So it makes sense that you were the one to bring it across ‘cause you see them more than anybody does. You know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve imagined. Teaching is for a long time. It’s been okay, you’re the science content expert. You’re the English expert, but so much as teaching evolves, there are these skills or like EQ emotional intelligence that you kind of have to have kind of coming in. Because like those moments, like no having the presence of mind to stop and why a young person through identifying how they feel, why, where it came from. Those aren’t always covered in those aren’t really covered in your methods classes when you’re in college, getting your, your degree or something. Now when you’re you’re sketch noting and for teachers who are, or one, could you just maybe give like a brief explanation of sketch, noting for somebody who may not be familiar with it, like how I was sketch any different than just drawing a picture randomly or something.

Valeria Rodriguez (25:10):

Okay. So you’re creating visual summaries. You’re using text and images combined in different ways to take notes. And before you know how we had like these shorthand things that the squiggly meant an indent and something else meant something else. And we had these lists of things when they would edit our papers, that represented things. It’s kind of like that for your brain. So you’re making a list of maybe icons or small sketches that represent things for you. So as you’re taking notes, you hear things. And when people talk now and they, they say, you know, I’m on the fence about this. Like I literally see a fence. And when they’re talking, I write the note, it’s almost like a T toe with pointy tops and I put a stick figure on top of it. And so later when I look at it, I think, oh, that’s right. My friend is on the fence about that decision

Eric Cross (26:08):

For a new teacher or even a, a, a experienced teacher. That’s interested in sketch noting, where, where would you recommend? They start like the structurize? Like, do you give creative freedom? Are they doing this paper and pencil vocabulary words? Are they up? Like, what are some just kind of maybe three basic things to kind of get started for someone who was just curious about it.

Valeria Rodriguez (26:29):

So it has to be simple because if it requires a lot of energy to go in, then you’re gonna be more hesitant to do it. For example, I wouldn’t start summarizing a video because it’s moving really fast or a live presentation is really hard. So with students, I would start with here’s a paragraph, make a visual summary of it, or here’s a vocabulary list, make an image to represent each word. Then you would move into, well, you know, here’s a unit summarize the three main topics in unit. Then you can move onto like a little YouTube video. That’s like 10 minutes a Ted talk, make a visual summary of the Ted talk because they can pause it.

Eric Cross (27:11):

Mm. Okay.

Valeria Rodriguez (27:13):

The hardest thing is live presentations, ‘cause in conversations you can say, oh, can you say that again? Sketch, noting. You start seeing how people organize or don’t their thoughts when they speak. Because when you start writing things down and all the information is about one thing and then like two blue ORPS about something else. You’re like, wow, that was really unbalanced. So then when you start teaching, you tell them what you’re gonna tell them, you tell them and then you tell them what you told them. So they can check that they put the notes in the right places and you tell them what you’re gonna tell. So they can prep the pathway that they’re gonna set up their notes and I have to be explicit. And I have to say like, I’m gonna talk about the rock cycle. So if I were you, I would put, you know, these four boxes. Oh, but there’s three types of rocks. See? I’m like, yeah, but magma. So let’s put it in the cycle, you know? And, and then I’m like, if I were you, I would put an arrow from here to here because this is how, you know, after erosion and then, you know, heat and pressure. But then it connects like this. So the arrows are gonna help me to remember the directions

Eric Cross (28:13):

As we wind down. There’s there’s one question I wanna ask you there, you are bringing together this science, the, the art, the social, emotional learning, the relationships with your students outside content, like there’s so many different things that you bring in the classroom that is clearly gonna make you a memorable educator for your kids. It just, it’s just, I’m just listening to your learning environment. And it’s so rich who is one teacher that really expired you. So

Valeria Rodriguez (28:38):

There’s a few people that stand out overall. I had very encouraging teachers. I had that one teacher that didn’t like my drawing <laugh> she also stands out <laugh>

Eric Cross (28:49):

We have those too.

Valeria Rodriguez (28:49):

Yeah. So I have colleagues that stand out to me that inspire me every day to like keep trying. And then I had a teacher in high school who I actually work with her daughter now at the school that I work at. And I didn’t even know her mom would make us write almost the whole class. And it was world history. And I remember hearing her say when she was talking about the Roman empire that it fell because it reached more than it can grab. So it kept extending too far out. And I heard that, like I think about, yes, I can keep reaching for things in education and reaching for things in my classroom. But I have to come back to like, what can I hold? I don’t wanna reach further than what I can hold. And yes, I have to believe in myself. And I tell my students to believe in themselves,

Eric Cross (29:38):

I’m in this, I’m in this sketch noting mindset. Because when you said what Ms. Brown shared with you, I thought of a hand reaching out, but then things kind of slipping through it. And I another hand with like a fist right next to it. So even in our conversation here last hour, I I’m thinking in pictures now. And so I’m like, if I can do it, they can do it. Like if you know, ‘cause I am just not the person who spends a lot of time committing to draw. Because a lot of times when I was that student who tried to draw and we get frustrated and look around and now I feel like this is, I wanna try this again. I wanna share this with my students and encourage them. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I look forward to continuing to see the sketch notes that you do. And maybe I’ll, I’ll show you one of mine. Like eventually I don’t know if you can see that there that’s my stick figures. Those of you who are listening right now, I drew, I was drawing stick figures and taking notes while Blair was dropping all of this, these like gems and wisdom in here. So

Valeria Rodriguez (30:31):

Maybe we can do a challenge that once people hear this podcast, they can tag us somehow in the sketch note that they create I’m in. So we see what they a take from it. Because that’s the other thing about sketch noting, you think you’re emphasizing something and all of a sudden people are walking away with something else that resonated to them. And you’re like, wow. And here I was thinking that this was what we were talking about. And this is what really jumped out at them.

Eric Cross (30:57):

Your kids are lucky that you’re in front of them, not just because of how you teach, but how you access all of these different parts of their creativity and their thinking and apply, integrate all of these soft skills and social, emotional skills and just life skills and your experience connecting them to the outside world. They, and like you said, and how we started, you know, where you started in Panama, the students realized what you represent and what you meant to them. And I feel like your students, when they get older, they may not realize it in the time, but as they get older and reflect back, they’ll be telling stories about you. So yeah. Thanks for making time and thanks for being here.

Valeria Rodriguez (31:34):

Well thank you too, ‘cause I know you’re in the classroom and making time to do other things outside the classroom. Isn’t always easy, but it’s what keeps us going in different ways.

Eric Cross (31:49):

Thanks so much for joining me in Valer today. We wanna hear more about you. If you have any great lessons or ways to keep student engagement high, please email us@stemamplifycom.wpengine.com. That’s TM five.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.

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What Valeria Rodriguez says about science

“I use [sketchnoting] and I mess up all the time…because I feel that my students don’t want to make mistakes, and drawing is one of those things that taught me that it’s okay to make mistakes.”

– Valeria Rodriguez

Educator, Instructional technologist, and Graphic facilitator

Meet the guest

Valeria is an educator, instructional technologist, graphic facilitator, and dreamer. She currently works as a Science teacher as part of a STEAM Team in Miami, Florida teaching third through fifth graders as a free-lance graphic facilitator. She loves to connect with passionate educators she meets around the country. Valeria has presented and led workshops at educational conferences like SXSWEdu, ISTE, NSTA, NSTA STEM Forum, SHIFTinEDU, FAST, FCIS, and SEEC. When she is not teaching or sketching, Valeria can be found adventuring with her family around the world, training for triathlons, and creating opportunities to empower kids in all kinds of communities.

You can check Valeria’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter & Instagram.

About Science Connections

Welcome, Amplify ELA reviewers!

Committed to reading equity

We believe that all students have the right to read complex texts and engage in rich classroom discussions. They should also see themselves reflected and experience new worlds through reading.

This commitment guides our text selection, unique artwork, and dedication to reaching every student where they are.

A student with curly hair reads a book in a classroom, while other students are visible in the background, sitting at desks.

Text selection

Texts in the Amplify ELA curriculum cover a wide range of topics, themes, and genres, with differentiated supports that ensure that all students can work through each reading and lesson. Taken as a whole, the texts show students a diverse picture of the world, while fostering a lifelong love of reading.

Illustration of diverse people and landscapes, featuring native designs, botanical elements, and a silhouetted airplane against a script background.

A painted scene shows a blue sky with scattered white dots resembling stars and red clouds, against a backdrop of dark and light color gradients.

In the Liberty & Equality unit, students reflect on the harrowing journeys and avenues to freedom that enslaved African-Americans were forced to forge.

Students read A Raisin in the Sun, a play that focuses on the impact of poverty and racial tensions on family relationships and identity within an African-American family.

In the Summer of the Mariposas unit, students dive into a retelling of the Odyssey through a contemporary Hispanic lens as they explore sibling and extended-family relationships.

A pencil sketch of an airplane is shown on a textured background with orange and yellow watercolor paint.

In the Perspectives and Narrative unit, students explore a coming of age moment for an adolescent daughter of immigrant parents.

In the Red Scarf Girl and Narrative unit, students learn about a key historic moment in Asian and world history, while making connections to relatable themes like authority figures imposing rules on children, and family and peer loyalties standing at odds.

In the Mysteries & Investigations unit, many of the texts present an ethnically and culturally diverse group of characters, including many pre-teen or teen protagonists rebelling against authority, navigating their relationships with their peers and families, and figuring out their unique identities.

Created with diverse perspectives

With our new illustrations, time spent in our classrooms will feel relevant and relatable to every student. We’ve brought together an art team with unique perspectives and visual styles so that their diversity can shine along with the
complex texts in our curriculum, and illuminate their relationship with our literature. Everyone deserves to see themselves as the hero of a story. It is our hope that our students will find themselves within our program, and will be ever more curious in their learning, and engaged in their reading.

https://youtu.be/_FLV_Le7Zoc

A person sits at a desk with art supplies, flowers, and plants, speaking on camera. An orange play button overlays the image, indicating a video. A colorful artwork hangs on the wall behind them.

Paige Womack

Dive into the world of Mysteries &
Investigations with Dr. Womack,
the illustrator who may have once
become a scientist…

A person sits on a couch in a room decorated with colorful artwork and a wooden sculpture; a play button icon is overlaid at the center.

Tre McClendon

Meet Tre, a seeker and traveller that became homies Fredrick Douglass through illustrating his narrative for our program…

A woman with long dark hair in a red top sits indoors near a window with yellow flowers and colorful decorations; a play button overlay is at the center.

Jackie Pierson

There’s no one way to be a maker, and Jackie certainly has made a lot of things. Check out the weird and mysterious world of her miniatures…

A person with curly hair and hoop earrings speaks indoors, with colorful posters and decorations visible in the background. An orange play button overlays the image.

Elizabeth Dantzler

She’s been drawing characters and comics ever since middle school. Now see the drama of Edel’s work in the mythos of the Greeks…

A woman stands in front of a wall covered with colorful artwork. An orange play button icon is overlaid on the center of the image.

Caroline Hadilaksono

Travel through countries and narratives with Caroline, as she shares her delicate watercolors for illustrating the hero’s journey…

A man with short brown hair and a beard sits at a desk near a window, with artwork displayed on the wall behind him. An orange play button is centered over the image.

Patrick Mahony

The haunting work that Patrick creates will leave you feeling a sense of melancholy and longing, but not without hope for the future…

A woman in a red blazer sits in an office with open books and art prints on the wall. An orange play button is overlaid in the center of the image.

Edel Ferri

She’s been drawing characters and comics ever since middle school. Now see the drama of Edel’s work in the mythos of the Greeks…

A man in a light blue shirt speaks while seated in a creative workspace with colorful artwork and sketches displayed on the wall behind him.

Eddie Pena

As a latino American, Eddie is an illustrator, a father, and a teacher. He is working in collaboration with Poetry in America to use his heritage as inspiration…

A woman sits in front of a wall covered with colorful educational posters, partially obscured by a large play button icon in the center.

Tory Novikova

Listen to a word from Tory, the Art Director at Amplify, on how the vision
was set for the project and how she brought the team together that would get to illustrate ELA…

Fanart

Here is a library of all the inspiring art that our beloved fans have submitted for our program. Do you or your students have a favorite literary character from our program? Send us your fanart to be shared with our community here!

Enter contest

A collage of various portrait illustrations and drawings, including stylized faces, historical figures, animals, and astronauts, in both color and black and white.

A closer look at grades K–2

Amplify Science California is based on the latest research on teaching and learning and helps teachers deliver age-appropriate, high-quality, literacy-rich instruction that enables students to take on the roles of scientists and engineers to solve real-world phenomena every day.

In the K–2 classroom, this looks like students:

Collecting evidence from a variety of sources.
Making sense of evidence in a variety of ways.
Formulating convincing scientific arguments.

A collage of four images: building a toothpick structure, a boy reading a book to a girl, two children conducting a water experiment, and a light projection setup.

Graphic showing a research process with four steps: spark intrigue with a real-world problem, explore evidence, explain and elaborate, and evaluate claims, connected in a cycle with arrows.

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, their understanding gradually builds and deepens, ultimately leading to their ability to develop and refine increasingly complex explanations of the unit’s phenomenon.

It’s this proven program structure and lesson design that enables Amplify Science California to teach less, but achieve more. Rather than asking teachers to wade through unnecessary content, we designed our K–2 program to address 100% of the California NGSS in just 66 days.

Scope and sequence

Every year of our K–2 consists of 3 units and 66 total lessons. Said another way, each unit contains 20 lessons plus two dedicated assessment days (a Pre-Unit Assessment and End-of-Unit Assessment).

Lessons at grades K–1 are written for a minimum of 45-minutes, and grade 2 lessons are written for a minimum of 60-minutes—though teachers can expand or contract the timing to meet their needs.

Educational curriculum chart showcasing a progression of amplify science lessons from kindergarten to grade 5, categorized by grade and subject areas like plants, animals, weather, and energy.

Unit types

While every unit delivers three-dimensional learning experiences and engages students in gathering evidence from a rich collection of sources, each unit also emphasizes a particular science and engineering practice.

In each grade K–2:

One unit emphasizes the practice of investigation.
One unit emphasizes the practice of modeling.
One unit emphasizes the practice of engineering design.

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.

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.

Engineering Design Units

Download unit guide

Download lesson planner

Resources

Pilot support brochure for K–2

Unit phenomena for K–5

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

Classroom Slides for K–5

Meet your new hands-free TG! These PowerPoints for every lesson make teaching sc…

What’s so phenomenal about phenomena?

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

Literacy-rich instruction in K–5

Scientists read and write with purpose too.

Student Books in K–5

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

Investigations for K–5

Explore the types of hands-on investigations that take place in K–5 classrooms.

Four stages of learning: Engage (eye icon), Explore (people icon), Construct (blocks icon), Apply (brain icon), arranged in a cycle with arrows and descriptions below each stage.

The 5E model at K–8

Learn how the 5E elements are woven throughout each and every unit.

The CER model for K–5

Learn how we integrate the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) into daily i…

Approaches to assessment in K–5

Learn about our embedded assessments.

Science activity kit featuring books "Earthworms Underground" and "What's Going On with the Weather?", balloons, plant seeds, propellers, and other educational materials.

Program component list for TK–5

Explore the components that come with each unit.

A closer look at grades 3–5

Amplify Science is based on the latest research on teaching and learning and helps teachers deliver age-appropriate, high-quality, literacy-rich instruction that enables students to take on the roles of scientists and engineers to solve real-world phenomena every day.

In the 3–5 classroom, this looks like students:

Collecting evidence from a variety of sources.
Making sense of evidence in a variety of ways.
Formulating convincing scientific arguments.

Collage of four educational activities: 1) drying a paper model with a hairdryer, 2) two girls observing a science experiment, 3) children making a mixture, 4) adult hand watering a plant in a clear container.

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 California to teach less, but achieve more. Rather than asking teachers to wade through unnecessary content, we designed our 3–5 program to address 100% of the California NGSS in just 88 days.

Scope and sequence

Every year of our grades 3–5 sequence consists of 4 units and 88 lessons. Said another way, each unit contains 20 lessons plus two dedicated assessment days (a Pre-Unit Assessment and End-of-Unit Assessment).

Lessons for grades 3–5 are written to last a minimum of 60 minutes, though teachers can expand or contract the timing to meet their needs.

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.

In grades 3–5:

One unit emphasizes the practice of investigation.
One unit emphasizes the practice of modeling.
One unit emphasizes the practice of engineering design.
One unit emphasizes the practice of argumentation.

Investigation Units

Modeling Units

Engineering Design Units

Argumentation units

Argumentation units 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.

Units at a glance

Una ilustración de un tren de alta velocidad moderno y aerodinámico que viaja por una vía elevada con un paisaje verde de fondo.

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.

Download unit guide

Download lesson planner

Inheritance and Traits

Download unit guide

Download lesson planner

Resources

Four students around a table engaged in a group science project in a classroom.

Pilot support brochure for 3–5

Unit phenomena for K–5

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

Educational material for grade 1, featuring a section about aquariums with an image of children observing jellyfish, and an introduction to forest habitats.

Classroom Slides for K–5

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

Two children engaged in an animated conversation while sitting at a school desk with laptops and books.

What’s so phenomenal about phenomena?

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

A young boy and girl sitting in a classroom, reading a book together with focused expressions.

Literacy-rich instruction in K–5

Scientists don’t just get messy. They read and write with purpose too. Exp…

Student Books in K–5

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

Two children in safety goggles conducting a science experiment with liquids in a classroom.

Investigations for K–5

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

Sims for 4–8

Pilot support brochure for 3–5

Four-step educational infographic depicting problem-solving process: engaging with real-world problems, exploring multiple sources, constructing explanations, and applying knowledge to new problems.

The 5E model in K–8

Learn how the 5E elements are woven throughout each and every unit.

Two middle school girls conduct a science experiment

The CER model in K-5

Learn how we integrate the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) into daily i…

A science teacher stands at the front of a classroom speaking, while several students sitting at desks raise their hands to participate. A lesson is displayed on the screen behind her.

Approaches to assessment in K–5

Learn about our embedded assessments.

Program component list for TK–5

Explore the components that come with each unit.

Welcome, Atlanta reviewers!

Welcome, San Diego reviewers!

Meet the 2025 Science of Reading Star Awards finalists

Three ribbons on a blue background: a yellow ribbon with paper symbolizing personalized learning, a blue ribbon with a rocket representing MTSS strategies, and an orange ribbon with a star.

Celebrating the 2025 Science of Reading Star Awards finalists

Every day, teachers and education leaders across the country are guiding students toward a future lit up by literacy.

It’s not always easy—especially when they’re the ones championing and implementing shifts toward literacy programs grounded in the Science of Reading.

That’s why we’re thrilled to celebrate the finalists of the 2025 Science of Reading Star Awards!

These awards recognize the educators who go above and beyond to make evidence-based reading instruction a reality for students learning in their schools and districts. Whether they’re rolling out new district-wide literacy programs, coaching fellow educators, or introducing innovative teaching practices, these education leaders are making a real difference for students.

And just like the light from distant stars, the impact of their efforts reaches far and wide, shaping futures for years to come.

Empowering students through literacy

The Science of Reading Star Awards aim a beacon on the champions of literacy—teachers, administrators, and education leaders who are putting the best literacy research into action.

Studies show that systematic phonics instruction—one of the key components of the Science of Reading—leads to significantly higher reading achievement than alternative methods, particularly for struggling readers. Literacy instruction grounded in the Science of Reading strengthens critical thinking by systematically building the language comprehension skills—like vocabulary, syntax, and background knowledge—that students need to make meaning, draw inferences, and evaluate ideas in complex texts. And when you teach knowledge in tandem with literacy, you inspire students to become confident readers, writers, and thinkers.

But shifting to instruction aligned to the Science of Reading isn’t just about swapping one program for another or bringing innovative teaching methods into one classroom—it’s about leading change, engaging stakeholders, and being an inspiration to others.

These awards celebrate the educators, schools, and districts whose innovative approach to literacy is doing just that. Here’s a look at this year’s categories and finalists:

District: The District Captain For the leaders bringing Science of Reading practices to life across entire districts
- Puyallup School District, WA
- Celina City Schools, OH
- Waukegan CUSD #60, IL
- Madison County School District, MS
School: The Literacy Legend For the school that has seen significant reading gains among their students school-wide when using the Science of Reading
- Angie Grant Elementary School, Benton School District, AR
- Bataan Memorial Primary School, Port Clinton City School District, OH
- Bruin Point Elementary School, Carbon School District, UT
Individual: The Changemaker For showcasing exemplary Science of Reading routines and practices, and serving as an inspiration to others on the journey
- Stephanie Wilcox, District Elementary School Improvement Specialist, Redmond School District, OR
- Emily Tessalone Garcia, Grade 8 Teacher, Passaic City Public School District, NJ
- Reena Mathew, Literacy Coach, Suffern Central School District, NY
Individual: The Language Luminary For outstanding success in developing the skills and strengths of multilingual/English learners
- Johanna Quinde, Teacher, The Nancy DeBenedittis School, NY
- Dayana Orozco Rojas, Kindergarten Dual Language Teacher, Kannapolis City School District, NC
- Eimy Maria Galindo Medina, Grade 2 DLI Teacher, Denver Public Schools, CO
Individual: The Background Knowledge Builder For showing the world that the Science of Reading empowers students with knowledge, context, and vocabulary from elementary through middle school
- Ann Ingham, Grade 3 Teacher, Cedarburg School District, WI
- Katie Chappell. Grade 5 Teacher, Rome City School District, GA
- Demi Grosely, Teacher, Clarkston School District, WA
Individual: The MTSS Maestro For implementing a data-driven Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework that creates a thriving and robust literacy ecosystem
- Samantha Umali, Special Education Teacher and Elementary K–4 General Education Teacher, Bering Strait School District, AK
- Kylie Altier, Grade 1 Teacher, East Baton Rouge Parish School System, LA
- Erin Custadio, Elementary Literacy Manager, Falmouth Public School District, MA
- Victoria Green, Reading Specialist, Roswell Independent School District, NM
Individual: The Science of Reading Rookie For a teacher in their first year already making strides with the Science of Reading
- Miracle Austin, Kindergarten Teacher, Guilford Preparatory Academy, NC
- Pei-Ching Peng, Instructional Apprentice, Uplift Elevate Preparatory, TX
- Todd Payne, Elementary Teacher, Renaissance School, WI
Individual: The Cross-Disciplinarian For skilled weaving of literacy practices across subject areas in the classroom
- Katie Kirkpatrick, Teacher, Graham Dustin Public Schools, OK
- Laura Horvath, K–12 Science & Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator, Harrison School District 2, CO
- Christina Miller, Lower Elementary Teacher, South Bend Community School Corporation, IN
Individual: The Writing Whiz For integrating writing instruction with the Science of Reading and cultivating articulate and confident writers through innovative and effective practices
- Michelle Luebbering, Grade 5 Teacher, Jefferson City School District, MO
- Jennifer Dove, Grade 3 Teacher, Rockingham County Public School District, VA
- Daphne Long, Teacher, St. Clair County School District, AL

From districts undergoing transformations to educators supporting professional development on the ground, these finalists are proving that with the right approach—and the right support—every child can become a strong reader.

Congratulations, finalists! We know the long hours, extra effort, and deep belief in your students that fuels your work. You’re making the future brighter, one reader at a time!

Learn more on our Science of Reading Star Awards page.

¡Prepárese para el nuevo año escolar con su estudiante!

Nos complace darle la bienvenida a usted y a su estudiante a Amplify este nuevo año escolar y brindarles oportunidades de aprendizaje excepcionales a través de nuestros programas. Hemos reunido los siguientes recursos y guías para que usted pueda consultarlos y garantizar que su estudiante tenga la experiencia más productiva con nuestra plataforma y plan de estudios durante todo el año. ¡Seleccione su programa Amplify a continuación para comenzar!

For the English version, please click here.

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Seleccione un programa a continuación:

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Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) se enorgullece de ofrecer Amplify Ca…

A cartoon character with pink hair reads an open book outdoors, inspired to ampliar el plan de estudios, while a blue bird sings nearby. Large green leaves and musical notes are in the background.

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) es un programa de artes del lenguaje…

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Amplify ELA ayuda a los niños de 6.º a 8.º grado a leer y comprender textos comp…

A person kneels near a patch of grass by a fenced area as a dog jumps and another runs, enjoying the space. A sign reads "PLAY AREA 8 of 20." The sun is in the sky, reflecting efforts to ampliar el plan de estudios outdoors.

Amplify Desmos Math es un plan de estudios básico de matemáticas creado desde ja…

Two sea turtles swim underwater among green seaweed, with a blue background representing the ocean—an inspiring scene to ampliar el plan de estudios and explore marine life.

Amplify Science es un plan de estudios atractivo para los grados K-8 diseñado po…

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Boost Lectura es un programa basado en la Ciencia de la Lectura creado para acel…

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Boost Reading le brinda a su hijo la oportunidad de aprender y practicar habilid…

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mCLASS es un sistema de evaluación e instrucción que ayuda a medir el desarrollo…

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mCLASS® Lectura es un evaluador universal para K-6 que ayuda a los educadores a…

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mCLASS Math es un sistema de evaluación digital que ofrece a los maestros una vi…

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Amplify Tutoring ofrece programas de tutoría de alto impacto alineados con ESSA…

Welcome, Ellensburg, to Amplify Desmos Math!

Amplify Desmos Math K-5 thoughtfully combines conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and application. Each lesson is designed to tell a story by posing problems that invite a variety of approaches before guiding students to synthesize their understanding of the learning goals.

Scroll to learn more about the program and explore sample materials.

About the program

We believe in math that motivates. Our structured approach to problem-based learning builds on students’ curiosity to develop lasting grade-level understandings for all students.

The program motivates students with interesting problems they are eager to solve. Teachers can spend more time where it’s most impactful: creating a collaborative classroom of learners.

A powerful suite of math resources

Amplify Desmos Math combines the best of problem-based lessons, intervention, personalized practice, and assessments into a coherent and engaging experience for both students and teachers. Feel free to explore our grade-level ancillary samplers to learn more about assessment and reporting, intervention, and differentiation:

Grade K Ancillary Sampler

Grade 1 Ancillary Sampler

Grade 2 Ancillary Sampler

Grade 3 Ancillary Sampler

Grade 4 Ancillary Sampler

Grade 5 Ancillary Sampler

A laptop displays a math problem with illustrated students and a virtual keyboard. Behind it, a chart shows percentages for a Math 2 Beginning-of-Year Screener assessment.

Assessment

mCLASS® Assessments, along with daily formative checks, measure not only what students know, but how they think. The asset-based assessment system provides teachers with targeted, actionable insights, linked to core and intervention resources. Visit our mClass Math site to learn more.

Two side-by-side math activities for children: on the left, a caterpillar-themed block challenge, and on the right, a worksheet for finding pairs that sum to 10. These exercises are fantastic ways to amplify children's engagement with math concepts.

Core instruction

Amplify Desmos Math lessons pair problems students are eager to solve with clear instructional moves for teachers. With low-floor, high-ceiling tasks every student can actively participate and be a part of the math community. Unit- and lesson-level core assessments give teachers data at their fingertips to guide and differentiate instruction.

Differentiation

Personalized Learning activities help students access grade-level math through engaging, independent digital practice. Responsive Feedback adjusts to students’ work, providing item-level adaptivity to further support their learning and offer personalized differentiation. Visit our Boost Math site to learn more.

Two pages from a New York math textbook on determining coordinates after a rotation. Includes sections on modeled review, guided practice, and teacher's notes, with diagrams and examples that amplify the learning experience.

Embedded intervention

Integrated resources like Mini-Lessons, Fluency Practice, and Math Adventures provide targeted intervention on a specific concept or skill connected to the daily lesson. Extensions are also available to stretch students’ understanding.

Multilingual Learners

To support multilingual/English learners, Amplify Desmos Math incorporates research-based Math Language Routines (MLRs) by providing language modality strategies like sentence frames where appropriate, both in the teacher language provided for each task and in the differentiation support section found throughout the program. For further information on math language development, please see pg. 82 of the Amplify Desmos Math Program Guide.

Una profesora con un polo rojo ayuda a una estudiante con cabello largo y rizado que está leyendo un libro en su escritorio en un salón de clases. En la pared detrás de ellos se exhiben carteles con temas educativos.

Review Resources

To support your review of Amplify Desmos Math here are links to important K-5 review resources:

Amplify Desmos Math Correlations to Washington State Standards:
- Grade K
- Grade 1
- Grade 2
- Grade 3
- Grade 4
- Grade 5

Two women in an office setting are smiling while looking at a tablet. Various educational icons surround the image.

K-5 sample materials

Click the links in the drop-down sections below to explore sample materials from each grade. To see sample student responses, please click on the Teacher Edition pages and scroll to “Sample Student Work” (first one is about 30 pages in) or click on Intervention and Extension resources.

For helpful navigation tips and more program information, download the Amplify Desmos Math Program Guide.

You can also watch a product expert walk through a lesson and the available program components.

Digital educational material showing an activity named "Hamster Homes" involving tube length and platform heights for a hamster cage. Includes a diagram with platforms measuring 9 inches.

Screenshot of a kindergarten curriculum outline featuring units like Math in Our World, Numbers 1-10, Positions and Shapes, Understanding Addition, Making 10, and Shapes All Around Us. This comprehensive program utilizes New York Math standards to build foundational skills.

Program structure

Get to know the content and structure of Kindergarten Amplify Desmos Math.

Cover of Amplify Desmos Math Grade K Teacher Edition featuring three children playing with math-related objects and a group of rabbits sitting nearby, aligning with the engaging curriculum seen in New York math classrooms.

Teacher Edition pages

Planning and instructional guidance is visual, organized, and easy-to-follow. To help you review the program, we have included samples from a complete sub-unit on this site: Unit 2, Sub-Unit 1: Counting and Comparing Objects.

Educational activity screen displaying a blue backpack with icons, dot groups on the left, and a grid background. Prompt reads, "Look inside the backpack. Then choose the group with the same number of dots." A great tool to amplify Desmos math learning in line with New York math standards.

Digital experience

Explore our digital experience! Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math has student print materials and digital recommendations.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math: Student Edition Kindergarten," featuring an illustration of three children playing with math-related toys. A group of small white animals, possibly hamsters, play nearby. The scene brilliantly captures the joy of New York math exploration for young learners.

Student Edition pages

Motivate students with mathematics that is both rigorous and delightful.

Centers Resources

Engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math: Grade K." The title is displayed with a geometric "I" illustration in the center. Subtitle reads "Intervention and Extension Resources" on a pink and white background, ideal for New York math standards.

Intervention and Extension Resources

Additional resources to reinforce and extend key concepts, including Mini-Lessons and Extensions.

A digital activity screen, crafted in the style of Amplify Desmos Math, shows two paths with different quantities of mushrooms. The user is prompted to choose the path with more mushrooms. A bear is on the left side of the screen.

Featured digital lesson: Forest Friends

In this lesson, students apply their understanding of how to compare groups of images as they determine which group has more or fewer and then compare their strategies by guiding a bear through a path that has more mushrooms than the other.

Grade 1 math curriculum overview displaying six units with instructional and assessment days: counting, addition, subtraction, numbers to 10, comparing numbers, measuring length, and geometry—aligned with the New York Math standards.

Program structure

Get to know the content and structure of Grade 1 Amplify Desmos Math.

Children interact with math activities on a large tablet while observing fish illustrations. The text reads "Amplify Desmos Math Grade 1 Teacher Edition, aligned with New York Math standards.

Teacher Edition pages

A digital math exercise, amplified by Desmos Math, showcases a story problem about adding kalo plants with three illustrations and a filled-out number sentence 3 + 4 = 7. A "Check" button is present. This tool aligns perfectly with New York math standards.

Digital experience

Explore our digital experience! Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math has student print materials and digital recommendations.

Illustration of three children engaged in math activities from the "Amplify Desmos Math: Student Edition 1" textbook. One child holds a number card, while the others manipulate counters and images, experiencing an exciting approach inspired by New York math techniques.

Student Edition pages

Motivate students with mathematics that is both rigorous and delightful.

Centers Resources

Engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Intervention and Extension Resources

Additional resources to reinforce and extend key concepts, including Mini-Lessons and Extensions.

An educational game screen, inspired by New York math standards, shows a subtraction problem, "4 - 1," with a frog moving along numbered lily pads to reveal the answer "3.

Featured digital lesson: Leaping Lily Pads!

In this lesson, students find differences when subtracting 1 and 2 from the same number by helping a frog reach a lily pad where it can eat a bug.

A curriculum overview for Grade 2 in New York Math displaying 8 units, including topics like comparisons, addition, subtraction, and geometric shapes, with details on the number of instructional and assessment days. This plan integrates resources from Amplify Desmos Math to enrich learning experiences.

Program structure

Get to know the content and structure of Grade 2 Amplify Desmos Math.

Cover of the "Amplify Desmos Math" Grade 2 Teacher Edition, showcasing children measuring with rulers and a poster displaying a mathematical equation, set against whimsical scenery with a colorful dragon. Perfect for New York math classrooms.

Teacher Edition pages

Activity screen displaying a task to estimate the number of animals in an aquarium, featuring a bar chart for goldfish, frogs, and shrimp. Utilizing Desmos math tools, an illustration of an aquarium with various animals is also included to amplify learning.

Digital experience

Explore our digital experience! Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math has student print materials and digital recommendations.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math Student Edition 2" showing three children performing a New York math activity with blocks and measurements.

Student Edition pages

Motivate students with mathematics that is both rigorous and delightful.

Centers Resources

Engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Intervention and Extension Resources

Additional resources to reinforce and extend key concepts, including Mini-Lessons and Extensions.

An educational activity where users must select the block with the correct number to make a total of 10 using the given block numbers. The UI, inspired by New York math standards, features a caterpillar and two tree stumps to amplify engagement with Desmos Math tools.

Featured digital lesson: Leaping Lily Pads!

In this lesson, students find differences when subtracting 1 and 2 from the same number by helping a frog reach a lily pad where it can eat a bug.

An educational curriculum outline for Grade 3 with seven units covering various mathematics topics, including multiplication, shapes, fractions, and measurement. Suggested instructional days are provided. The New York Math approach ensures a thorough understanding of each concept.

Program structure

Get to know the content and structure of Grade 3 Amplify Desmos Math.

Cover of a "Grade 3 Amplify Desmos Math Teacher Edition" book, featuring a cutaway building with diverse students and a teacher working on New York math problems and organizing materials.

Teacher Edition pages

Educational software displays a challenge to determine the area of an unpainted wall. The wall features a door and window with given dimensions, and a mouse pointer hovers near the question, amplifying the student's engagement.

Digital experience

Explore our digital experience! Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math has student print materials and digital recommendations.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math Student Edition 3" showcasing illustrated children engaged in various mathematical activities inside a glass house structure, reflecting the dynamic energy of New York math.

Student Edition pages

Motivate students with mathematics that is both rigorous and delightful.

Centers Resources

Engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Intervention and Extension Resources

Additional resources to reinforce and extend key concepts, including Mini-Lessons and Extensions.

A page titled "Activity 2" features a table showing counts of rabbits, raccoons, and foxes, an image of animal stickers, and a bar graph representing the number of each animal, designed to amplify your New York math lesson with engaging visual data.

Featured digital lesson: Puppy Pile

Students compare data represented on bar graphs with different scales by using animal stickers to create scaled bar graphs.

A course outline for Algebra 1 with 8 units, each detailing the number of instructional and optional days. The total suggested instructional days are 144 and 28 optional days, aligning with New York Math standards.

Program structure

Get to know the content and structure of Grade 4 Amplify Desmos Math.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math: Teacher Edition Grade 4" showing children learning New York Math outdoors, using large mathematical tools and numbers, with one child in a wheelchair.

Teacher Edition pages

Educational screen showing an interactive activity from Amplify Desmos Math where a user drags a point to cut a log into quarters. The progress is 2 out of 10.

Digital experience

Explore our digital experience! Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math has student print materials and digital recommendations.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math, Student Edition, Grade 4," showcasing students collaborating on math problems involving shapes and numbers against a vibrant backdrop that blends cityscapes and natural scenery, capturing the essence of New York math learning.

Student Edition pages

Motivate students with mathematics that is both rigorous and delightful.

Centers Resources

Engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Intervention and Extension Resources

Additional resources to reinforce and extend key concepts, including Mini-Lessons and Extensions.

Interactive educational activity asking users to determine platform heights using a 3-inch tube. The interface, inspired by Desmos math tools, features a dragging function and feedback system with a checkbox and "Try another" option, amplifying the learning experience.

Featured digital lesson: Hamster Homes

Students choose tube lengths to connect to platform heights for hamster homes, identifying possible heights using what they know about multiples.

A Grade 5 curriculum scope and sequence chart with units covering volume, fractions, multiplication, shapes, place value, and measurement. Each unit lists instructional and assessment days to amplify Desmos Math activities.

Program structure

Get to know the content and structure of Grade 5 Amplify Desmos Math.

Illustration of three students engaging with various math activities outdoors and around large blocks. Text at the top reads "Amplify Desmos Math, Grade 5, Teacher Edition" - a perfect resource for New York math educators.

Teacher Edition pages

A digital activity prompt showing a scenic landscape with bamboo shoots and a panda. Using Desmos math tools, the task is to estimate the length where the third bamboo shoot should be placed for the panda to reach a leaf. This exercise is designed to amplify your understanding of spatial reasoning.

Digital experience

Explore our digital experience! Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math has student print materials and digital recommendations.

Cover of "Amplify Desmos Math: Student Edition, Grade 5" featuring students engaged in various mathematical activities outside, such as block building, measuring, and gardening—a perfect resource aligning with New York math standards.

Student Edition pages

Motivate students with mathematics that is both rigorous and delightful.

Centers Resources

Engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Intervention and Extension Resources

Additional resources to reinforce and extend key concepts, including Mini-Lessons and Extensions.

An interactive screen showing an activity about decomposing a figure into prisms, with a touch of Desmos Math integration. The user is asked to drag points to demonstrate the decomposition. Two prism illustrations are displayed, offering a glimpse of New York Math's approach.

Featured digital lesson: Figures Made of Prisms

Students decompose a figure into rectangular prisms and determine the volume of the figure by adding the volumes of the individual prisms.

Contact Us

If you have any questions throughout your review process or need additional samples, please don’t hesitate to contact:

Alicia O’Neil

Account Executive

425-890-6103

aoneil@amplify.com

Request additional samples

Ready to learn more? Connect with an Amplify Desmos Math expert to request additional program samples.

Amplify Desmos Math New York

Amplify Desmos Math New York supports teachers in building students’ lifelong math proficiency. The program:

Supports social classrooms, invites mathematical creativity, and evokes wonder, creating a welcoming learning space where students are empowered to see themselves and their classmates as having brilliant mathematical ideas.
Provides teachers with clear step-by-step moves to build systematically from students’ prior knowledge to grade-level learning.
Connects students to each other’s thinking and to an understanding that they can use math to make sense of the world.
Enables access to grade-level understanding for every student, every day.

Math that motivates

Picture a classroom where are so engaged in a math lesson that they protest when the teacher pauses their work on a problem. A classroom is buzzing with the sounds of natural curiosity. This is what we regularly see with Amplify Desmos Math. This is math that motivates.

Experience Amplify Desmos Math New York

Explore our digital program to review content from all grades, K–5. Watch our quick walkthrough video for helpful navigation tips. To log in, click the orange “Review now” button below, select “Log in with Amplify” and use the following login credentials:

Username: t.nycadmsample-01@tryamplify.net

Password: AmplifyNumber1

Review now

[New!] Review access now includes one additional complete unit for Grades 1, 3, and 5.

To log in as a student, use the following credentials (you must first log out if you have already logged in as a teacher):

Username: s.nycadmsample-01@tryamplify.net

Password: AmplifyNumber1

Illustration of the New York math digital learning platform, featuring a laptop displaying a math game and vibrant posters of classroom scenes with diverse students.

Two open educational workbooks with activities focused on New York math problems related to picnics, displayed on a neutral background.

About the program

To learn more about Amplify Desmos Math New York, including pedagogical philosophy, origins, implementation examples, and independent, nationally-recognized reviews, download the following documents:

Curriculum overview and background
Translation options
Professional learning plan
Examples of implementation
Implementation considerations
Schools list
Curriculum reviews
[New!] Instructional Routines and Math Language Routines Facilitation Guide
[New!] Amplify Desmos Math New York Caregiver Hub (also available in Spanish)

Standards

Once you’ve logged in to your reviewer account, download our program scope and sequence and a document correlating Amplify Desmos Math New York to the New York State Next Generation Math Learning Standards.

Grades K–5 scope and sequence

Grades K–5 standards correlation

The program is well aligned with the expectations outlined in the New York City Department of Education Definition of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education and the New York State Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework. Download the CR-SE alignment.

The program is also well aligned with the research-informed math practices outlined in the New York City Public Schools Shifts in Mathematics. Download the program’s alignment to the Shifts in Mathematics.

Educational software interface featuring a New York math problem about measuring platform heights using a 9-inch tube, illustrated with a playful, colorful design.

Three educational book covers for "Amplify Desmos Math New York Grade 3," including Teacher Edition, Student Supplement, and Assessment Resources, all featuring illustrated children and a large letter A—perfect for amplify desmos math new york classrooms.

Personalized Learning

Amplify Desmos Math includes digital, adaptive practice that provides the personalized support a student needs to access grade-level math every day. Personalized Learning activities target a skill or concept aligned to the day’s core lesson, with each student receiving personalized scaffolds based on what they already know. This technology complements daily learning and provides another layer of support to the in-lesson differentiation and instructional guidance provided to teachers. Try out a sample Boost Personalized Learning activity.

The Fluency Practice of Amplify Desmos Math uses an evidence-based approach to memory retention—spaced repetition—for the basic operations. Students around the world have answered more than 120 million multiplication questions within our application. Try it now!

Help

Support is always within reach. Our team is dedicated to supporting you throughout your review and can be reached at any time by emailing or calling us directly.

Live chat: Click the orange icon while logged in to get immediate help.
Phone: Call our toll-free number: (888)-960-0380.
Email: Send an email to help@amplify.com. In the message body, please include your name and question. Provide as much detail as possible, so we can more quickly help you find a solution.

Two women smiling while working together at a computer on New York math in a bright office setting.

Amplify Desmos Math
for New York

Welcome to Amplify Desmos Math, a powerful new core program from Amplify and Desmos Classroom built for NYC teachers and students.

Amplify Desmos Math is built on four core tenets:

Math can motivate students.
A structured approach to problem-based learning can best tend to all aspects of rigor.
Student thinking is valuable and visible.
Students can catch up while keeping up with grade-level math.

A worksheet and two digital screens display a math activity involving tables and blocks, with one screen showing a challenge hidden behind a red curtain.

What if your students asked to do more math?

Amplify Desmos Math lessons are powerful in their ability to elicit student thinking and spark interesting, productive discussions.

The lessons pose problems that invite a variety of approaches with their dynamic and interactive learning experiences on devices, as well as experiences on paper that are flexible, creative, and engaging.

As students work online, they interact with visuals and simulations that show their thinking and decisions. When appropriate, students see other students’ responses and engage in collaborative math discussions.

A Responsive Feedback feature responds to student thinking by showing the mathematical meaning behind it. This is more powerful than simply evaluating thinking as right or wrong, because it motivates and engages students in the learning process.

A grid-based puzzle showing a green ball at (-8, -8) and a yellow star at (5, 6); user is prompted to enter coordinates to reach the star.

In this Grade 6 activity, students internalize the coordinate plane by plotting points to navigate the marble through the maze to collect the star.

A blank coordinate grid is shown next to a list of coordinate pairs to plot, ranging from (–2, –9) to (3, –3). Instructions are to plot and connect each pair in order.

This prepares students to accurately and efficiently plot points with positive and negative coordinates on grids with different scales and explain the relationship between ordered pairs that differ only by the signs of the coordinates.

A yellow submarine with floats and anchors must be adjusted to reach and collect a star positioned at -3 units in the water. A table and "Check My Work" button appear to the right.

In this Grade 7 activity, students explore positive and negative integer operations using the up and down movement of a submarine.

Screenshot of a math problem asking for the new temperature in Beijing after it drops 5°C from –2°C, with a text box and a "Submit" button for the answer.

Students are then prepared apply this understanding in a variety of word problem contexts.

A math activity interface showing four lanes with turtles, labeled 1 to 4, on a track. A prompt asks to write an equation for the turtle in lane 4 to control its movement.

In this Grade 8 activity, students create rate, distance, and time equations based on turtle races.

A blank graph with cost in dollars on the y-axis and blueberries in pounds on the x-axis, labeled for a problem about blueberry pricing.

This prepares students to understand that a graph representing a proportional relationship is a line through (0, 0) and (1, k). They also begin to see connections between a context and features of a corresponding graph, equation, and table.

Data at your fingertips on the road to mastery

Digital assessment report with tabs for Reports, WAT, and Admin Reports. Displays classes, units, assessments, and scoring details for high and low-performing items, including raw scores.

1

Pre-Unit Checks show the range of student mastery for the entire class and identify strengths and needs by standard.

Two overlapping cards detail a math unit overview and learning goals, focusing on equivalent ratios and proportional relationships in tables, equations, and graphs.

2

In each unit, lessons are designed and sequenced to help students fully master critical standards and build computational fluency. Each lesson is part of a carefully constructed instructional sequence that scaffolds students’ cognitive mathematical development.

A math problem prompt is displayed above, with a table comparing orange and pineapple juice recipes below. Another box describes "7.2 Practice Day 1" learning goals.

3

Daily practice problems and frequent practice days reinforce concepts and build fluency.

Screenshot of an assessment report and instructions for Assessment Form A, highlighting score distribution, student performance, and requirements like blank paper and a calculator.

4

End-of-Unit Assessments and reporting analysis pinpoint students requiring remediation with specific standards and concepts.

Facilitate a collaborative, connected classroom community.

The powerful teacher facilitation tools in Amplify Desmos Math give teachers insight into student thinking in real time. Teachers can select student work to display and discuss quickly and easily, leading to better questions that guide more productive discussions.

Amplify Desmos Math helps guide the learning process by connecting students to each other and to an understanding that they can use math to make sense of the world. Students learn and collaborate in every lesson. Whether using print, digital, or a mix of both, students stay connected to each other’s ideas and thinking, fueling classroom conversations and a shared understanding of math.

A screenshot of a classroom management app displaying progress for 13 students across multiple pizza-making activities, with checkmarks indicating completed tasks.

An illustrated Amplify Desmos Math textbook and a computer screen showing a digital math activity about making pizza ingredients.

Standards alignment

Grade 6 correlation
Grade 7 correlation
Grade 8 correlation

Digital review

Ready to explore the program? To log in, click the orange “Review now” button below, select “Log in with Amplify” and use the following login credentials:

Username: t.nycadmsample-01@tryamplify.net

Password: AmplifyNumber1

Review now

To review Algebra 1 content from Desmos Math 6–A1, which serves as the foundation for Amplify Desmos Math, click this link after logging in using the credentials above.

Two illustrated math textbooks labeled Amplify Desmos Math for grades 7 and 8, shown above a laptop displaying a digital balance scale activity.

Two women in an office setting look at a computer monitor together, both appearing focused and engaged. One is seated while the other stands beside her.

Support

Throughout your review, you can reach our support team by email or phone. We are available any time over:

Live chat: Click the orange icon while logged in to get immediate help.

Phone: Call our toll-free number: (888)-960-0380.

Email: Send an email to help@amplify.com. In the message body, please include your name and question. Provide as much detail as possible, so we can help you find a solution.

Amplify Desmos Math for New York

Amplify Desmos Math New York helps teachers center student thinking and unlock students’ true potential.

With Amplify Desmos Math New York:

Students actively participate in productive, collaborative discussions as they work through scaffolded problem-solving lessons.
Teachers can build on student ideas, creating student-centered environments and helping students build connections to what they already know.
Lesson content is thought-provoking, relevant, and challenging, asking that students bring their whole selves to class and grapple with real-world problems they’ll care about.

With Amplify Desmos Math New York, students believe they can conquer any mathematical challenge they encounter.

A set of six colorful educational book covers titled "Amplify Desmos Math New York," each featuring stylized math-themed illustrations and different pastel accent colors.

Print review

Experience the beautiful, easy-to-use print components that add to the power of Desmos Classroom technology and instruction by downloading the print samplers below. The samplers include print pages from two full Amplify Desmos Math New York lessons.

Grades 6–8
Mini-lesson sampler

Grade 6
Teacher Edition sampler
Student Edition sampler
Assessment Guide sampler

Grade 7
Teacher Edition sampler
Student Edition sampler
Assessment Guide sampler

Grade 8
Teacher Edition sampler
Student Edition sampler
Assessment Guide sampler

Digital review

Ready to explore the program? Watch our quick walkthrough video and follow the instructions below to access your review account.

To log in, click the orange “Review now” button below, select “Log in with Amplify” and use the following login credentials:

Username: t1.desmos-math-nyc-review@tryamplify.net

Password: AmplifyNumber1

Review now

To log in as a student, click here and use the following credentials:

Username: s101.desmos-math-nyc-review@tryamplify.net

Password: AmplifyNumber1

A Desmos Math textbook and a computer screen showing a Desmos Math digital activity about pizza ingredients.

Standards alignment

Once you’ve logged in to your reviewer account, download our documents correlating Amplify Desmos Math New York to the New York State Next Generation Math Learning Standards. Within each document, you’ll find direct links to lessons and activities where each individual standard is addressed.

Grade 6 correlation
Grade 7 correlation
Grade 8 correlation

About the program

To learn more about Amplify Desmos Math New York, including pedagogical philosophy, origins, implementation examples, and independent, nationally-recognized reviews, download the following documents:

Curriculum overview and background
Examples of implementation
Implementation considerations
Independent curriculum reviews
Professional learning plan

A classroom dashboard displays student names and their progress in activities, with checkmarks indicating completed tasks and circles showing ongoing or incomplete tasks.

A laptop displays a math activity about shapes and weights, in front of two illustrated Amplify Desmos Math teacher edition books.

Support

Support is always within reach. Our team is dedicated to supporting you throughout your review and can be reached at any time by emailing or calling us directly.

Live chat: Click the orange icon while logged in to get immediate help.
Phone: Call our toll-free number: (800) 823-1969.
Email: Send an email to help@amplify.com. In the message body, please include your name and question. Provide as much detail as possible, so we can more quickly help you find a solution.

Amplify Desmos Math California

Welcome, Reviewers to Amplify Desmos Math California!

The video on the right will walk you through program navigation and how to access key features.

Click the links in the drop-down sections below to explore Algebra 1.

For helpful navigation tips and more program information, view the Amplify Desmos Math Program Guide for Secondary.

Category 1: Mathematics Content/Alignment with the Standards

Standards maps

Algebra 1

Evaluation Criteria Maps

Algebra 1

Category 2: Program Organization

Lorem ipsum is placeholder text commonly used in the graphic, print, and publishing industries for previewing layouts and visual mockups.

Proficiency Progression

Lessons and units in Amplify Desmos Math are designed around a Proficiency Progression, a model that steps out problem-based learning by systematically building students’ curiosity into lasting grade-level understanding.

In the Proficiency Progression, lessons begin by activating students’ natural curiosity and offering opportunities to generate new ideas through collaboration. Teachers are then able to refine idea

Lesson design

Amplify Desmos Math is designed with a structured approach to problem-based learning that systematically builds on students’ curiosity and allows students to grapple with the Big Ideas of the California Framework. Every lesson activity is organized into a Launch, Monitor, Connect format.

Launch

The launch is a short, whole-class conversation that creates a need or excitement, provides clarity, or helps students connect to their prior knowledge or personal experience, which ensures that everyone has access to the upcoming work.

Monitor

As students work individually, in pairs, or in groups, teachers explore student thinking, ask questions, and provide support to help move the conversations closer to the intended math learning goal.

Connect

Teachers connect students’ ideas to the key learning goals of the lesson, facilitating class discussions that help students synthesize and solidify the big ideas.

Routines

Instructional routines can be found throughout each lesson in the Teacher Edition and digital Presentation Screens. Math Language Routines (MLRs) are used within lessons to highlight student-developed language and ideas, cultivate conversation, support mathematical sense-making, and promote meta-cognition. Here is a list of the instructional routines used in the Amplify Desmos Math curriculum:

MLR1: Stronger and Clearer Each Time
MLR2: Collect and Display
MLR3: Critique, Correct, Clarify
MLR5: Co-Craft Questions
MLR6: Three Reads
MLR7: Compare and Connect
Decide and Defend
Notice and Wonder
Number Talk
Tell a Story
Think-Pair-Share
Which One Doesn’t Belong?

Program Structure

Amplify Desmos Math combines the best of problem-based lessons, intervention, personalized practice, and assessments into a coherent and engaging experience for both students and teachers.

Lesson Structure

Lorem ipsum is placeholder text commonly used in the graphic, print, and publishing industries for previewing layouts and visual mockups. Lorem ipsum is placeholder text commonly used in the graphic, print, and publishing industries for previewing layouts and visual mockups. Lorem ipsum is placeholder text commonly used in the graphic, print, and publishing industries for previewing layouts and visual mockups.

Scope and Sequence

Program components

Category 3: Assessments

Unit and lesson-level assessment

Performance tasks

Benchmark assessments

CASSPP-aligned assessment preparation

Self-Reflection

Data and reporting

Category 4: Access and Equity

In-lesson differentiation

Within every lesson activity, teachers can use the Differentiation Teacher Moves suggestions to provide in-the-moment instructional support while students are engaged in the work of the lesson.

Teachers are provided with clear student actions and understanding to look for, each matched with immediately usable suggestions for how to respond to the student thinking illustrated in each row of the table. In addition to using these suggestions in the moment as teachers monitor student work, teachers can review the Differentiation table in advance to help them anticipate how students are likely to approach the activity.

Data to guide instruction

Amplify Desmos Math Reporting provides teachers and administrators with unified data insights so that educators have visibility into what students know about grade-level math. Areas of potential student need are highlighted to allow teachers to modify their instruction and target differentiated support. With actionable insights from mCLASS Benchmark and Progress Monitoring Assessments, teachers are given recommendations they need to inform Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention.

Mini-Lessons

Amplify Desmos Math Mini-Lessons are 15-minute lessons aligned to the most critical topics throughout a unit. Teacher-led Mini-Lessons are used to provide targeted intervention to small groups of students who need additional support or to re-engage students with content that they may need more time on.

Amplify Desmos Math Mini-Lessons are the perfect complement to our problem-based approach, because they provide more explicit instruction opportunities and leverage a consistent instructional routine (Modeled Review, Guided Practice, Check for Understanding).

Fluency Practice

Math Adventures

Centers (Grades K–5)

Centers are engaging, hands-on games for students to play collaboratively to strengthen their understanding of key skills and concepts.

Centers are designed so that students engage in them with minimal teacher direction and support. Each Center has multiple stages, so that students return to the same Center game repeatedly within and across grade levels. The content of the Center grows in complexity to align with grade-level standards in a scaffolded manner.

Extensions

Amplify Desmos Math extensions are 10- to 15-minute activities aligned to the most critical topics in a sub-unit. Extensions can provide targeted intervention to small groups of students ready for an extra challenge or the whole class.

Amplify Desmos Math extensions build on our student-led, problem-based approach, providing more opportunities for students to engage in creative and rigorous problems that can be approached with different strategies.

These low-lift activities give teachers flexibility and provide students with open-ended, hands-on problems they can choose from.

Boost Personalized Learning

Category 5: Instructional Planning and Support

Locate the Digitial Access flyer from your Reviewer Binder.
Click the orange button below to access the digital platform.
Click login with Amplify.
Enter the username and password provided on your Digital Access flyer.

Digital Platform

Contact

Get struggling K–6 readers on track with our reading intervention program.

mCLASS^® Intervention is a staff-led reading intervention that does the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson sequencing, freeing up teachers to teach the reading skills each student needs.

Request a demo

Research-based, classroom-tested

K–2 students in mCLASS^® Intervention grew by up to 8 student growth percentile points more in early literacy skills than similar peers not enrolled in mCLASS Intervention, according to a study by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

PROVEN RESULTS

K–2 students in mCLASS® Intervention grew by up to 8 student growth percentile points more in early literacy skills.

What educators say

“Because mCLASS Intervention is so targeted, we’ve seen student performance improve much faster than we used to. It also increased the efficiency and effectiveness of our teachers.”

Bree Lessar

Superintendent, La Veta School District, Colorado

What educators say

“I am so grateful for mCLASS Intervention and the Amplify team! Using these programs assisted us with helping our struggling readers. My school obtained a FIVE Star rating by the State Department of Education (the highest rating in our state) due to our student growth last year.”

Reading Specialist, Nevada

In a classroom, a teacher sits at a table with six students, engaging in a group discussion focused on mCLASS Intervention, fostering a collaborative learning environment.

About mCLASS Intervention

Getting students caught up on reading skills requires more than just “extra help” in small groups. It requires teaching that directly targets the specific skills each group needs to learn next. How does mCLASS Intervention help? It does the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson generation.

Our approach

mCLASS^® Intervention follows a research-based skills progression and uses software to analyze results, form small groups, build engaging lessons for each group, and update skill profiles and groups every 10 days.

Measure skills

Every 10 days, educators progress-monitor students on the skills they’re working to build. mCLASS Intervention analyzes these results, updates students’ placement on the learning progression, and identifies what they should focus on next.

Group students

Once each student’s profile is updated, mCLASS^® Intervention analyzes the results of other students and arranges students by skill into small groups of 4–6.

Generate lessons

Once groups are formed, mCLASS^® Intervention determines the ideal focus for each group and automatically prepares two weeks of targeted lessons. See a sample here.

Teach students

Staff then deliver the lessons to the small group of students—either with the interventionist coming into the room or the students going to a different room.

What’s included

mCLASS Intervention covers the five big ideas of reading: phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program comes with a mix of print and digital components to help you serve students.

Targeted lesson plans

mCLASS Intervention provides a bank of more than 4,000 research-backed activities, including multisensory activities that use auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic techniques.

Lesson builder

The lesson builder automatically assembles activities into detailed lessons that target the skills each group is ready to learn.

Easy-to-use lesson materials

mCLASS Intervention provides both print kit materials and a digital card app to help you streamline lesson preparation.

Practice app

The practice app allows students to continue to improve their automaticity in decoding with engaging games.

Progress monitoring

Standardized diagnostic probes allow educators to closely monitor progress.

Educator and administrator reports

Analytical reporting allows educators to see each student’s progress throughout the year.

Training resources

Embedded training modules and a pedagogical help desk get you started and maximize your students’ success.

Explore more programs based on the Science of Reading

Our literacy programs are designed to support and complement each other. Learn more about our related programs.

Amplify CKLA

The leading K–5 Science of Reading literacy program that integrates foundational…

Boost Reading

Boost Reading is a Science of Reading K–5 personalized reading program that’s he…

See all programs

Welcome to mCLASS^® Lectura for grades K–6!

On this site, you’ll find resources to guide you in your review.

mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition teacher-administered assessment

About the program

Aligned to the Science of Reading, mCLASS ^® Lectura allows teachers to connect with their students through observational assessment and in the language most comfortable to them. Used in tandem with DIBELS ^® 8th Edition, mCLASS Lectura provides you with a full dual-language solution. Know exactly how to monitor and support all the Spanish-speaking students in your classroom with features like:

Assessment measures validated using the latest research in Spanish literacy development.
Universal and dyslexia screening in one tool.
Instructional activities to build Spanish literacy skills.
Reports in English and Spanish.

Watch a webinar to learn more.

A program that addresses the classroom inequities Spanish-speaking students face in early literacy

Spanish-speaking students have been underserved and misclassified for decades. By combining mCLASS Lectura and mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition, you’ll be able to understand where your Spanish-speaking students are in their English and Spanish literacy paths.

Resources to support your review

Download the resources below before you review the program to better understand the program structure, components, digital resources, and more.

Dyslexia screening: Catch at-risk students early

Early intervention is critical. With mCLASS Lectura, educators can provide universal and dyslexia screening through one single powerful tool—no additional assessment system required.

A woman and a young girl sit at a table, looking at a smartphone together, with books nearby, in a classroom setting.

Assessment measurement videos

mCLASS Lectura’s teacher-administered assessment provides for streamlined data collection, emphasizing measures of the most important skills. The measures are administered in the manner that is most appropriate for the developmental stage of the child as well as the skills being assessed.

Fluidez en nombrar letras (FNL)

Students are asked to identify as many uppercase and lowercase letter names as they can in one minute.

Fluidez en los sonidos de letras (FSL)

Students are asked to identify the sounds of as many uppercase and lowercase letters as they can in one minute.

Fluidez en los sonidos de sílabas (LSS)

Students are presented with a page of printed orthographically regular Spanish syllables and asked to read as many syllables as they can in one minute.

Fluidez en las palabras (FEP)

Students are presented with a page of real words and asked to decode as many words as they can in one minute.

Fluidez en la lectura oral (FLO)

Students are presented with an authentically written informational or narrative passage of Spanish connected text and asked to read as much of the passage as they can in one minute.

¿Qué Queda? (QQ)

Students are presented with a word orally and then the examiner omits part of the word (i.e., compound word part, syllable, or phoneme). Students are asked to identify what word remains after the word part has been elided.

Colorful icons representing the senses and communication: an eye, an ear, a puzzle piece, and a speech bubble, each outlined in blue, red, yellow, and light blue.

Fluidez en la segmentación de sílabas (FSS)

Students are presented with words orally and asked to segment words into syllables. (No video is currently available for this measure.)

Request a demo

If you’d like to review the full program or speak to a product expert for more information, fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch.

Teacher and student sitting across from each other in a classroom, with the teacher holding a tablet. Other students are working in the background.

High-impact literacy tutoring for K–6 built on the Science of Reading-NEW | Amplify

Amplify Texas ELAR Skills K-3

Navigation tool

Navigation video

TEKS Breakout Correlations

Adjusted Pathways Document
Appendices Grade 3
Assessment Guide
Corrective Feedback Planning Tool
Curriculum Maps
- Grade K
- Grade 1
- Grade 2
- Grade 3

Data Analysis and Progress Monitoring Grade 3
Enhancing Observations for Leaders (Coach Observation Tracker)
Fluency Packet
- Grade 2
- Grade 3

GEL Resources

Intervention Toolkit – follow these steps to access:
- Click HERE to access the site
- Click ‘Log in with Amplify’
- Enter Username and Password:
  - Username: texasreviewer2024.teacher
  - Password: AmplifyNumber1

Pacing Guides
- Grade K
- Grade 1
- Grade 2
- Grade 3

Unit Assessment Tracker Grade 3
Program Overview for Leaders
Skills Unit Internalization Template
Skills Lesson Internalization Template
Support for All Learners
My Weekly Reflection
Amplify Hub – follow these steps to access:
- Click HERE to access the site
- Click ‘Log in with Amplify’
- Enter Username and Password:
  - Teacher
    - Username: texasreviewer2024.teacher
    - Password: AmplifyNumber1
  - Student
    - Username: texasreviewer2024.student
    - Password: AmplifyNumber1

Grade K

Get struggling K–6 readers on track with our reading intervention program.

mCLASS^® Intervention is a staff-led reading intervention that does the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson sequencing, freeing up teachers to teach the reading skills each student needs.

About mCLASS Intervention

What educators say

“Because mCLASS Intervention is so targeted, we’ve seen student performance improve much faster than we used to. It also increased the efficiency and effectiveness of our teachers.”

Bree Lessar

Superintendent, La Veta School District, Colorado

What educators say

“I am so grateful for mCLASS Intervention and the Amplify team! Using these programs assisted us with helping our struggling readers. My school obtained a FIVE Star rating by the State Department of Education (the highest rating in our state) due to our student growth last year.”

Reading Specialist, Nevada

Research-based, classroom-tested

Our approach

Measure skills

Group students

Once each student’s profile is updated, mCLASS^® Intervention analyzes the results of other students and arranges students by skill into small groups of 4–6.

Generate lessons

Once groups are formed, mCLASS^® Intervention determines the ideal focus for each group and automatically prepares two weeks of targeted lessons. See a sample here.

Teach students

Staff then deliver the lessons to the small group of students—either with the interventionist coming into the room or the students going to a different room.

Elevate results with mCLASS Intervention PD.

Our Launch and Coach sessions offer tailored professional development designed to maximize the impact of mCLASS Intervention. Gain insights and strategies for effective intervention and tracking student progress.

Explore mCLASS Intervention PD

What’s included

Targeted lesson plans

mCLASS Intervention provides a bank of more than 4,000 research-backed activities, including multisensory activities that use auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic techniques.

Lesson builder

The lesson builder automatically assembles activities into detailed lessons that target the skills each group is ready to learn.

Easy-to-use lesson materials

mCLASS Intervention provides both print kit materials and a digital card app to help you streamline lesson preparation.

Practice app

The practice app allows students to continue to improve their automaticity in decoding with engaging games.

Progress monitoring

Standardized diagnostic probes allow educators to closely monitor progress.

Educator and administrator reports

Analytical reporting allows educators to see each student’s progress throughout the year.

Training resources

Embedded training modules and a pedagogical help desk get you started and maximize your students’ success.

Explore more programs based on the Science of Reading

All of the programs in our literacy programs are designed to support and complement each other. Learn more about our related programs:

An astronaut floats in space near the Moon, with a speech bubble displaying

Amplify CKLA

The leading K–5 Science of Reading literacy program that integrates foundational…

Illustration of a colorful, stylized map showing various buildings, roads, trees, and icons with people engaged in different reading activities or roles related to the science of reading.

Boost Reading

Boost Reading is a Science of Reading K–5 personalized reading program that’s he…

mCLASS

Amplify’s mCLASS is the gold-standard universal and dyslexia screener grounded i…

See all programs

1. Service Overview

As a provider of technology solutions to schools, Amplify’s commitment to data privacy and security is essential to our organization. This overview of Amplify’s Information Security Program describes physical, technical and administrative safeguards Amplify implements to protect student data in our care.

Company profile

Amplify Education, Inc. (Amplify) is a privately held company founded in 2000 as Wireless Generation. Amplify’s products include curriculum and instruction, assessment and intervention, professional development services and consulting services for K-12 education.

Service hosting

Amplify leverages Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its cloud hosting provider. Within AWS, Amplify utilizes Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), which provide an isolated cloud environment within the AWS infrastructure. External network traffic to a VPC is managed via gateway and firewall rules, which are maintained in source code control to ensure that the configuration remains in compliance with Amplify security policy. In addition, the production VPCs and the development VPCs are isolated from each other and maintained in separate AWS accounts.

2. Policies & standards

Information security program

Amplify maintains a comprehensive information security program based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework and the NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 family of information security controls. These provide a robust framework of best practices from which an organization can build its security policies and protocols based on identified risks, compliance requirements, and business needs. They cover critical practice areas, including access control, configuration management, incident response, security training, and other information security domains.

Governance

Amplify’s Information Security Committee has primary responsibility for the development, maintenance, and implementation of the Amplify information security program. The Information Security Committee is responsible for all information risk management activities within the company and is composed of technology, business and legal leaders from the organization. The Committee meets weekly and includes a dedicated VP of Information Security and a program manager to oversee, direct and coordinate its activities.

Policy execution

Adherence to the internal Amplify information security policy is an obligation of every Amplify employee. Amplify conducts a series of internal monitoring procedures to verify compliance with internal information security policies, and all Amplify employees undergo annual criminal background checks. In addition, any third-party contractors who come into contact with systems that may contain student data are contractually bound to maintain security and privacy of the data.

3. Data access controls

Access control

Amplify’s access control principles dictate that all student data we store on behalf of customers is only accessible to district-authorized users and to a limited set of internal Amplify users who may only access the data for purposes authorized by the district. Districts maintain control over their internal users and may grant or revoke access.

In limited circumstances and strictly for the purposes of supporting school districts and maintaining the functionality of systems, certain Amplify users may access Amplify systems with student data. All such access to student data by Amplify technicians or customer support requires both authentication and authorization to view the information.

Encryption

Data encryption is an important element of our protection of sensitive data at rest and in transit, and is reviewed and updated as appropriate annually, based on the latest standards and guidelines published by OWASP and NIST.

In transit: Amplify encrypts all student data in transit over public connections, using Transport Layer Security (TLS), commonly known as SSL, using industry-standard protocols, ciphers, algorithms, and key sizes.
At rest: Amplify encrypts student data at rest using the industry-standard AES-256 encryption algorithm.

4. Application security by design

Building the right roles into applications

Permissions within Amplify applications are designed on the principle that school districts control access to all student data. To facilitate this, Amplify applications are designed so that roles and permissions flow from the district to the individual user. For example, applications that offer schools a way to collect and report on assessment results have a web interface that requires district administrators to authorize individuals to view student data.

Security controls within applications are used to ensure that the desired privacy protections are technically enforced within the system. For example, if a principal is supposed to see only the data related to his or her school, Amplify ensures that, throughout the design and development process, our products restrict principals from seeing records for any students outside his or her school.

To make sure Amplify applications properly enforce permissions and roles, our development teams conduct reviews early in the design process to ensure roles and permissions are an essential component of the design of new applications.

Building security controls into applications

Amplify applications are also developed to minimize security vulnerabilities and ensure industry-standard application security controls are in place.

As part of the development process, Amplify has a set of application security standards that all applications handling student data are required to follow, including:

Student data is secured using industry standard encryption when in transit between end-users and Amplify systems.
Applications are built with password brute-force attack prevention.
User sessions expire after a fixed period of time.

We also conduct manual and automated static code analysis as well as dynamic application security testing to preemptively identify vulnerabilities published by industry leaders such as OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project)

5. Proactive security

Risk assessments

Amplify periodically engages a security consulting firm to conduct risk assessments, aimed at identifying and prioritizing security vulnerabilities. The Information Security Committee coordinates remediation of the vulnerabilities. The security consulting firm also provides ongoing advice on current risks and advises on remediation of vulnerabilities and incident response.

Penetration testing

Amplify engages third-party firms to continually conduct application penetration testing. The purpose of this testing is to test for application security vulnerabilities in the production environment. We work with third party penetration testing program partners. Third-party testing involves a combination of automated and manual testing.

Vulnerability management

Amplify ensures that its systems are free of known vulnerabilities in several ways. Every production server runs vulnerability detection software that compares the installed software against a global database of known vulnerabilities. Secondly, we employ real time network monitoring that reports on any potentially malicious traffic. In addition, a third-party security firm continually reviews all of our system logs for potential security breaches. Lastly we continually test our applications against common malicious internet traffic. Violations in any of these areas will alert one of our operations teams, who are available around the clock.

In addition, Amplify participates in a private bug bounty program through HackerOne, working with the security community to find security vulnerabilities and support our efforts to keep our data and systems safe and secure.

Endpoint security

Access to production systems at Amplify is restricted to a limited set of internal Amplify users to support technical infrastructure, troubleshoot customer issues, or other purposes authorized by the district. In addition, Amplify requires multi-factor (MFA) authentication methods for access to all production systems. MFA involves a combination of something only the user knows and something only the user can access. For example, MFA for administrative access could involve entering a password as well as entering a one-time passcode sent via text message to the administrator’s mobile phone. The use of MFA reduces the possibility that an unauthorized individual could use a compromised password to access a system.

Infrastructure security

Network filtering technologies are used to ensure that production environments with student data are properly segmented from the rest of the network. Production environments only have limited external access to enable customers to use our web interfaces and other services. In addition, Amplify uses firewalls to ensure that development servers have no access to production environments.

Other measures that Amplify takes to secure its operational environment include system monitoring to detect anomalous activity that could indicate potential attacks and breaches.

Security training

At Amplify, we believe that protecting student data is the responsibility of all employees. We implemented a comprehensive information security awareness training program that all employees undergo upon initial hire, with an annual refresher training. We also provide information security training and annual social engineering tests for specific departments based on role.

6. Reactive security

Monitoring

Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) are in place to analyze the network device logs, monitor the network and report anomalous activity for appropriate resolution.

Incident response

Amplify maintains a comprehensive Security Incident Response Policy Plan, which sets out roles, responsibilities and procedures for reporting, investigation, containment, remediation and notification of security incidents. Amplify works with reputable firms for incident response and digital forensics support, as well as annual table-top exercises in coordination with cybersecurity experts.

Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery

Amplify maintains a comprehensive Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Plan (BCP/DR), to guide personnel in procedures to protect against business disruptions caused by an unexpected event. The plans and related operations processes are tested on a semiannual basis, with ensuing operations improvement and remediation work.

7. Compliance

Audits

In addition to penetration testing and other proactive security testing and monitoring outlined above, Amplify undergoes annual SOC 2 Type 2 examinations of controls relevant to security. The examination is formally known as a Type 2 Independent Service Auditor’s Report on Controls Relevant to Security. The most recent examination was conducted by Schellman & Company, LLC and covers the period from April 1, 2024–March 31, 2025. The report states that Amplify’s systems meet the criteria for the security principle and opine on management’s description of the organization’s system and the suitability of the design of controls to protect against unauthorized access, use, or modification.

The Type 2 report also opines on the operating effectiveness of controls over the review period. This means that our auditors confirmed that we have continued to follow established security controls over the period of time of the review.

Certifications

SOC 2: Amplify successfully completed the SOC 2 Type 2 examination of controls relevant to security (see above, under “Audits”).

Privacy

Amplify’s products are built to facilitate district compliance with applicable data privacy laws, including FERPA and state laws related to the collection, access and review and disclosure of student data. Amplify’s Customer Privacy Policy describes the types of information collected and maintained on behalf of our school district customers and limitations on use and sharing of that data.

8. Supporting documentation

In the course of customer security assessment, the following documentation can be provided by Amplify upon customers’ request:

Penetration Testing Report
Risk Assessment Report
SOC 2 Type 2 Report

9. Report a vulnerability

To report a security vulnerability, click here.

At Amplify, we believe Pennsylvania students and teachers deserve high quality instructional materials.

That’s why we partner with schools across the Keystone State to meet their core curriculum, assessment, and intervention goals. With solutions grounded in research and evidence-based practices, Amplify is leading the way with rigorous and relevant learning experiences.

Select a program below to learn more.

Illustration of Pennsylvania featuring cows, a barn, city skyline, groundhog, pretzel, chocolate bar, Liberty Bell, and a train on a green landscape.

Group of diverse middle school students working on laptops and discussing in classroom.

Amplify Desmos Math (K–12)

Amplify Desmos Math is a comprehensive K–12 math suite that has everything in one place: benchmark and progress monitoring, core instruction, integrated personal learning, embedded intervention, and more. This structured, problem-based approach builds on students’ curiosity while strategically developing math fluency and lasting grade-level understanding. The program delivers:

Engaging, discourse-rich math lessons that fuel classroom conversations and drive the learning process.
Comprehensive integrated resources, including print and digital, along with manipulatives and Centers Kits in K–5.
Real-time insights, data, and reporting that inform instruction and celebrate student thinking.

Flexible, social problem-solving experiences

Digital lessons should be able to bring student thinking to the surface and spark productive discussions. We bring this vision to life with interactive social, collaborative lessons powered by Desmos technology.

Start exploring

A teacher using a tablet interacts with a young student in a classroom, with educational posters in the background.

mCLASS early literacy assessment and intervention (K–8)

Effective universal screening and progress monitoring means that every student is an individual and targeted instruction should become a reality, not a dream.

mCLASS^® is the gold-standard K–8 assessment and intervention suite for early literacy that helps every child learn to read confidently.

Universal screening presented in one-minute measures shows where your students are, who is at risk, and where to target instruction.
Dyslexia screening identifies students who are at risk for reading difficulties without needing an additional assessment system
Elimination of manual assessment process gives you instant results and clear next steps for each student.
Progress monitoring allows you to quickly adjust to student needs, based on how they are responding to instruction.

The power of mCLASS

Based on decades of leading literacy research, mCLASS lets you know exactly which part of a skill a student is struggling with, then gives you effective next steps and lesson plans.

Watch how mCLASS can help teachers:

Save hours of time.
Catch at-risk students earlier.
Connect data to personalized learning.

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Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (PreK–5)

High-quality, content-rich instruction should combine multisensory phonics instruction with knowledge-rich texts and interactive multimedia resources.

Built on the Science of Reading, Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) sequences deep content knowledge with research-based foundational skills.

Explicit, systematic foundational skills lessons are easy to teach and exciting to learn.
Deep knowledge-building across units and grades helps access complex text, so real comprehension can happen.
Rich, authentic texts with engaging topics and immersive learning support students wherever they are.

Students love CKLA. But don’t just take our word for it.

Amplify CKLA is impactful for teachers, administrators, families, and most of all—students! Hear what students think about Amplify CKLA.

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Boost Reading (K–5)

Authentic personalized learning should be developmentally appropriate, grounded in research, and truly adaptive.

Boost Reading is a personalized, digital supplemental reading tool for grades K–5 featuring:

Research-based approach to critical literacy skill development that is proven to accelerate reading growth in just 30 minutes per week.
Captivating storylines and games with powerful individualized reading instruction and practice to bridge learning gaps while learning independently.
Actionable data that offers deeper insights into student performance and needs.

Boost Reading keeps all students playing and motivated to learn.

Boost Reading includes age-appropriate storylines that excite students’ curiosity. Regardless of their reading ability, students are placed in a year-long storyline that is developmentally appropriate for them. As students grow, so do the immersive worlds around them.

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Amplify ELA (6–8)

Amplify ELA is the only program truly designed to support middle school students at this critical developmental moment. We ensure that skills are taught, standards are covered, and the test is prepped – all while bringing texts to life and differentiating instruction.

Rich, complex text and research-based instruction at the center of every lesson to build the vocabulary, knowledge, and skills needed in middle school, high school, and beyond.
Multiple points of entry and differentiated support allow every student, regardless of fluency or ability, to engage deeply in the same curriculum.
Immersive digital apps that offer engaging interactive experiences where students work with key skills in brand new ways.

We are the program for middle schoolers.

Let’s face it– middle school students are different from high school students. That’s why they deserve a program of their own.

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Boost Close Reading (6–8)

Middle school students need to exercise their close reading skills in order to deeply comprehend across the curriculum. Based on a riveting storyline designed especially for middle schoolers, Boost Close Reading helps students find deeper meaning in a digital journey like no other.

Inspire engagement via high-interest storytelling, choose-your-own adventure experiences, and skill-building features.
Explore topics like claim, evidence, reasoning, word choice, and tone in both literary and informational texts.
Detailed teacher dashboards display student progress, performance, and usage information, offering easy-to-access insights on areas of strength and weakness.

Fight the machines and save the world.

Before the machines took over, humans could fend for themselves. Now humanity is trapped. And their only hope? You.

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Amplify Science Pennsylvania (K–8)

Amplify Science Pennsylvania is a proven K–8 curriculum that develops critical thinkers who are prepared to solve problems in their communities and beyond. It features:

Phenomena-based exploration and three-dimensional learning where students take on the roles of scientists and engineers to solve real-world problems.
Immersive hands-on activities that teach students how to gather evidence, ask questions, and develop and defend claims.
Literacy-rich science instruction that enables young scientists to become excellent readers, writers, and speakers.
Custom lessons specifically designed to meet Pennsylvania’s STEELS standards.

Do, Talk, Read, Write students outperform their peers.

English language learners who use Do, Talk, Read, Write outperform their ELL peers.

Do, Talk, Read, Write increases learning outcomes.

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Get support

Do you use already use an Amplify program in Pennsylvania? Our support team is here to provide technical and instructional support by phone, live chat, or email.

Get help now

Contact us

A woman with long brown hair and glasses wearing a light blue sweater, smiling at the camera against a gray background.

Julie Couch

District Enrollment ＜1800 students

A person with long blonde hair, wearing a lace scarf, smiles in a sunlit outdoor setting, reminiscent of the excitement Pennsylvania teachers bring to Amplify Science programs for elementary students.

Laura Soeder

Western PA

A smiling person with shoulder-length gray hair, wearing a peach-colored scarf and a gray sweater, stands against a plain white background. This image captures the essence of Pennsylvania teachers who are dedicated to enriching Science programs for elementary students.

Monica Vincent

Southeast PA

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Keenan Zambelli

Northeast & Central PA

Program questions

Amplify Science is a flexible, blended K-8 science curriculum that addresses the following disciplines: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, and Engineering Design. Together, the units address 100% of the Next Generation Science Standards for grades K-8 and a significant number of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects, and Math. School districts that implement our elementary and middle school science curriculum are outfitted with print and digital resources as well as hands-on materials kits and engage with highly-qualified professional learning specialists to start strong.

We support both. The Lawrence Hall of Science has spoken to thousands of districts across the country and one of the many things they learned was that no one solution works for everyone; therefore, they developed Amplify Science to provide the maximum amount of flexibility so each district wouldn’t be forced into a single model of instruction.

We have suggested sequences for both the integrated and discipline-specific models. If you have a specific sequence that you want to teach, we can work with you to design a sequence that meets your needs.

Yes. Rather than separating Performance Expectations into physical science units, earth and space science units, and life science units, Amplify Science units are organized around anchoring phenomena designed to give students opportunities to dive deeply into certain disciplinary core ideas while also drawing from or applying to others. In organizing the Amplify Science middle school units, we have carefully sequenced these ideas within each grade level to support the development of deep and coherent understanding.

Many real-world phenomena cross the domain boundaries of life, physical, or earth and space science (as well as engineering). Each Amplify Science unit begins with an intriguing real-world phenomenon that poses a problem that needs to be understood and/or solved. By the end of the unit, students will have analyzed the anchor phenomenon across multiple scientific domains, possibly designed and tested an engineering solution, and always applied what they have learned in a different context.

For example:
In the unit Light Waves, students investigate the anchoring phenomenon of why Australia has a much higher skin cancer rate than countries at similar latitudes like Brazil. The focus of this unit is on disciplinary core ideas related to wave properties (PS4.A) and electromagnetic radiation (PS4.B). Students explore these physical science ideas deeply within the unit, and also draw on ideas from earth science (e.g., latitudinal variation of the sun’s energy) and life science (e.g., the effect of energy on the DNA in the nucleus of a cell) in order to explain the central phenomenon.

Yes. We believe hands-on experiences are critical to the study of science. Every unit in our curriculum comes with a kit of hands-on materials to allow students to roll up their sleeves and conduct hands-on investigations.

Absolutely. Amplify Science integrates all four STEM disciplines—science, technology, engineering, and math—in addition to English language arts throughout the curriculum.

Every lesson in Amplify Science explicitly calls out which CCSS Math and CCSS ELA standards are addressed. Amplify Science is not a math program, nor an ELA program; therefore, it does not address all of the Common Core standards. But the program does address a significant number of the standards as they pertain to science.

Yes, the program includes multiple summative assessments opportunities.

Grades 6–8 Science Seminars and final written arguments (formative and summative components): Culminating performance task for each core unit where students are introduced to a new real-world problem, collect and analyze evidence, examine a number of claims, and then engage in a full-class discussion where they must state which claims are best supported by the evidence, all while making clear their reasoning that connects the evidence to the claims. After the seminar, students then individually write their final scientific argument, drawing on the DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs they have used over the course of the unit to develop a sophisticated and convincing argument that addresses the problem they’ve been investigating. Rubrics, scoring guides, and examples of student responses at each scoring level are provided to teachers to support the assessment of students’ understanding of concepts and specific practices.
End-of-Unit Assessments: Targeted conversations (K–1), written responses (grades 2–5) or a combination of auto-scored multiple-choice questions and rubric-scored written responses (grades 6–8). Summative assessments for each unit are designed to provide valid, reliable, and fair measures of students’ progress and attainment of three-dimensional learning.
Benchmark assessments: Delivered four times per year in grades 3–5 and three times per year in grades 6–8, benchmark assessments report on students’ facility with each of the grade-level appropriate DCIs, SEPs, CCCs, and performance expectations of the NGSS.

No. While we do provide suggested sequences for integrated and domain courses, there are other logical ways to sequence the units and we expect that teachers will present the units in a variety of different orders and in any combination. There are a few notable exceptions. For example, students completing the Metabolism Engineering Internship should have completed the Metabolism core unit beforehand, or a unit that provides students with the same information. Amplify Science specifies prerequisites for each unit in the event that teachers are interested in using an Amplify Science unit in combination with other materials.

Amplify Science provides enough instructional content to fill 180 days of instruction.

For grades K-2, we offer 66 lessons that will address 100% of the NGSS and a substantial number of the CCSS-ELA for each grade.

For grades 3-5, we offer 88 lessons that will address 100% of the NGSS for each grade and a substantial number of the CCSS-ELA.

For grades 6-8, we offer 146 lessons that will address 100% of the NGSS for Middle School and a substantial number of the CCSS-ELA. Each lesson is designed to last 45 minutes; therefore, it will take some teachers more than 146 classroom days to teach all the lessons.

Some classes might last longer than one session due to a number of reasons (e.g., enthusiastic student conversations, challenging topics requiring deeper dives, more time needed to accommodate diverse learners, etc.). Also, teachers might want to supplement Amplify Science curriculum with some of their own favorite lessons. Lastly, the 146 lessons account for the inevitable assembly days, class trips, testing schedules, etc. We also offer a number of additional lessons that are not core to each unit, in the event teachers want to go deeper or expand upon a unit topic.

Grades K-1 lessons are designed for 45 minutes of science instruction.

Grades 2-5 lessons are designed for 60 minutes of science instruction.

Grades 6-8 lessons are designed for 45 minutes of science instruction.

It is not a problem if you do not allocate 45 mins of science instruction at K-1, or 60 mins at 2-5. Since there are a total of 66 lessons to address 100% of NGSS at grades K-2, and 88 lessons to address 100% of NGSS at 3-5, you can easily teach the lessons in smaller blocks and cover all of the content over the course of the school year.

Technical questions

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

Mississippi Department of Education approves Amplify’s mCLASS programs for dyslexia screening

Amplify, a company that creates next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced that the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) approved its mCLASS literacy assessments for the state-mandated dyslexia screening in kindergarten and first grade. Amplify’s mCLASS assessments were already approved for Mississippi’s universal early literacy screenings for grades K–3, making Amplify and mCLASS the only assessment provider approved on both lists.

“We’re excited to be able to further support Mississippi educators with mCLASS,” said Krista Curran, SVP and General Manager, Assessment and Intervention, at Amplify. “Having both universal screening and screening for dyslexia on the mCLASS platform should make it easy for Mississippi schools to address two different needs in one tool. We continue to evolve mCLASS to better support our teachers and students – these mCLASS advances to support the early identification of students at risk for dyslexia have been embraced in schools across the country.”

Researchers estimate that 5-15% of students struggle with dyslexia. The recent trends in legislation across the country are a great step forward for early screening and identification of students at risk. As of of this writing, 21 states have have enacted dyslexia screening legislation, and more states are positioned to do to in the coming years. These states recognize that early screening, along with early intervention in areas like phonological awareness and decoding, are essential in providing students with the support they need, closing any gaps, and preventing further difficulty.

mCLASS delivers what educators need to help every student read fluently and confidently. Based on over 30 years of research, mCLASS assessments dive deep, giving educators a complete view of each student and insight into student response patterns. Unlike other programs that rely on inferences, mCLASS lets educators know exactly which aspect of a skill a student is struggling with. mCLASS instruction, driven by mCLASS assessment results, provides teachers and students with targeted lessons and activities to support students on their journey to become confident readers.

In addition to MDE’s recent approval of mCLASS assessments, Amplify has served the state since 2014 through the Mississippi Data Coaching Program. The Program is designed to address the varied needs of teachers and leaders to strengthen their understanding and use of data to enhance instruction and improve student outcomes. As a result of Amplify’s work in Mississippi, third grade reading assessment pass scores have increased by 8.9% and high school graduation rates have increased by 12.4% in participating schools. Amplify is committed to to continuing to support vital initiatives designed to strengthen K-12 education in the State of Mississippi. To learn more about the MS Data Coaching program, please visit the following link. For more regarding Amplify’s mCLASS assessment programs, click here.

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

TEA announces additional innovative learning solutions for K-12 English and Spanish and K-5 science to support schools across Texas

AUSTIN, Texas—October 5, 2020—The Texas Education Agency today announced the next set of instructional materials—covering K-12 English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR), K-5 Spanish Language Arts and Reading (SLAR), and K-5 Science—that will be made available to school systems through the Texas Home Learning 3.0 (THL 3.0) initiative. Like other THL 3.0 offerings, these instructional materials are optional, digitized, customized for Texas, and aligned to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)—the state standards for what students should know and be able to do.

TEA has partnered with Amplify for K-8 ELAR and K-5 SLAR, Odell Education for 9-12 ELAR, and Great Minds for K-5 Science to develop and deliver this next set of high-quality resources including TEKS-aligned unit and lesson plans. Additional materials will be released on a continuous basis. Before release, all THL 3.0 instructional materials undergo a rigorous review that includes Texas teacher feedback to confirm alignment with TEKS and quality standards. Additional THL 3.0 instructional materials for other subjects and grade levels will be announced over the coming weeks.

“As the pandemic continues to disrupt public education across our state, TEA is committed to supporting schools with effective distance learning resources,” said Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath.

Amplify’s K-5 Texas Elementary Literacy Program for ELAR and SLAR and 6-8 Amplify ELAR Texas are TEKS-aligned language arts curriculum designed to support Texas learners in the classroom, at home, or wherever learning takes place. Built on the science of teaching reading, the K-5 Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program combines foundational skills with content knowledge—so that learning to read and reading to learn develop together. The 6-8 Amplify ELAR Texas program is a TEKS-aligned, blended language arts curriculum that places text at the center of every lesson. Designed specifically for Texas middle schools, this flexible program supports digital, print, and hybrid classrooms.

“We are thrilled to partner with TEA to provide Texas teachers and students with the highest quality reading and language arts programs that align to TEKS standards,” said Larry Berger, chief executive officer of Amplify. “Amplify’s flexible core and supplemental materials will support Texas educators and students whether learning is happening at home, in school, or some of each.”

Odell Education’s Texas High School Literacy Program, which covers 9-12 ELAR, is an innovative program created specifically for Texas high school students and educators. It is designed to support seamless learning in a variety of contexts. The program empowers teachers and students through dynamic activities centered on rich texts and topics as they develop TEKS-aligned literacy skills, habits, and knowledge.

“We are thrilled to partner with Texas educators to develop an exciting new literacy program for the high school students in Texas,” says Odell Education CEO Judson Odell. “Thanks to the tremendous commitment of the Texas Education Agency, Texas high schoolers will have a flexible program for this year and beyond that fosters the literacy they need to thrive wherever their path may lead them.”

Great Minds’ K-5 PhD Science TEKS Edition is a phenomenon-based program in which teachers facilitate the learning, but students own it. In every module, students explore authentic phenomena to build an enduring understanding of core science concepts through hands-on investigations and evidence-based learning. And now it is being adapted to align with the TEKS and, in partnership with TEA through its Texas Home Learning initiative, will be available as an open education resource for all schools and districts in the state.

“Science education should start early, and it should be comprehensive,” says Pam Goodner, Great Minds Chief Academic Officer for Science. “Texas recognizes that students need coherent instruction that builds knowledge from lesson to lesson to develop deep scientific understanding. PhD Science TEKS Edition will deliver what the state is seeking to help students act as scientists to observe, model, investigate, and understand the world around them.”

THL 3.0 is a comprehensive initiative to support school systems, teachers, parents, and students during the public health crisis and beyond with high-quality instructional materials, technology solutions, and professional development resources. TEA previously announced that it will offer all Texas school systems a world-class Learning Management System (LMS) from PowerSchool’s Schoology for two years at no cost. Nearly 400 Texas school systems have already signed up, with another 200 currently engaging with the Schoology team.

For more information on Texas Home Learning 3.0, please click here.

The Texas Education Agency news release is available here.

Amplify ELA earns prestigious Tier 1 rating in Louisiana

Brooklyn, NY (November 3, 2021) Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today that Louisiana rated Amplify ELA for grades 6–8 as Tier 1, the top rating in the state. According to the Louisiana Department of Education website, Tier 1 materials meet all non-negotiable criteria and score the best possible on all indicators of superior quality.

Built specifically for middle school, Amplify ELA is a blended English language arts curriculum that brings complex text to life for early adolescents. For teachers, the program helps to establish classroom environments where students thrive, while developing the essential skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. With Amplify ELA, students learn to tackle complex texts, grapple with interesting ideas, and find relevance for themselves.

“After a difficult year for schools across the country, Amplify is honored to be recognized by the state of Louisiana for continuing to provide the highest-quality ELA instruction to middle school students and teachers,” said Alexandra Clarke, chief product officer at Amplify. “Amplify has been committed to working with Louisiana educators to implement a strong literacy curriculum with Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) since 2014. We are excited to deepen these partnerships and continue supporting teachers in building strong, confident readers across the state.”

Amplify ELA is being used by middle school students and educators nationwide, with particularly strong pockets in California and Tennessee and lighthouse adoptions in Atlanta, Tulsa, and San Diego.

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 students at every skill level build a strong foundation in early reading and math. Our programs provide teachers with powerful tools that help them understand and respond to the needs of all their students. Today, Amplify serves ten million students in all 50 states.

For more information, visit Amplify.com.

Contact:

Molly McCue

media@amplify.com

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts, 2nd Edition, given Tier 1 Rating in Louisiana

New York, NY – (May 30, 2018) Amplify, a company that creates next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today that Louisiana rated the second edition of Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (Amplify CKLA) as Tier 1, the top rating in the state. Amplify CKLA is the only K–5 Tier 1 ELA program in Louisiana that includes foundational skills.

Amplify CKLA is a comprehensive curriculum that brings a proven, systematic approach to foundational skills together with knowledge-rich reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities. Based on widely recognized cognitive science and reading research, Amplify CKLA offers two distinct strands (knowledge and skills) for grades K–2 and integrates them into one for grades 3–5.

Amplify CKLA 1st Edition materials had been previously listed as Tier 1 in Louisiana. According to the Louisiana Department of Education website, Tier 1 materials exemplify quality, meet all non-negotiable criteria, and scored the best possible on all indicators of superior quality.

“We are thrilled that Louisiana recognized the strength of Amplify CKLA and gave it a Tier-1 rating,” said Alexandra Clarke, senior vice president and general manager of ELA curriculum at Amplify. “Many educators in Louisiana have seen exciting progress in their classrooms with Amplify CKLA, and we hope that this Tier-1 rating will enable more schools in the state to bring the world to their students with our knowledge-rich curriculum.”

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 all their students. Today, Amplify serves more than three million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.

Contact: media@amplify.com

Core Knowledge Language Arts® receives high marks from independent EdReports.org review

The English Language Arts curriculum met expectations in every “gateway” of the EdReports review system for grades 3-5.

“We’ve seen time and again in schools and districts nationwide how CKLA^™ develops strong and motivated readers by building a foundation of background knowledge and foundational skills,” said Susan Lambert, vice president of CKLA^™ at Amplify. “EdReports.org’s review further validates the effectiveness of our curriculum.”

The content review team at EdReports.org measured the following areas, or gateways, in its review process: text quality and alignment to the Common Core State Standards; building knowledge with texts, vocabulary and tasks; and instructional supports and usability indicators.

Teachers and administrators rely on EdReports.org’s objective and independent reviews to support their curriculum decisions.

About CKLA^™

Core Knowledge Language Arts^®, for grades PreK-5, offers educators a proven approach for building strong readers and ensuring that students are prepared for the transition from learning to read to reading to learn. The curriculum instills both background knowledge and foundational skills through two instructional strands for grades K-2 that integrate into a single strand in grades 3-5. Using both print and digital resources, CKLA^™ provides:

Carefully sequenced background knowledge in social studies, science, literature and the arts to build vocabulary and comprehension.
An unprecedented, thorough approach to developing decoding and other critical foundational skills.

CKLA^™, which is widely used in districts in New York, Louisiana and other states around the country, originated in response to the reading crisis in today’s schools. A substantial number of students are reading below level by the end of grade 3—an indicator of future success. The act of reading requires both decoding—translating the written code to oral language—and comprehension—the act of using prior knowledge, language skills and reasoning skills to form connections and make meaning. However, many students lack access to background knowledge about the world. CKLA^™ closes the achievement gap by bringing the world to kids, offering them a wealth of information and teaching them the necessary skills to read, write and think critically about texts and their contexts.

About Amplify

Amplify’s digital products for English language arts, math and science are leading the way in data-driven instruction and setting the standard for next-generation curriculum. A full suite of proven early literacy products helps build strong foundations for student achievement. Amplify has brought mobile assessments, instructional analytics, and riveting, rigorous curriculum to thousands of schools. To date, Amplify has supported more than 200,000 educators and 3 million students in all 50 states. For more information, please visit www.amplify.com.

Contact: media@amplify.com

New Mexico approves Amplify Science for grades K–8

Amplify, a company that creates next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, announced today that its science curriculum has been approved by the New Mexico Public Education Department and can now be purchased and implemented in classrooms across the state.

Each grade level was evaluated by the Department and required to meet an average 90% score threshold in order to be adopted. Amplify Science exceeded expectations and was the only program to get a 100% on an individual grade level.

Developed in partnership with UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, Amplify Science puts students in the roles of scientists and engineers every day, engaging them in understanding and explaining compelling real-world phenomena. Educators who adopt Amplify Science receive a comprehensive curriculum complete with detailed lesson plans, embedded formative assessments, hands-on activities, digital simulations, and robust teacher supports.

“We are eager to begin talking to educators across New Mexico about our highly-rated program,” said Steven Zavari, senior vice president and general manager, science curriculum, at Amplify. “Our pedagogy invites students to explore phenomena with the purpose of solving authentic problems. We want to create a generation of students who think like scientists and engineers, and who will become the innovators and informed citizens that New Mexico needs.”

Amplify Science is currently in use by more than one million students after launching in spring 2017. In addition to being adopted in California, Amplify Science has been adopted by the New York City Department of Education, Chicago Public Schools, Denver Public Schools, San Francisco Unified, the KIPP charter network, and hundreds of districts across the country.

For more information about Amplify Science, visit www.amplify.com/programs/amplify-science.

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 four million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.

Contact: media@amplify.com

Amplify Reading named 2020 CODiE Award Finalist for Best Game-Based Curriculum Solution

Brooklyn, NY (April 20, 2020) — Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, today announced that Amplify Reading has been named a 2020 SIIA CODiE Award finalist in the Best Game-Based Curriculum Solution category. Award finalists represent applications, products, and services from developers of educational software, digital content, online learning services, and related technologies across the Pre-K–12 and higher education sectors.

Amplify Reading is a state-of-the-art supplemental digital literacy program that combines captivating storytelling, the latest literacy research, and sophisticated adaptivity to provide students with the exact instruction they need when they need it. Research has shown that the program enables students to make better-than-expected progress, reduces students’ risk for reading difficulty, and helps close achievement gaps for English learners.

Amplify Reading offers 50+ research-based games, each mapped to specific skills and standards that augment educators’ core instruction. The program also features an in-product companion called a Curioso who grows as younger students acquire skills. For older students, Amplify Reading immerses pre-teens in an interactive graphic novel where they join a rebel group to take on the machines and fight for the right to read again.

“It’s an honor to be named a finalist in the 2020 SIIA CODiE Awards,” said Melissa Ulan, senior vice president and general manager, supplementals, at Amplify. “We are thrilled to receive this recognition of Amplify Reading as an innovative and highly engaging program that helps students become strong and confident readers.”

For more than 30 years, the SIIA CODiE Awards are the premier awards for the software and information industries, recognizing product innovation and excellence. The awards are organized by industry categories in education technology and business technology. Amplify Reading was honored as one of 157 finalists across the 37 education technology categories.

The SIIA CODiE Awards are the industry’s only peer-reviewed awards program. Educators and administrators serve as judges and conduct the first-round review of all education nominees. Their scores determine the SIIA CODiE Award finalists, and SIIA members then vote on the finalist products. The scores from both rounds are tabulated to select the winners.

CODiE Award winners in education technology will be announced online May 19, 2020.

Details about the finalists can be found here.

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 five million students in all 50 states. For more information, visit amplify.com.

About the SIIA CODiE™ Awards

The SIIA CODiE Awards is the only peer-reviewed program to showcase business and education technology’s finest products and services. Since 1986, thousands of products, services and solutions have been recognized for achieving excellence. For more information, visit https://www.siia.net/codie.

About Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)

SIIA is an umbrella association representing 800+ technology, data and media companies globally. Industry leaders work through SIIA’s divisions to address issues and challenges that impact their industry segments with the goal of driving innovation and growth for the industry and each member company. This is accomplished through in-person and online business development opportunities, peer networking, corporate education, intellectual property protection and government relations. For more information, visit siia.net.

Amplify Reading wins award for 2021 best remote and blended learning tools

(Brooklyn, New York – March 5, 2021) Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, today announced that Amplify Reading has been named a winner in Tech & Learning’s 2021 Best Remote & Blended Learning Tools awards for the Primary Grades (K–6) category. The award celebrates high-quality technologies that have helped students and teachers adapt to remote and hybrid learning environments.

“We are honored to be named a winner of Tech & Learning’s Best Remote & Blended Learning Tools awards, especially during such a pivotal time in education” said Melissa Ulan, senior vice president and general manager, supplementals, at Amplify. “Amplify Reading helps provide targeted practice in foundational reading skills no matter where learning is happening. We are thrilled to be recognized.”

“Despite the many challenges schools have had to face this past year, technology continues to be one of the key drivers for innovation,” says Tech & Learning Group Publisher Christine Weiser. “The winning products recognized here have supported continuous instruction throughout the pandemic, and we expect this momentum to continue into next year and beyond.”

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 seven million students in all 50 states.

Amplify partners with Core Knowledge; acquires rights to new language arts program

Known for its scientifically based content and approach, Core Knowledge’s influential work anticipated the Common Core State Standards, so its practices and philosophy are true to the rigorous spirit of the standards and exemplify the manner in which they ought to be implemented.

Through this partnership with Core Knowledge, Amplify Learning will develop and market to schools nationwide a unique, effective reading and language arts program for grades K–3 that will expand to include grades 4 and 5. Amplify Learning is one of three divisions within Amplify, a company committed to re-imagining the way teachers teach and students learn.

The Core Knowledge approach teaches students about the world with engaging fiction and nonfiction content from the sciences, history, and the arts. As students acquire skills in reading and writing, they also develop the broad vocabulary and background knowledge that will allow them to read with comprehension and think critically. From Aztecs to fables to the solar system, from basic sound and spelling patterns to essays based on close reading, Core Knowledge Language Arts^® has everything students need to get on the path to college and career readiness—and everything teachers need to meet the Common Core standards.

The rigorous and engaging Core Knowledge Language Arts^® program will initially be offered as a print product, to be supplemented with digital enhancements as early as by the next school year. Through its ongoing digital strategy to build dynamic, interactive and academically rigorous curriculum, Amplify Learning will evolve the Core Knowledge Language Arts^® program to a full digital format over time.

Amplify Learning is building a fully integrated, adaptive, digital curriculum that will enable educators to meet the rigorous goals set by the Common Core standards and strive to narrow the achievement gap. Its products are designed for tomorrow’s promise and today’s realities. The company is creating exciting new approaches to teaching and learning that are: as immersive as the best films; as compelling as the best video games; as social as the best networking applications; as personal as the best tutors; and as analytically sophisticated as the best search engines.

Together, Amplify and the Core Knowledge Foundation are looking forward to ensuring that students across the country meet the Common Core standards and graduate from high school college and career ready.

Using its long-term rights to the Core Knowledge Language Arts^® program, Amplify will continue its work as a leading education innovator and bring additional fresh, technologically advanced products to the marketplace that are founded upon this highly regarded and academically robust material.

Said Josh Reibel, Chief Executive of Amplify Learning and Amplify Insight, “With its deep academic experience, Core Knowledge has spent years addressing the same set of educational issues that today drive the Common Core. We’re excited to now have the exclusive opportunity to market these resources more widely and to use them over time to offer even more transformative educational products that are all Common Core aligned.”

Added Reibel, “What’s more, the Core Knowledge Sequence, and its esteemed, knowledge-building language arts program, are an especially good fit with our groundbreaking development of an all new digital curriculum that is academically rigorous and engaging for kids.”

The path to college, or a rewarding career, begins in early childhood. Core Knowledge puts all students on that path. Combining well-established findings from cognitive science with classroom-based feedback from hundreds of teachers, Core Knowledge has created a successful academic model for preschool through eighth grade. Researchers established decades ago that reading comprehension and critical thinking are only possible with relevant prior knowledge. Over the past 25 years, the organization has identified the essential, foundational knowledge, vocabulary and skills children need to learn and organized them for efficient and effective teaching in a grade-by-grade, age-appropriate sequence.

Said Linda Bevilacqua, president of the Core Knowledge Foundation. “As we surveyed the landscape of education innovators to work with us on expanding Core Knowledge and incorporating our philosophy into new digital tools, we determined that Amplify had extraordinary capacity to enhance and deepen the Core Knowledge learning experience. Unlike its competitors, Amplify understands that in order to improve teaching and learning, technology must be a means to an end, not an end in itself—a means to enhancing effective educational practice, as they have demonstrated with their successful assessment and intervention tools for teachers, such as mClass.” Bevilacqua said, “Amplify’s approach will give teachers and students an even more efficient and effective platform for building essential knowledge. Their digital expertise with the Foundation’s expertise in curriculum development will provide the basis for extraordinary collaboration.”

About Amplify
Amplify is working to transform the way teachers teach and students learn. We are changing the realities of today’s classroom experience by leading the way in data-driven instruction, breaking new ground in mobile learning and paving the way for the next generation of digital curriculum and assessment. We’ve helped over 200,000 educators and three million students in all 50 states begin their digital transition through mobile assessment solutions, adaptive curricula, and tools that harness the power of data for classroom teachers. Headquartered in New York City with more than 1,000 employees across the country, Amplify is led by a team of digital education experts and has provided industry-leading instructional tools, data analytics and assessment solutions to the K–12 market for more than a decade as Wireless Generation, now a part of Amplify. Learn more at www.Amplify.com.

About Core Knowledge

Educational excellence and equity demand a strong foundation of knowledge for all children—and a coherent plan for teaching what every child needs to know. The Core Knowledge Foundation publishes and distributes a wide variety of education books and materials for educators and parents. At the heart of all of our products is the Core Knowledge Sequence, a detailed outline of recommended curricular content to be taught in language arts, history and geography, mathematics, science, music, and the visual arts from preschool through grade eight. We also support a nationwide network of Core Knowledge schools with instructional materials and professional development workshops. Learn more at www.coreknowledge.org.

Supporting multilingual & English language learners

Multilingual/English learners (ML/ELs) bring unique strengths to classrooms, enriching the learning experiences for all.

At Amplify, we empower educators with tools that honor the strengths and capabilities of ML/ELs. Our curriculum and assessments meet students where they are and help them develop their skills, propelling them on their learning journeys.

Amplify supports ML/ELs across all subjects, from English language arts to math and science. For students who speak Spanish, we also provide a comprehensive biliteracy suite.

Four vibrant illustrations feature a goat, greeting phrases in Spanish and English, a map with an animal icon, and a fox with rabbits in a forest—perfect for engaging multilanguage & English language learners.

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Amplify CKLA core literacy curriculum for grades K–5

Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) is a K–5 core curriculum built on the science of how students learn to read and write. Amplify CKLA supports ML/ELs in a variety of ways.

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Scaffolding at five levels of proficiency

In addition to core instruction, Amplify CKLA provides lesson supports for Entering/Emerging, Transitioning/ Expanding, and Bridging levels.

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Lesson differentiation

Lessons include Support and Challenge suggestions that provide assistance or opportunities for more advanced work toward the goal of the lesson. These resources are suitable for all learners, including ML/ELs.

A computer screen displays a multilanguage phonics learning app, ideal for English language learners, featuring an astronaut illustration and a play button for the sound "/a/".

Phonological awareness and phonics supports

The digital Sound Library easily facilitates sound development through videos showing mouth movements and songs that help students practice articulating new sounds with catchy lyrics.

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Frequent oral language development opportunities

Amplify CKLA boosts language development with complex read-alouds, interactive discussion, writing activities, and explicit teaching of academic and domain vocabulary.

Amplify CKLA pairs with Amplify Caminos, its companion K–5 Spanish literacy program that supports biliteracy instruction.

Language Studio, an English Language Development companion program for Amplify CKLA

Language Studio, Amplify CKLA’s dedicated K–5 English language development companion program, offers daily 30-minute lessons to help ML/ELs practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Aligned to the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) framework, Language Studio previews and reinforces language and content from core instruction, so that ML/ELs of all proficiency levels are able to access grade-level content as they develop academic English.

Four illustrated educational book covers are shown, each with different cultural and historical themes, titled "Language Studio Volumes 1-4" from Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts—perfect for multilanguage and English language learners.

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Interactive language development

Language Studio provides opportunities for classroom discussions, oral presentations, and writing tasks, promoting comprehension and learning by connecting with students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

A worksheet labeled "Features of Academic Language," ideal for multilanguage and English language learners, with highlighted text: "Draw and Write," "Offer and Support Opinion," and "Tier 3 Domain-specific words.

Explicit vocabulary instruction

Interactive vocabulary and academic language support is provided before each lesson to deepen students’ understanding of text.

Two schoolgirls in green uniforms, English language learners, look at a notebook together in a multilanguage classroom—one holding a pencil box and pointing at the book.

Multimodal comprehension support

Students can preview content, interact with physical materials, compare text types, receive explicit grammar instruction, and have access to extensive vocabulary exercises.

A language proficiency assessment chart for multilanguage and English language learners, listing evaluation criteria and descriptors across five proficiency levels from entering to bridging.

Skill proficiency monitoring

Language Studio facilitates evaluation with an understanding of what students should produce at each level.

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition literacy assessment for grades K–8

mCLASS^® is an all-in-one system for Science of Reading-based universal screening, dyslexia screening, and progress monitoring for grades K–8. Powered by DIBELS 8th Edition, mCLASS provides valuable data on your ML/ELs’ literacy in English, helping you build a robust system of tiered supports. With a single tool, you can access the data and instructional support you need for each student’s literacy development, from phonics to comprehension, catering to all readers, from beginner to advanced.

A laptop screen displays a table showing the beginning-of-year assessment scores for four Grade 1 multilanguage and English language learners across three goal areas: Composite, LNF, and PSF.

Screening and reporting

mCLASS’s one-minute measures and dyslexia screening identify risk as early as possible, providing you with the right data to make informed decisions.

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Language considerations

mCLASS provides specific language guidance, offers ML/EL instructional strategies, and considers each student’s unique language background, never penalizing for language variety, accent, or articulation, and extending this understanding into small-group practices.

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Performance and reporting transparency

Understand student performance through direct observation and detailed reports which offer growth insights, including district-wide student achievement data that can be filtered by EL status, Home Language, or English Proficiency status.

mCLASS pairs with mCLASS Lectura, an authentic Spanish literacy assessment for K–8 that measures key foundational skills and supports Spanish-speaking bilingual students.

mCLASS Intervention for grades K–6

mCLASS Intervention is our K–6 reading intervention program, designed to support you in providing effective Tier 2 and 3 instruction and getting readers on track. mCLASS Intervention does the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson planning for you. This lets you focus on what you do best: teaching the skills each student needs to become a confident reader.

Infographic showing a 10-day cycle: measure skills, group multilanguage and English language learners, generate lessons, teach students, and provide practice, all arranged in a circular flow.

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Effective lessons with built-in support

Lessons are equipped with best practices and guidance targeting language and literacy development for ML/ELs. The program also includes materials and resources that make content accessible to Spanish-speaking students.

A lesson plan shows students, skills, and Day 1 activities for a 10-day Blending and Regular Words set—ideal for multilanguage and English language learners—involving sounding out, blends, and a word race game.

Structured small groups

Once groups are formed, mCLASS Intervention determines the ideal focus for each group and automatically prepares two weeks of targeted lessons.

A line graph showing Emma Ashley's letter sounds scores: 20 in August, 74 in December (benchmark), and projected to reach 90 in May—demonstrating strong progress for multilanguage and English language learners.

Keeps you updated on student progress

Track student growth with reliable progress-monitoring tools and reporting that provides a clear view of each student’s progress.

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Boost Reading personalized reading program for grades K–5

A key component of Amplify’s early literacy suite, Boost Reading is a personalized learning program for K–5 that offers comprehensive targeted practice, built-in benchmark assessments, and powerful reporting. Boost Reading provides practice in the full progression of key phonics and comprehension skills critical to literacy development.

Boost Reading works. Results of a year-long study show that students in grades K–5—including ML/ELs—who used Boost Reading for 30 minutes a week significantly outperformed their peers.

A computer screen displays a sentence highlighting the words "Mateo" and "he," with arrows connecting them—helpful for multilanguage and English language learners. A "Done" button and an illustrated face are also visible.

Systematic instruction in foundational skills and comprehension

Reinforce core instruction with explicit practice in phonics and phonological awareness. Boost Reading is the only program that focuses on comprehension processes—what readers do while reading that allows them to make sense of text—which is especially beneficial for ML/EL students.

A laptop screen displays a cartoon mouth, a person’s face above it, and four toast-shaped buttons below—ideal for multilanguage practice and engaging English language learners.

Mouth formation modeling for articulation support

Boost Reading includes specific scaffolds and supports—such as a modeling of mouth formations for articulation—that are proven to be beneficial for ML/ELs.

A colorful educational game screen supports English language learners and multilanguage skills, showing a creature on a log labeled "stamp" with four word choices: sand, stand, stamp, and champ. A waterfall and plants are in the background.

Vocabulary practice

Targeted morphology practice for independent vocabulary building and explicit instruction with Tier 2 vocabulary words are proven to be supportive for ML/ELs.

Boost Reading pairs with Boost Lectura, a Spanish literacy program for K–2 that provides students with personalized practice to develop Spanish literacy skills.

Want to learn more about Amplify’s elementary biliteracy suite?

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Amplify ELA core literacy curriculum for grades 6–8

With Amplify ELA, students learn to tackle any complex text and make observations, grapple with interesting ideas, and find relevance for themselves. Amplify ELA is a grade 6–8 English language arts program designed to bridge language gaps and enhance learning for ML/ELs. With integrated supports in every lesson, Amplify ELA empowers educators to deliver grade-level content while maintaining rigorous standards, thus reducing barriers to language acquisition and boosting student success.

A tablet showcases an educational lesson interface about butterflies, alongside a book titled "Amplify ELA: Summer of the Mariposas," surrounded by illustrated butterflies, enriching the literacy curriculum and engaging multilanguage & English language learners.

A tablet screen displays a digital reading and writing assignment with text excerpts on the left and character trait questions on the right, designed to support multilanguage and English language learners.

Built-in scaffolds

Background documents (in English and Spanish) establish context and support comprehension before students begin to read. Features such as audio assessments, read-aloud, and Reveal words ensure that all students have the opportunity to engage with and understand grade-level materials.

A worksheet with a writing prompt about "Summer of the Mariposas," designed to support multilanguage and English language learners as they describe a character and explain her traits using evidence from the story.

Differentiated writing prompts

Simplified language, sentence starters, word banks, and visual cues offer the necessary levels of support to help students meet their writing goals.

A book titled "Mysteries & Investigation Multi-Language Glossary" with glossary cards for English-French and English-Vietnamese translations of the phrase "a wealth of," ideal for multilanguage study and English language learners.

Multi-language glossaries

Available in 11 languages—English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Urdu, and Vietnamese—these glossaries support vocabulary development and comprehension.

Amplify Desmos Math core curriculum for grades K–12

Amplify Desmos Math is a curiosity-driven K–12 program that builds students’ lifelong math proficiency. Every lesson in Amplify Desmos Math includes opportunities for all students to develop mathematical language as they experience the content, while providing intentional support for ML/ELs. We purposefully progress language development from lesson to lesson and across units by supporting students in making their arguments and explanations stronger, clearer, and more precise.

A text box suggests encouraging multilanguage and English language learners to paraphrase peers’ ideas, building connections and using unit vocabulary, with an emphasis on speaking and listening skills.

Multilingual/English learner support

Supports for ML/ELs are called out at intentional points within each lesson. These specific, targeted suggestions support ML/ELs with modifications that increase access to a task, or through development of contextual or mathematical language (both of which can be supportive of all learners). ML/EL supports may also be attached to Math Language Routines.

A text box explaining MLR7: Compare and Connect, with prompts for students—including multilanguage and English language learners—to analyze, compare, and connect different problem-solving strategies.

Math Language Routines (MLRs)

Math Language Routines are used within lessons to highlight student-developed language and ideas, cultivate conversation, support mathematical sense-making, and promote metacognition. Tips for facilitating MLRs are included when they would be helpful within lessons.

A white box lists today’s goals for a lesson on parallelograms, including area calculation and encouraging multilanguage & English language learners to use mathematical language in writing, speaking, and listening.

Language goals and vocabulary

Language goals attend to the mathematics students are learning, and are written through the lens of one (or more) of four language modalities: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Units and lessons start by surfacing students’ language for new concepts, then building connections between their language and the new vocabulary for that unit. This honors the language assets that students bring into their learning.

Amplify Science core curriculum for grades
K–8

Amplify Science is a curiosity-driven science curriculum that empowers students to Do, Talk, Read, Write, and Visualize like scientists. Through phenomena-based, literacy-rich, and interactive learning experiences, it develops students into critical thinkers who will gain the skills they need to solve real problems in their communities and the world. For students who need additional support, Amplify Science provides specialized instructional approaches, activities, and resources that take into account English learners’ level of language proficiency.

A teacher and three children, all English language learners, interact enthusiastically around a table with a colorful project in a classroom setting. The lively discussion enhances their literacy curriculum experience, fostering both creativity and understanding.

A document page titled "Patterns of Earth and Sky" is shown, with a highlighted overlay listing printable resources for multilanguage and English language learners, such as objectives, compilations, and glossaries.

Instructional design built on five key principles

Amplify Science leverages background knowledge, capitalizes on student knowledge of language, provides explicit instruction about the language of science, gives students opportunities with scaffolded practice, and enables students to access science content and express science knowledge through a multimodal approach.

A blue square with two arrows forming a loop, next to the words: Do, Talk, Read, Write, Visualize—ideal for multilanguage and English language learners.

Do, Talk, Read, Write, Visualize instructional model

Our multimodal instructional approach caters to diverse learning needs and promotes active engagement for all learners.

A webpage section titled "Differentiation" discusses teaching strategies for diverse learners, including multilanguage and English language learners, with a sidebar listing various digital resources and lesson materials.

Honoring multilingualism

Amplify Science honors multilingualism as students are invited to share in their native language at strategic points in instruction. Teacher-led instruction on cognates and a multilingual glossary in 10 languages offer additional support.

Cover of a Spanish-language science booklet titled "Patrones de la Tierra y del cielo," ideal for multilanguage and English language learners, featuring a space illustration and an orange "Cuaderno de investigación" button at the bottom.

Spanish instructional materials

Carefully translated materials use academic Spanish, with attention to consistency and grade-level appropriate language, to support language development.

A biliteracy suite grounded in the Science of Reading

Discover a suite of Spanish literacy curriculum and assessment programs designed to build confident readers with Amplify Caminos, mCLASS Lectura, and Boost Lectura. Amplify’s biliteracy suite includes assessment, core instruction, and personalized learning built on the Science of Reading.

Explore more programs in Amplify’s literacy and biliteracy suites.

All of the programs in our literacy suite and our biliteracy suite are designed to support and complement each other. Learn more about our related programs:

Amplify Caminos

Amplify Caminos is a K–5 Spanish language arts program and curriculum designed t…

Boost Reading

Boost Reading is a Science of Reading K–5 personalized reading program that&#821…

mCLASS

Amplify’s mCLASS is the gold-standard universal and dyslexia screener grou…

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Change in math is different

Improving math instruction—and making it work for all your students—feels like a much-needed change. But it’s not as simple as increasing instructional time, maxing out on fluency practice, or setting up new math centers with tons of manipulatives. It requires structure and balance.

The good news is that managing change in the math classroom doesn’t have to mean reconfiguring your day, throwing out all your existing resources, or making it the focus of your life for the next five years. It starts with a few simple shifts.

A structured path to change

Ready to start the shift to structured problem-based learning? With the right systems, the right partners, and above all, the right plan, the change doesn’t need to overwhelm your life. Get all the benefits with far fewer headaches—download our playbook to start building your own personalized strategy.

Download now

Making the shift: Problem-based learning for the real world

Lots of people will tell you that problem-based learning is the answer. If only it were that simple! Maybe you’ve tried it already without success. Maybe you don’t see how it could work in your current classroom setup. Maybe it just seems too daunting.

We agree that problem-based learning is great. But it needs structure. Brush up on the latest research to find out why structured problem-based learning makes all the difference. You have too much on your plate already to have to reinvent math instruction from scratch.

Learn more

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How problem-based learning supports all your students

With structured problem-based learning, students discover that there’s more than one way to tackle a problem, and that mistakes are a path to learning. A student who doesn’t often speak up might have the best insight in the classroom. Or a student with an unusual approach to a math question might trigger revelations for other students. Or, maybe students just feel more comfortable sharing their ideas with their peers instead of their teacher. A collaborative approach helps all students learn from each other and inspires everyone to be a “math person.”

Learn more

Small shifts for sustainable change

Not up for making major changes this year? Download our ebook with tips for infusing problem-based learning into your current math instruction—with real-world advice from educators who’ve already made the shift.

Download Now

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The foundation for long-lasting and real transformation

Change is more likely to stick and get results when you take a systemic approach. Partner with us to do just that by developing a learning plan that will drive your program implementation, enrich your instructional practices, and increase student impact. Amplify’s high-quality programs make it easier for you to teach inspiring, impactful lessons that celebrate and develop the brilliance of your students.

Learn more

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Math routine cards

Find easy-to-implement routines to keep students interacting and engaged with a lesson.

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2024 Math Symposium

Access best practices and educational resources from math leaders through our on-demand Math Symposium.

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Math Teacher Lounge archives

Hear strategies from Dan Meyer and Bethany Lockhart Johnson on the Math Teacher Lounge podcast.

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Ready to make a shift? We’re here to help!

Connect with our math product experts to learn how we can help foster change in your school or district.

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Prepare Professional Development (PD)

Learning experiences to prepare for literacy and math instructional shifts

The following literacy and math sessions can help any educator—regardless of the program used—enhance their instructional practices.

Science of Reading sessions offering research-backed strategies to deepen understanding and improve student outcomes.
Problem-based approach to math sessions that empower educators to facilitate meaningful learning experiences and develop critical thinking skills.
Multiliterate learner sessions enable educators to make a meaningful impact on students’ literacy development.

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Professional learning journey

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Prepare	Begin	Practice	Advance
Learning sessions will help shift literacy and math instruction in areas such as the Science of Reading and/or problem-based approaches to math.	Program-aligned packages will support those who are new to Amplify programs.	Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify programs.	Offerings will support advanced implementation, build capacity for instructional leaders, certify in-house trainers to deliver Launch sessions, and more.

“Gain the literacy knowledge and skills you need to thrive and help your students thrive. Through these sessions, you’ll understand typical literacy development and how to describe and address literacy difficulties.”

—Susan Lambert, Chief Academic Officer, Elementary Humanities

Host, Science of Reading: The Podcast

Science of Reading learning experiences

Listening to students read is magic. But knowing how to get them reading? That’s science.

Making the shift to the Science of Reading is no small feat, but participating in professional development sessions can help you make this change seamlessly.

Amplify Science of Reading sessions offer flexible, professional learning experiences for teachers that incorporate engaging activities grounded in what science tells us about literacy development.

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Build your knowledge of the Science of Reading

Virtual | 90-minute session

This introductory session provides educators with a foundational overview of what the Science of Reading means and what it tells us about how to teach using evidence-based reading practices.

Participants will learn to:

Define the Science of Reading by examining evidence-based research.
Explain how two frameworks, the Simple View of Reading and the Reading Rope, work in tandem to guide effective literacy instruction.
Identify instructional principles aligned to the Science of Reading.

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Deepen your knowledge of the Science of Reading

On-site or virtual | 3-hour session

This session will build a base of common knowledge about the Reading Rope and support educators in identifying effective instruction grounded in the Science of Reading.

Participants will learn to:

Identify the strands in the Reading Rope.
Describe how each strand plays an important role in developing skilled readers and writers.
Identify key look-fors in effective Science of Reading instruction.

Science of Reading: The Learning Lab online course

This series of three self-paced online courses, crafted by literacy expert Susan Lambert and built around International Dyslexia Association (IDA) Knowledge and Practice Standards, guides you through the essential Science of Reading skills and knowledge needed to teach students to read proficiently, as well as advanced strategies for aiding struggling readers. Each course builds on the last, equipping you with the tools and confidence to make a lasting impact on your students’ literacy journeys.

Benefit from flexible learning on an interactive platform spanning 20–25 hours of instruction. Each course is accessible for 12 months. Upon completion, you’ll be provided with a downloadable certificate, validating your new expertise in the Science of Reading.

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Foundations to the Science of Reading

This course offers a comprehensive overview of research in the field. Each of the eight modules contains three lessons covering the foundations of literacy acquisition.

Explore the scope and sequence of Foundations to the Science of Reading with a Pacing Guide.

Access the free Preview Pass for this course.

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Advanced topics in the Science of Reading: Assessment and reading difficulties

The second course is aimed at providing an in-depth examination of assessments, a deeper understanding of reading difficulties, and familiarity with pertinent legal frameworks for educators, all of which influence instructional decision-making.

Explore the scope and sequence of Advanced topics in the Science of Reading with our Pacing Guide.

Access the free Preview Pass for this course.

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Coming soon!
Applied structured literacy

The final course in the series is designed to review key concepts and knowledge from previous coursework, explore fundamental aspects of structured literacy within lessons, observe and analyze structured literacy instruction in action, and investigate how data informs instructional decisions.

[Available June 2025]

“Amplify’s Science of Reading online course builds background knowledge on how students read, then goes deeper to give you strategies that correlate with current research that can be implemented into your classroom right away. The course opened my thinking to new ways of teaching and I can’t wait to try it with students! If you want to walk away feeling successful with helping kids read, take this course! ”

Allie Appel

Coach, WI

New

Supporting multiliterate learner sessions

Unlock the magic of teaching multiliterate learners with evidence-based literacy practices. Making the shift to effectively support diverse readers in multiple languages is no small feat, but our professional development sessions are here to guide you effortlessly.

Empower your teaching with these engaging sessions, and make a meaningful impact on your multiliterate students’ literacy development.

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Build your knowledge of multiliterate learners

Virtual | 90-minute session

This session provides educators with a foundational overview of how to teach multiliterate learners using evidence-based literacy practices.

A young boy in a striped shirt sits at a desk, focused on writing in a notebook with a pencil. Surrounding him are classroom supplies and papers, exemplifying the effective program implementation strategies from professional learning sessions.

Deepen your knowledge of multiliterate learners

On-site or virtual | 3-hour session

This session will build an understanding of how the brain learns to read in multiple languages, as well as how to leverage cross-linguistic transfer, and align instruction to best practices for multiliterate learners.

Problem-based approach to math instruction sessions

Elevate educational experiences by placing students’ ideas at the core of math lessons through problem-based learning. These sessions offer flexible professional learning experiences, allowing you to gain firsthand experience with a problem-based approach as a learner. You then learn to integrate this approach seamlessly into your teaching practices, bringing renewed energy to your math classroom.

A woman sits indoors, smiling while using a tablet. Wearing a blue lanyard and casual clothing, she appears engaged in professional learning; the background shows blurred people and chairs.

Build your knowledge of a problem-based approach

Virtual | 90-minute session

This session provides you with a foundational overview of what an engaging problem-based approach in math entails for K–5 students.

During this session you’ll learn to:

Explain how a problem-based approach to math brings delight to both teaching and learning and builds lasting student understanding.
Identify actionable strategies for using a problem-based approach in a math classroom.

Deepen your knowledge of a problem-based approach

On-site or virtual | 3-hour session

This session provides you with hands-on experience facilitating problem-solving in math, leaving you with an increased understanding of how to teach conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and applications of math.

During this session you’ll learn to:

Explain how a problem-based approach to math brings delight to both teaching and learning and builds lasting student understanding.
Identify actionable strategies for using a problem-based approach in a math classroom.
Connect your current teaching practice to a problem-based approach, and choose a next step to implement a more problem-based approach.

Get in touch with a PD expert

We’re here to provide answers and guidance as you explore your PD options. Fill out the form to connect with us and discover how Amplify PD can enhance your educational journey.

Illustration of diverse activities: a girl with arms outstretched among birds, an ancient temple, a child reading, and sketches and letters on a sandy layer.

Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition Pilot Packs

Pilot educator,

This is the beginning of the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) 2nd Edition journey in your classroom! Making this important, evidence-based shift shows your commitment and dedication to your students. We truly appreciate the work you’re doing and are here to help you along the way.

We know it can be overwhelming to start a new curriculum, but we’re here to help! Within this site, you’ll find resources to help you get started before your implementation training, including a materials checklist, unit and domain summaries, support videos, and more! These tools will support your 6–12 weeks of core literacy instruction with Amplify CKLA. We hope this site is helpful in getting you started with your pilot.

Thank you for all you do,

—The Amplify CKLA team

Get started

To get started with your new pilot of Amplify CKLA, you’ll first want to review the following:

You may also find these documents helpful as you begin your pilot:

Pacing Guides

Scope and Sequence

Domain summaries

Unit summaries

Program Guide

Reading League rubric

IMET K–2 rubric

IMET 3–5 rubric

Text types and range of writing

CKLA_PilotPackMicrosite_MaterialsModule_Hero_112822-01

Pilot Pack components checklist

Below you’ll find the Amplify CKLA Pilot Pack components you should have received in your shipment, outlined by grade level and teacher/student materials. Please click your grade-level teacher materials and student materials to review the list and ensure that you received all of the materials.

An orange workbook cover featuring a ladybug illustration, part of "Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts." The text "Skills 5" is shown at the bottom.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 5 Teacher Guide

Orange book cover for "Skills 6" from Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts, featuring outlined hands and items like hats and pants. Subtext: Teacher Guide, TK Masterscripts.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 6 Teacher Guide

Orange language arts workbook cover with a white shower sketch, water drops, and the word "Skills 7" at the bottom. Drawings include fish, bird, and words like "bath," "th," "finch," and "splash.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 7 Teacher Guide

Book cover titled "Ox and Man" shows people running with an ox on a green hillside.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 5 Big Book: Ox and Man

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 6 Big Book: Kit

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 7 Big Book: Seth

Teacher materials

Skills Small Letter Card Set

Teacher materials

Skills Large Letter Cards

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 2 Teacher Guide: The 5 Senses

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 3 Teacher Guide: Stories

Colorful illustration of a lush hillside with a variety of plants and a house in the background, titled "knowledge 4 plants" for a kindergarten workbook.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Teacher Guide: Plants

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 2 Image Cards: The 5 Senses

Cover of "knowledge 3" kindergarten image cards featuring a colorful illustration of children and animals engaging with storybook characters in a fantasy setting.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 3 Image Cards: Stories

Illustration on a book cover showing various plants, a garden, and a red house, under a bright sun, titled "knowledge 4 - plants" for kindergarten level.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Image Cards: Plants

Illustration of children exploring giant sensory organs in a vibrant landscape, representing the five senses in a playful educational setting.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 2 Flip Book: The 5 Senses

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 3 Flip Book: Stories

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Flip Book: Plants

Back cover of an amplify core knowledge language arts pilot sample card deck, with qr code and isbn, featuring education-themed illustrations.

Teacher materials

Sound Cards Sampler

Educational poster titled "sound posters" for kindergarten, featuring various illustrations like a boat, globe, and animals on a red background with a qr code on the bottom right.

Teacher materials

Sound Posters Sampler

Student materials

Skills Unit 6 Reader: Kit

Student materials

Skills Unit 7 Reader: Seth

Student materials

Skills Unit 5 Activity Book

Student materials

Skills Unit 6 Activity Book

Student materials

Skills Unit 7 Activity Book

Student materials

Chaining Folder

Book cover titled "look at the", marked as a "pilot sample" with educational doodles on a red background, labeled "picture reader" for "kindergarten" skills.

Student materials

Picture Reader Sampler

Educational book cover titled "amplify core knowledge language arts" featuring colorful illustrations of animals, fruits, and plants across four seasonal themes.

Student materials

Knowledge Domains 2, 3, and 4 Sampler

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 2 Teacher Guide

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 3 Teacher Guide

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 4 Teacher Guide

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 2 Big Book: Gran

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 3 Big Book: Fables

Teacher materials

Skills Vowel Code Flip Book

Teacher materials

Skills Large Letter Cards

A grade 1 spelling cards booklet titled "core knowledge language arts" from the center for early reading-amplify, featuring educational symbols like a pencil and sun on a orange cover.

Teacher materials

Skills Spelling Cards

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 2 Teacher Guide: The Human Body

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 3 Teacher Guide: Different Lands, Similar Stories

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 5 Teacher Guide: Early American Civilizations

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 2 Image Cards: The Human Body

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 3 Image Cards: Different Lands, Similar Stories

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 5 Image Cards: Early American Civilizations

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 2 Flip Book: The Human Body

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 3 Flip Book: Different Lands, Similar Stories

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 5 Flip Book: Early American Civilizations

Illustration of a grandmother embracing two children, with a house labeled "gran" in the background, surrounded by foliage.

Student materials

Skills Unit 2 Reader: Gran

Student materials

Skills Unit 3 Reader: Fables

Illustration of various animals, including a puffin, deer, fox, otter, and others, on a green background with the title "the green fern zoo.

Student materials

Skills Unit 4 Reader: The Green Fern Zoo

Student materials

Skills Unit 2 Activity Book

Student materials

Skills Unit 3 Activity Book

Student materials

Skills Unit 4 Activity Book

Student materials

Skills Individual Code Chart

Illustration of a colorful educational book cover titled "amplify core knowledge language arts" for grade 1, featuring diverse thematic circles like farming, space, and cultures.

Student materials

Knowledge Domains 2, 3, and 5 Sampler

Green book cover titled "Skills 2," showing a white outline drawing of a mole above the word "mole." Background features doodles and words like "bite" and "bat.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 2 Teacher Guide

Bright green cover of a textbook titled "Skills 3," featuring a graduation cap illustration. The text mentions "Core Knowledge Language Arts" and "Grade 2 Teacher Guide.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 3 Teacher Guide

Green educational worksheet displaying a large letter "V" surrounded by various illustrations representing words starting with "V," such as a volcano and violin.

Teacher materials

Skills Vowel Code Flip Book

A green educational workbook cover titled "Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts," featuring a large white letter 'C' and doodles of animals and objects in the background.

Teacher materials

Skills Consonant Code Flip Book

Cover of "Core Knowledge Language Arts: Spelling Cards, Grade 2" featuring symbols like an eye, lightbulb, key, paw, and letters on a green background.

Teacher materials

Skills Spelling Cards

Cover illustration of a book titled "Knowledge 1: Fairy Tales and Tall Tales." Shows a giant lumberjack, castle, fish, and a person facing the scene, surrounded by trees and a river.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 1 Teacher Guide: Fairy Tales and Tall Tales

Cover of a book titled "Knowledge 4, Greek Myths," showing illustrations of mythical figures, creatures, and landscapes under a sunny sky.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Teacher Guide: Greek Myths

Illustrated book cover showing a garden scene with butterflies, insects, flowers, and greenery under a blue sky. Title reads "Knowledge 8: Insects" from the Core Knowledge Language Arts series.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 8 Teacher Guide: Insects

Illustrated book cover featuring Greek mythological characters, including a lion-headed figure and an archer, with a landscape of mythical creatures and structures in the background.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Image Cards: Greek Myths

Colorful illustration of a natural scene with insects, flowers, and a pond on a book cover titled "Knowledge 8 Insects" for Grade 2 language arts.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 8 Image Cards: Insects

Illustration of a giant lumberjack with an axe, a cow, and people on a castle wall, in a colorful storybook design. Titled "Knowledge 1: Fairy Tales and Tall Tales.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 1 Flip Book: Fairy Tales and Tall Tales

Illustration of Greek mythology featuring Artemis aiming a bow, a Minotaur in a labyrinth, and mythical symbols. Labeled "Knowledge 4 Greek Myths" for a language arts program.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Flip Book: Greek Myths

Colorful illustration of a garden with flowers, a beehive, butterflies, bees, and a beekeeper by a pond. The book is titled "Knowledge 8: Insects" for Grade 2 Language Arts.

Teacher materials

Knowledge Domain 4 Image Cards: Greek Myths

Illustrated book cover titled "Bedtime Tales" showing a man sitting on a bed with two children, one boy and one girl, leaning against him. Colorful patterns are in the background.

Student materials

Skills Unit 2 Reader: Bedtime Tales

Children play jump rope on a basketball court near a park. The words "Kids Excel" are on the image.

Student materials

Skills Unit 3 Reader: Kids Excel

A workbook cover featuring a stylized illustration of a mole, labeled "mole" and "oe." It includes sketches of a bed, clock, and letters. Title: "Skills 2 Activity Book, Grade 2.

Student materials

Skills Unit 2 Activity Book

Image of a green activity book cover titled "Skills 3" with a graduation cap illustration and various educational doodles in the background.

Teacher materials

Skills Unit 3 Activity Book

A chart featuring various hand-drawn doodles, including a sailboat, dog, hat, bell, and cooking pot, used for language arts.

Student materials

Skills Individual Code Chart

Cover of a Grade 2 activity book titled "Knowledge" by Amplify, featuring colorful illustrations of myths and folktales, including "Kite" and "Why the Sky Is Far Away.

Student materials

Knowledge Domains 1, 4, and 8 Sampler

Illustrated book cover titled "Unit 2 Animal Classification," featuring a leopard, frog, turtle, crane, rocks, and foliage under a partly cloudy sky.

Teacher materials

Unit 2 Teacher Guide: Animal Classification

Cover of a textbook titled "Unit 5: Light and Sound" featuring an illustration of a bouncing cow and various objects like a tree and lemon slices on a table.

Teacher materials

Unit 5 Teacher Guide: Light and Sound

Book cover titled "Unit 3: Native American Regions and Cultures" with an illustration of a desert landscape and sky designs.

Teacher materials

Unit 8 Teacher Guide: Native Americans: Regions and Culture

Teacher materials

Unit 5 Image Cards: Light and Sound

Book cover with a stylized illustration of a person in a rocky landscape under a cloudy sky. Text reads: "Unit 8 Native Americans: Regions and Cultures, Image Cards, Grade 2.

Teacher materials

Unit 8 Image Cards: Native Americans: Regions and Cultures

Colorful illustration of various animals including a jaguar, heron, frog, turtle, and fish in a natural setting, featured on the cover of an educational material titled "Rattenborough’s Guide to Animals.

Student materials

Unit 2 Reader: Rattenborough’s Guide to Animals

Cover of "Adventures in Light and Sound," Unit 5 Reader by Amplify, showing illustrations of a dog jumping near a tree, with abstract shapes and colors in the background.

Student materials

Unit 5 Reader: Adventures in Light and Sound

Book cover featuring a landscape painting of cliffs under a cloudy sky, labeled "Unit 8: Native American Stories," with "Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts" at the top.

Student materials

Unit 8 Reader: Native American Stories

Illustrated book cover featuring a leopard, frog, turtle, crane, and jewel-like objects in a natural setting. Title reads "Unit 2 Animal Classification, Grade 3.

Teacher materials

Unit 2 Activity Book: Animal Classification

Illustrated cover of an educational book titled "Unit 5: Light and Sound" for Grade 1, depicting a tree, playing squirrels, a sun, and large glasses on a white table.

Student materials

Unit 5 Activity Book: Light and Sound

Cover of a book titled "Unit 8: Native Americans: Regions and Cultures," featuring an illustration of a person walking through a desert landscape.

Student materials

Unit 8 Activity Book: Native Americans: Regions and Cultures

Cover of a Unit 3 Poetry workbook featuring gold illustrations of mythical creatures and designs on a brown background.

Teacher materials

Unit 3 Teacher Guide: Poetry

A geology textbook cover with an image of wavy, layered rock formations. The text on the cover reads "Unit 5 Geology.

Teacher materials

Unit 5 Teacher Guide: Geology

Cover of "Unit 7: American Revolution" shows people in colonial attire ringing a large bell indoors.

Teacher materials

Unit 7 Teacher Guide: American Revolution

A journal cover titled "Poet's Journal" for Grade 6, Unit 2. The design includes brown illustrations of a sun, dinosaur, leaves, and other decorative elements on a tan background.

Student materials

Unit 3 Poet’s Journal

Textbook cover titled "Unit 5: Geology: The Changing Earth" featuring a photo of wave-like rock formations with layered patterns.

Student materials

Unit 5 Reader: Geology: The Changing Earth

Illustration of colonial people and a large bell, with text: "Unit 7 American Revolution: The Road to Independence.

Student materials

Unit 7 Reader: American Revolution: The Road to Independence

Textbook cover titled "Unit 5: Geology" featuring a photo of layered rock formations with swirling patterns and vivid colors.

Student materials

Unit 5 Activity Book: Geology

Illustration of people ringing a large bell in a historical setting, with men, women, and a child present. Text on the cover reads "Unit 7 American Revolution" for Grade 4.

Student materials

Unit 7 Activity Book: American Revolution

Textbook cover titled "Unit 2: Early American Civilizations" with an illustrated figure in red, white, and green, adorned with feathers and holding a staff.

Teacher materials

Unit 2 Teacher Guide: Early American Civilizations

Book cover featuring illustrations of an umbrella, microscope, compass, bird, and stars. Label indicates Unit 3 on poetry for 5th-grade language arts.

Teacher materials

Unit 3 Teacher Guide: Poetry

Cover of a workbook titled "Adventures of Don Quixote," featuring an illustration of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on horseback under a crescent moon.

Teacher materials

Unit 4 Teacher Guide: The Adventures of Don Quixote

Textbook cover titled "Unit 2: Early American Civilizations: Maya, Aztec, and Inca," featuring colorful illustration of a figure in traditional attire.

Student materials

Unit 2 Reader: Early American Civilization

Cover of "Poet's Journal," Grade 6, Unit 5. Features illustrations of an umbrella, crow, book, key, and a telescope against a brown background. Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts at top.

Student materials

Unit 3 Poet’s Journal

Cover of "Adventures of Don Quixote" by Argentina Palacios, Dover Children's Thrift Classics. It features an illustration of Don Quixote and his horse near windmills.

Student materials

Unit 4 Reader: The Adventures of Don Quixote (trade book)

Cover of a Grade 5 activity book titled "Unit 2: Early American Civilizations" features a colorful illustration of an Aztec-style figure.

Student materials

Unit 2 Activity Book: Early American Civilization

Cover illustration of "Adventures of Don Quixote" from Unit 4, featuring Don Quixote on horseback with a spear, under a crescent moon, in a vintage purple-toned style.

Student materials

Unit 4 Activity Book: The Adventures of Don Quixote

Access the Amplify CKLA digital experience

You will receive your teacher demo account login information from your sales representative.

Contact your account executive to sign up for implementation training.

A closer look at grades 3–5

In the 3–5 classroom, this looks like students:

Collecting evidence from a variety of sources.
Making sense of evidence in a variety of ways.
Formulating convincing scientific arguments.

Program structure

It’s this proven program structure and lesson design that enables Amplify Science California to teach less, but achieve more. Rather than asking teachers to wade through unnecessary content, we designed our 3–5 program to address 100% of the California NGSS in just 88 days.

Scope and sequence

Lessons for grades 3–5 are written to last a minimum of 60 minutes, though teachers can expand or contract the timing to meet their needs.

Unit types

In grades 3–5:

One unit emphasizes the practice of investigation.
One unit emphasizes the practice of modeling.
One unit emphasizes the practice of engineering design.
One unit emphasizes the practice of argumentation.

Investigation Units

Modeling Units

Engineering Design Units

Argumentation units

Units at a glance

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.

Download unit guide

Download lesson planner

Resources

Pilot support brochure for 3–5

Unit phenomena for K–5

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

Classroom Slides for K–5

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

What’s so phenomenal about phenomena?

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

Literacy-rich instruction in K–5

Scientists don’t just get messy. They read and write with purpose too. Exp…

Student Books in K–5

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

Investigations for K–5

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

Sims for 4–8

Pilot support brochure for 3–5

The 5E model in K–8

Learn how the 5E elements are woven throughout each and every unit.

The CER model in K-5

Learn how we integrate the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) into daily i…

Approaches to assessment in K–5

Learn about our embedded assessments.

Program component list for TK–5

Explore the components that come with each unit.

Puyallup K–5 Science Review

Peoria K–5 Science Review

Montana 6–8 Science

Peoria 6–8 Science Review

Sweetwater 6–8 Science

WV CKLA

Registration is now closed.

Thank you for your interest, but registration is unfortunately closed.

If you’re interested in hearing about other virtual learning opportunities this fall, please contact us at STEM@amplify.com.

About the event

The 1.5-day interactive retreat for math and science district leaders will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Chicago, Illinois from October 20–21, 2022. During the retreat, you will spend your time in interactive workshops while learning from thought-leaders, and will also have time to collaborate with other district leaders.

By attending, you will:

Immerse yourself in the latest math and science education trends with thought leaders and subject-matter experts.
Expand your leadership network while sharing challenges and success stories with other district leaders.
Build action plans that you can bring back to your district in interactive workshops.

Logistics

We will have an optional welcome reception on the evening of October 19, and the event will run from 8 a.m. on Thursday, October 20 through 1 p.m. on Friday, October 21.

Participants will be provided breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks on the 20th and breakfast, lunch, and snacks on the 21st.

Amplify will cover on-site hotel and meal fees. Attendees are responsible for their own travel costs.

Aerial view of a city skyline with tall skyscrapers, a waterfront, and a road along the shore. The sky is partly cloudy, and the water is a light turquoise.

Meet a few of our speakers

Rebecca Abbott

A woman with short brown hair, wearing hoop earrings and a maroon top, smiles at the camera against a plain light background, radiating confidence and passion for math and science.

Professional Learning Lead

UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science

Eric Cross

A man with short dark hair and a trimmed beard smiles at the camera against a plain dark background, reflecting a passion for math and science.

Middle school science educator

Host, Science Connections: The Podcast

Kristin Gray

A woman with long blonde hair, black glasses, and circular earrings is smiling at the camera against a gray background, radiating enthusiasm for math and science.

Math Content Consultant

Amplify

Sunil Singh

A middle-aged man with short gray hair, glasses, and a trimmed beard smiles at the camera. He wears a plaid shirt and is pictured against a dark background, reflecting his passion for math and science.

Storyteller and author

Desiré Whitmore

A person with curly hair, wearing a bright blue jacket and a brown strap over their shoulder, looks back outdoors, as if pondering math and science discoveries on their journey.

Senior Physics Educator

The Exploratorium

Jason Zimba

A man in a suit and tie with short light brown hair, light skin, and a neutral expression, posed against a plain background—his demeanor suggesting a professional in math and science.

Chief Academic Officer, STEM

Amplify

The fine print

While we’ve made every effort to ensure that this invitation is consistent with the gift and ethics rules adopted by most jurisdictions, we recognize that many public officials are subject to rules that do not permit acceptance of this offer or require approval of other officials at your agency. If you do plan to attend our event, please ensure that acceptance of our invitation is fully compliant with your local rules regarding travel, lodging, and meals for events with vendors. Please let us know if we can provide any additional information to support your determination.

Welcome Fort Wayne middle school educators!

We’re honored that you’re considering Amplify ELA for grades 6-8. Below you’ll find resources to guide you in your review including:

An overview and introductory video.
Program resources to break down the program structure and its components.
Step-by-step digital review of all teacher and student materials.
Additional resources and an opportunity to request physical samples and access to multimedia resources.

West Virginia alignment coming soon!

Overview

Amplify ELA is a blended curriculum designed for middle school students and teachers, featuring:

An engaging digital program with comprehensive print materials, including Teacher Editions, Student Editions, and Writing Journals for grades 6–8.
A year’s worth of instruction for each grade.
Complex, content-rich literary and informational texts.
Differentiation that supports all students with reading complex texts, and an interactive eReader with an array of multimedia tools.
Embedded assessments that allow for uninterrupted instructional time.
The Amplify Library—a digital collection of over 700 full-length texts.

Access and equity

We have a responsibility to provide ELA instruction that gives every student the same opportunity to succeed and excel

Equity, diversity, and inclusion

ELA instructional supports

Cultural diversity

Program resources

Download these resources before reviewing the program to better understand program structure, components, digital resources, and more.

Program Guide

Learn more about key program features and how the program works.

Grade overview

Review the texts, key skills, and essay prompts covered in each unit.

Formative and summative assessments

Learn about the assessments and tools designed to save teachers time

Indiana standards alignment

Review the research behind the development of Amplify ELA

Research base

Review the research behind the development of Amplify ELA

Program structure and components

Explore how the program is structured and dive into the key components.

Program structure and components

Explore how the program is structured and dive into the key components.

Three-panel educational material titled "amplify ela: the space race collection" featuring artistic astronaut illustrations and historical figures.

Start your review

Follow these steps to complete your digital review of the teacher and student materials for each grade level. Once you’ve completed your digital review, complete the form at the bottom of the page for physical samples and full access to the multimedia resources.

Review step 1: See Amplify ELA in action

Hear from teachers, administrators, and students across the country who are using Amplify ELA in their classrooms right now.

Review step 2: Watch this Amplify ELA overview

Before you explore the program, watch this overview to get familiar with the program and ways to find resources for you and your students online.

Review step 3: Start exploring

To complete your review digitally, click the orange button below to explore the digital platform. You’ll have access to two full units for every grade.

When you explore the digital platform, a quick guided tour will familiarize you with navigation of the program and its features.

Start your digital review now

While you can access all of the print resources from the digital Teacher’s Guide, we’ve collected a few exemplars for each grade level:

Grade 6: Summer of the Mariposas

Grade 7: Poetry & Poe

Grade 8: The Space Race Collection

Additional resources to support your review

Remote and hybrid learning guide

See how Amplify ELA supports teachers and students in varied learning situations…

High-quality instructional materials

Resources to support your review of High Quality Instructional Materials.

K–8 Knowledge building map

Review the knowledge domains studied across Amplify CKLA and ELA.

Amplify Anywhere

Review the knowledge domains studied across Amplify CKLA and ELA.

Homescreen [Video]

Classwork [Video]

Request sample

You can request physical samples or full access to multimedia resources for additional review or reach out to your Amplify Sales representative if you have questions.

A man with short brown hair, wearing a blue collared shirt and dark blazer, smiling at the camera against a plain white background.

Nathan Toles
Field Manager
(317) 430-787

A teacher assists two students working at a table with a laptop and books, surrounded by colorful illustrations of a cyclist, a bird, and a dinosaur.

Join us for an Oklahoma Amplify Science workshop

These fun and informative workshops will give you a sneak peak into Amplify Science for grades K-8. Enjoy dinner with your colleagues and Amplify Science team, preview the program, walk away with free samples, and maybe even a door prize!

Space is limited—register today!

In-person workshops

Agenda

4:00 p.m. Registration
4:30 p.m. Workshop
5:30 p.m. Dinner and door prizes

Tuesday, September 29

Stride Bank Center
301 S. Independence Street
Enid, OK 73701

Wednesday, September 30

Hampton Inn & Suites Stillwater West
615 S. Country Club Road
Stillwater, OK 74074

Thursday, October 1

Science Museum

2020 Remington Place

Oklahoma City, OK 73111

Tuesday, October 20

Oklahoma Aquarium

300 Aquarium Drive

Jenks, OK 74037

Thursday, October 22

Sam Noble Museum

University of Oklahoma

2401 Chautauqua Avenue

Norman, OK 73072

Virtual workshops

Agenda

4:00 p.m. Workshop begins
4:45 p.m. Q&A
5:00 p.m. Dinner gift card and door prizes

Wednesday, October 21

4:00 p.m. CDT

Tuesday, October 27

4:00 p.m. CDT

Wednesday, October 28

4:00 p.m. CDT

Thursday, October 29

4:00 p.m. CDT

Submit the form to register for an event!

Email
Name
First Last
Job title
City
State
School
District
Any dietary restrictions?
Select the location and date most convenient for you:
- Tuesday, September 29 – Stride Bank Center
- Wednesday, September 30 – OSU Alumni Center
- Thursday, October 1 – Science Museum Oklahoma
- Tuesday, October 20 – Oklahoma Aquarium
- Wednesday, October 21 – Virtual
- Thursday, October 22 – Sam Noble Museum
- Tuesday, October 27 – Virtual
- Wednesday, October 28 – Virtual
- Thursday, October 29 – Virtual

High-Quality Materials

Literacy

MATH

SCIENCE

Research

Blog and webinar library

Media & events

Amplify Science

A powerful partnership

What sets Amplify Science apart?

Grades K–5 overview

Grades 6–8 overview

Science and literacy

Access and equity

Start your review

Ready to look inside Amplify Science?

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

Submit Vulnerability Report

Amplify Science

A disciplinary literacy approach to learning science

Reading in Amplify Science

Elk Grove Science K5

Program details

Introduction

What students learn

How to integrate this program into your curriculum

How teachers are using Amplify Reading 6–8

Routines

Pedagogical approach

Standards and alignments

Levels

Included texts

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Getting started with Amplify Science California

Program introduction

Onboarding videos

Program pacing

Hands-on materials kit

Teacher digital resources

Student digital resources

Essential resources

Unit Guides

Lesson planners

Teacher-provided materials

Device calendars

Approach to assessment

Assessment types at a glance

Pre-Unit Assessments

Critical Juncture Assessments

End-of-Unit Assessments

On-the-Fly Assessments

Unit-level assessment information

Three-dimensional assessment connections

Coming soon

FAQs

Digital questions

Looking for help?

Powerful (and free!) pedagogical support

Timely technical and program support

Connect with other teachers

Meet Howie Hua

Questions are as important as answers

Join the challenge

What do students at risk for dyslexia struggle with?

Supporting students with dyslexia: What can you do?

1. Screen for dyslexia

2. Dyslexia training for teachers and reading specialists

3. Eligibility for accommodations and services for students with dyslexia

4. Classroom instruction for students with dyslexia

5. Dyslexia handbook

6. Dyslexia awareness

DIBELS® 8th Edition is validated for the following measures:

DIBELS 8th Edition Subtest Alignment with Dyslexia Screening Areas

How mCLASS can help you identify and support at-risk students

First, some STEM learning for us: What is artificial intelligence?

What’s the state of AI in education?

Embracing AI technology in your math classroom

Toward the (near) future

Data informs
instruction