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Professional development for core programs

Amplify professional development provides learning experiences that intentionally develop the knowledge and skills you need for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Learn and apply impactful instructional techniques and develop a deeper understanding of your Amplify program(s) by investing in professional development.

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

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About Amplify core programs

Amplify’s high-quality programs make it easier for you to teach inspiring, impactful lessons that celebrate and develop the brilliance of your students. By equipping teachers with resources and strategies to provide robust scaffolding and differentiated instruction, Amplify’s core programs ensure that all students can fully engage with rigorous subject matter.

Literacy

  • Amplify ELAR K–5
  • Amplify SLAR K–5
  • Amplify ELAR 6–8

STEM

  • Amplify Math
  • Desmos Math
  • Amplify Desmos Math (for Grades K–Algebra 1)*
  • Amplify Science

We provide PD sessions for all Amplify programs. Contact your account executive to discuss the extended catalog of PD session options or request a quote.

*Amplify Desmos Math is a new core PreK–12 program from Amplify and Desmos Classroom—available in English and Spanish—that applies a problem-based approach to get results by developing deep conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and application. Contact us to learn more about the packages and sessions currently available.

About Amplify Professional Development (PD)

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. Begin and Practice packages are available for core programs.


Prepare
Begin
Practice
Advance
Program-agnostic sessions will set up educators for success 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’s programs. Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify’s programs. Offerings will support advanced implementation, build capacity for instructional leaders, certify in-house trainers to deliver Launch sessions, and more.

At each phase of implementation, we offer a range of unique packages and offerings. Sessions are strategically bundled for multiple touch points throughout the year. A variety of high-quality sessions set educators up for success with Amplify programs—whether you’re years into using them or just starting out.

Session types

Select a package to uncover the benefits of a customizable Coach session.

LAUNCH STRENGTHEN COACH
Beginning of year Mid-year, end of year Mid-year, end of year
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Propel your teachers into the new school year with sessions that introduce them to their Amplify program and support them in a strong implementation.
 Boost implementation with sessions that target specific instructional practices.
 Guide teachers and leaders with targeted learning tailored to their specific needs.
Before teaching
 After 6+ weeks of teaching
  
Select a package to reveal the components of a launch session. To explore the core strengthen sessions, select your program: Select a package to uncover the benefits of a customizable Coach session.
Literacy Strengthen sessions
STEM Strengthen sessions

Interactive sessions empower teachers and leaders implementing Amplify programs, giving them the tools and skills they need to inspire all students to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves.

Explore enhancement options to see how you can further customize your package to build capacity in teachers and leaders and meet the needs of all learners within Amplify literacy, biliteracy, and/or STEM program(s).

Begin packages

You’re in your first year of implementation. You’re ready to start making the shift to evidence-based practices, using your Amplify program(s). You know that individual change is critical to organizational change. Let us support educators with professional development that develops new skills, knowledge, and a positive orientation to change.

Explore the program-aligned package options below to learn more about the modality and duration of each Launch, Strengthen, and Coach session available to you during your first year of implementation.

Select from flexible on-site, hybrid, or virtual packages, including:

  • Launch sessions to introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.
  • Strengthen sessions to deepen understanding of the program.
  • Coach sessions to elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs.

Each package supports up to 30 participants in similar grade bands.

Overview: Begin packages for Amplify core programs

Package title and duration On-site package (15 hours) Hybrid
on-site package (15 hours)		 Hybrid 10 package (10 hours) Hybrid virtual package (15 hours) Virtual package   (7 hours)
Launch
One session per package		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
6 hr.
(2 half-days)		 Virtual
3 hr.
Strengthen
One session per package		 On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.
Coach
One session per package		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
6 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr.
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual,
3 hr. session		 Program overview for leaders

On-site package

Begin: On-site packages include program-aligned, on-site Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions. Providing 15 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Begin: On-site package
(15 hours for 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Launch (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Initial training for teachers
Strengthen (1) On-site, 3-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Coach session
Suggested enhancements On-site or virtual,
3-hr. session		 Program overview for leaders

Launch

Propel your school or district into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Initial training for teachers

On-site, 6 hours

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new to our program. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of their program(s), including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively coordinating the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy; Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will partner closely with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math, Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 15 on-site package

Begin: Hybrid 15 on-site packages include program-aligned, on-site Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions. Providing 15 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Begin: Hybrid 15 on-site package
(15 hours for 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Launch (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Initial training for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. session Explore the Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Coach session
Suggested enhancements On-site or virtual,
3-hr. session		 Program overview for leaders

Launch

Propel yourself into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Initial training for teachers

On-site, 6 hours

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new users. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of the program, including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively supporting the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy; Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve student’s learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math, Amplify Science

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 10 package

The Begin: Hybrid 10 package includes program-aligned, on-site and virtual Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions. Providing 10 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Begin: Hybrid 10 package
(10 hours for up to 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Launch (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Program overview for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 1-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Coach session
Suggested enhancements On-site or virtual,
3-hr. session		 Program overview for leaders

Launch

Propel your school or district into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Program overview for teachers

On-site, 3 hours

Program overview sessions provide a basic introduction for educators who are new users of the program. In a program overview session, educators learn how to get started with the key features and materials of the program.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Suggested enhancements: Program overview for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively supporting the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy; Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve student’s learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math, Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 15 virtual package

Begin: Hybrid 15 virtual packages include program-aligned, on-site Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions. Providing 15 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Begin: Hybrid 15 virtual package
(15 hours for up to 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Launch (1) Virtual, 6-hr. session
(2 half-days)		 Initial training for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. session Coach session
Suggested enhancements On-site or virtual,
3-hr. session		 Program overview for leaders

Launch

Propel your school or district into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Initial training for teachers

Virtual, 6 hours (2 half-days)

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new to our program. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of their program(s), including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively supporting the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy; Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Virtual package

Begin: Virtual packages include program-aligned, on-site Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions. Providing seven hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Begin: Virtual package
(7 hours for up to 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Launch (1) Virtual, 3-hr. session Program overview for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 1-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (1) Virtual, 3-hr. session Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on
 On-site, 3-hr. session Program overview for leaders

Launch

Propel your school or district into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Program overview for teachers

Virtual, 3 hours

Program overview sessions provide a basic introduction for educators who are new users of the program. In a program overview session, educators learn how to get started with the key features and materials of the program.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

Virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively supporting the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy; Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

Virtual, 3 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Practice packages

You’re becoming familiar with Amplify programs and are ready to deepen your knowledge and implementation. Our team will facilitate learning that emphasizes deeper understanding of resources and instructional practices through learning experiences focused on continuous improvement, enhancing your understanding of your Amplify program(s), and customized coaching.

Explore the program-aligned package options below to learn more about the modality and duration of each Strengthen and Coach session available to you at any time during your second year of implementation.

Select from flexible on-site, hybrid, or virtual packages, including:

  • Strengthen sessions to deepen understanding of the program, expand practice, and drive student outcomes.
  • Coach sessions to elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs.

Each package supports up to 30 participants in similar grade bands.

Overview: Practice packages for Amplify core programs

Select the package title to view session descriptions

Package title and duration On-site package
(15 hours)		 Hybrid 15 package
(15 hours)		 Hybrid 13 package
(13 hours)		 Virtual package
(9 hours)
Strengthen*  One session per package On-site, 3-hr. Virtual, 3-hr. Virtual,1-hr. Virtual, 3-hr.

Coach
Two sessions per package    

 On-site, 6-hr. On-site, 6-hr. On-site, 6-hr. Virtual, 3-hr.

*The topics of the Strengthen sessions will vary in Practice packages as determined by the needs of the school/district.

Suggested enhancements
Select the sessions to learn more.
Launch add-on
 Virtual, 1-hr. session Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement training for teachers

On-site package

Practice: On-site packages include program-aligned, on-site Strengthen and Coach sessions. Providing 15 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Practice: On-site package
(15 hours for up to 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Strengthen (1) On-site, 3-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (2) On-site, 6-hr. session Practice: Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Select the sessions to learn more.
Launch add-on
 Virtual, 1-hr. session Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve student’s learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet educators’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

New

Suggested enhancement: Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of how to implement Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills in their classrooms! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Session options: Amplify ELAR

Audience: Grade 3–5 teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 15 package

Practice: Hybrid on-site packages include program-aligned, on-site and virtual Strengthen and Coach sessions. Providing 15 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Practice: Hybrid 15 package
(15 hours for 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (2) On-site, 6-hr. sessions Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Select the sessions to learn more.
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. session Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet educators’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

New

Suggested enhancement: Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal add-on to Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of how to implement Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills in their classrooms! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Session options: Amplify ELAR

Audience: Grade 3–5 teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 13 package

Practice: Hybrid on-site packages include program-aligned, on-site and virtual Strengthen and Coach sessions. Providing 13 hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Practice: Hybrid 13 package
(13 hours for 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 1-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (2) On-site, 6-hr. sessions Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Select the sessions to learn more.
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. session Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Elevate instructional practice and help meet educators’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

New

Suggested enhancement: Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal add-on to Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of how to implement Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills in their classrooms! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Session options: Amplify ELAR

Audience: Grade 3–5 teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Virtual package

Practice: Virtual packages include program-aligned, virtual Strengthen and Coach sessions. Providing nine hours of professional development for up to 30 participants, this package will build understanding of research-based practices supported by Amplify program(s) and develop knowledge and skills through a variety of curated sessions.

Practice: Virtual package
(9 hours for 30 participants)
    Select the session to learn more.
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. session Explore Core Literacy and Core STEM Strengthen sessions. Session titles scheduled upon request.
Coach (2) Virtual, 3-hr. sessions Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Select the sessions to learn more.
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. session Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement training for teachers

Strengthen

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve student’s learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach

Support teachers and leaders with learning experiences tailored to meet their specific needs.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Elevate instructional practice and help meet educators’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Session options: Amplify ELAR, Amplify SLAR, or Amplify ELAR/SLAR biliteracy, Amplify ELAR 6–8, Amplify Math, Desmos Math 6–A1, Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

New

Suggested enhancement: Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal add-on to Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of how to implement Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills in their classrooms! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Session options: Amplify ELAR

Audience: Grade 3–5 teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Enhancement options

Want to extend learning for teachers and leaders? Have a unique need that you’d like to address? Seeking more targeted coaching options? Our package enhancements allow you to tailor your PD experience to meet the needs of your staff, whether they’re new or returning to the program.

Enhancements can be purchased for all teachers/leaders or a subset of educators.

General enhancement offerings

Add-on session name Leadership Launch session Leadership Strengthen session Launch
(Practice) session
 Strengthen session
 Coach session
 Amplify ELAR Grade 3 Skills supplement for teachers session
Session audience Leader Leader Teacher, Leader Teacher, Leader Teacher, Leader Teacher
Session modality
/duration		 On-site
3-hr.		 On-site
3-hr.		 On-site
6-hr.		 On-site
3-hr.		 On-site
6-hr.		 Virtual
1-hr.
Virtual
3-hr.		 Virtual
3-hr.		 On-site
3-hr.		 Virtual
3-hr.		 Virtual
3-hr.		 –
– – Virtual 6 hr.
(2 half-days)		 Virtual
1-hr.		 – –
– – Virtual
3-hr.		 – – –

Biliteracy packages

Biliteracy packages for Amplify ELAR and Amplify SLAR

Built on the Science of Reading, Amplify Texas English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) sequences deep content knowledge with research-based foundational skills. Amplify ELAR is a K–5 literacy curriculum that inspires curiosity and drives results, empowering all students with rich background knowledge.

Amplify SLAR serves as the perfect Spanish language arts partner to Amplify ELAR. These aligned programs combine deep content knowledge with systematic foundational skills instruction grounded in the Science of Reading. They adhere to biliteracy principles and support multiple teaching models.

The table below lists Amplify ELAR and Amplify SLAR packages for first year implementation and beyond.

Begin packages

  On-site
package
(15 hours)		 Hybrid on-site package
(15 hours)		 Hybrid virtual package
(15 hours)		 Virtual package
(10 hours)
Select the session title to view each description.
Launch session
Initial training for teachers		 On-site 6 hr. On-site 6 hr.  Virtual, 6 hr. (2 half-days) Virtual, 6 hr. (2 half-days)
Strengthen session
Session titles scheduled upon request.		 On-site 3 hr. Virtual 3 hr. Virtual 3 hr. Virtual 1 hr.
Explore Core Literacy Strengthen sessions aligned with the duration and modality of your biliteracy package.
Coach session On-site 6 hr. On-site 6 hr. On-site 6 hr. Virtual 3 hr.

Practice packages

  On-site
package
(15 hours)		 Hybrid 15 package
(15 hours)		 Hybrid 13 package
(13 hours)		 Virtual package
(9 hours)
Strengthen session On-site 3 hr. Virtual 3 hr. Virtual 1 hr. Virtual 3 hr.
Explore Core Literacy Strengthen sessions aligned with the duration and modality of your biliteracy package.
Coach sessions (2) On-site 6 hr. On-site 6 hr. On-site 6 hr. Virtual 3 hr.

Companion programs

Additional sessions are available for Amplify ELAR’s companion programs (Writing Studio and Language Studio).

To learn more about enhancing your Amplify experience by purchasing companion programs and/or accompanying PD sessions, please contact your account executive.

Get in touch with a PD expert

We’re here to provide answers and guidance as you explore your PD journey. Fill out the form to connect with us and discover how Amplify PD can enhance your educational journey.

Texas core programs professional development-NEW

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Setting up your session for success

We know your time is valuable. This site is designed to help you quickly select the right professional development topics for your team and gather the step-by-step guidance you need for a successful session.

Quick Navigation Tips:

  • Find your program: Click any program in the sidebar to expand and explore its specific session topics and online courses.
  • Reset your view: To see the full list of programs again, simply click the “Return to Top” arrow in the bottom right corner or scroll past your current selection.

Preparation checklist

A circular arrow surrounds a checkmark inside a square, with a blue shadow on the right side, representing a completed or approved process.

To make the most of your learning plan, follow the directions below. They’ll guide you through preparing your participants, location, and support for your Launch and Strengthen sessions. (Your PLS will support you in building your Coaching session.)

Onsite sessions

Prepare your participants

Communicate session details with participants:

  • Session time & location
  • Session objectives and topics using the agendas on this page
  • Materials required:
    • A charged device that meets Amplify’s tech requirements
    • Personal Amplify login (if available)
    • Participant notebook (This will be shipped to you or you will receive a PDF attachment in your confirmation email.)

Prepare your space

  • Select a location with a strong internet connection.
  • Mark this location clearly for participants and your PLS.
  • Provide Wi-Fi details for participants and your PLS.
  • Set up a projector and screen with audio.

Plan your support

  • Designate a tech lead to address connectivity issues and provide login and navigation support during the session.
  • For your PLS, share your contact information in case of emergencies and any special directions for accessing the location.
  • Inform your PLS if you did not receive enough participant notebooks.
Remote sessions

Prepare your participants

Communicate session details with participants:

  • Session time & remote meeting link
  • Session objectives and topics using the agendas on this page
  • Materials required:
    • A charged device that meets Amplify’s tech requirements
    • Personal Amplify login (if available)
    • Participant notebook (This will be shipped to you or you will receive a PDF attachment in your confirmation email.)

Prepare your remote space

  • Plan for participants to join from individual devices from separate locations (highly recommended).
  • If participants share a room, they must still use individual devices to fully engage.
    • To prevent audio feedback join using Google Meet’s Companion mode.
    • If using another platform, use headphones or ensure all but one device in the room has its microphone and speakers fully muted.

Plan your support

  • For your PLS, share your remote setup plan.
  • Designate a tech lead to address connectivity issues and provide login and navigation support during the session.

Select your program

Use the sidebar to select your program and explore the objectives and topics covered in your session or online course.

Amplify Caminos

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify Caminos 1st Edition agendasAmplify Caminos 3rd Edition agendasAmplify Caminos California Edition agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Grade 6
ELA + Caminos
Skills Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2
K–2K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–23–5K–2
Program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Grade 6
Knowledge strand program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Skills Strand program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Program overview for leaders3 hoursK–5PreK–5TK–5
Skills supplement training for teachers1 hour3–53–6
Transition training for teachers to 3rd Edition1 hourK–2
3–5
Skills Strand
Knowledge Strand

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify Caminos 1st Edition agendasAmplify Caminos 3rd Edition agendas
Coming soon!		Amplify Caminos California Edition agendas
Coming soon!
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Grade 6
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Grade 6
Writing for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5
Student engagement for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Grade 6
ELA + Caminos Grade 6
Supporting all learners for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Pacing for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Grade 6
ELA + Caminos Grade 6
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hoursGrade 6
Grading and assessment for teachers1 hourGrade 6
ELA + Caminos Grade 6

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Amplify CKLA

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify CKLA 2nd Edition agendasAmplify CKLA 3rd Edition agendasAmplify CKLA Florida Edition agendasAmplify CKLA California Edition agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursPreK
K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		Transitional Kindergarten (TK)
K–2
3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Program overview for teachers3 hoursPreK
K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		TK
K–2
3–5
Skills Strand program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Knowledge Strand program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Program overview for leaders3 hoursPreK–5PreK–5K–5PreK–5
Transition training for teachers1 hourK–2
3–5
Skills Strand transition training for teachers1 hourK–2
Knowledge Strand transition training for teachers1 hourK–2
Skills supplement training for teachers1 hourGrade 3Grade 33–8

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify CKLA 2nd Edition agendasAmplify CKLA 3rd Edition agendasAmplify CKLA Florida Edition agendasAmplify CKLA California Edition agendas
Coming soon!
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursPreK
K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		TK
K–2
3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
Maximizing impact: Data-informed remediation with the ARG for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2K–2
3–5
Maximizing impact: Data-informed remediation with the ARG/DERG for teachers3 hours3–53–5
Writing for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		Coming soon!
K–2
3–5
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hoursK–5K–5K–5K–5
Student engagement for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Supporting all learners for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Pacing for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition + mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Data driven instruction for teachers3 hoursComing soon!

Amplify CKLA companion programs

Session topicDurationAmplify CKLA 3rd Edition agendas
Writing Studio companion training for teachers3 hoursK–5
Language Studio companion training for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5
Language Studio California Edition companion training for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Amplify CKLA + Caminos

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify CKLA 2nd Edition + Amplify Caminos 1st Edition agendasAmplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd edition agendasAmplify CKLA/Caminos California Edition agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Program overview for leaders3 hoursPreK–5PreK–5TK–5
Transition training for teachers to 3rd Edition1 hourK–2
3–5
Skills Strand
Knowledge Strand

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify CKLA 2nd Edition + Amplify Caminos 1st Edition agendasAmplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition agendas
Coming soon!		Amplify CKLA/Caminos California Edition agendas
Coming soon!
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Writing for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5
Student engagement for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Supporting all learners for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Pacing for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Amplify Desmos Math

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify Desmos Math agendasAmplify Desmos Math California Edition agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursK–5
6–A1
High school
Program overview for teachers3 hoursPreK/TK
K–5
6–A1
High school		PreK/TK
High school
Program overview for leaders3 hoursK–5
6–A1
High school		High school

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify Desmos Math agendasAmplify Desmos Math California Edition agendas
Coming soon!
Supporting all learners for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–A1
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hoursK–A1High school
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–A1
High school
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–A1
High school
Snapshots in the Teacher Dashboard for teachers1 hour6–A1
Teaching a lesson with digital student screens for teachers1 hourK–5
Unit-level planning for teachers1 hourK–5
6–A1
High school
Supporting and facilitating meaningful discourse for teachers3 hoursComing soon!K–5
6–A1/M1
High school
Assessment in action: Analyzing data, reports, and planning next steps for teachers3 hoursComing soon!K–5
6–A1/M1
Increasing engagement with instructional routines for teachers3 hoursComing soon!

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Amplify ELA

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify ELA 2nd Edition agendasAmplify ELA Florida Edition agendasAmplify ELA California Edition agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hours6–86–8Grade 6
ELA + Caminos
Program overview for teachers3 hours6–86–8Grade 6
Program overview for leaders3 hours6–86–8ELA + Caminos

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify ELA 2nd Edition agendasAmplify ELA California Edition agendas
Coming soon!
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hours6–86–8
ELA + Caminos Grade 6
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hours6–86–8
ELA + Caminos Grade 6
Writing: Improving through feedback for teachers3 hours6–8
Supporting all learners for teachers3 hours6–8
Data-informed instruction for teachers3 hours6–8
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hours6–86–8
ELA + Caminos Grade 6
Teaching with print and digital for teachers1 hour6–8
Lesson planning for teachers1 hour6–8
Pacing for teachers1 hour6–86–8
Increasing student engagement for teachers1 hour6–86–8
Grading and assessment for teachers1 hour6–86–8

Amplify ELA companion programs

Session topicDurationAmplify ELA Language Studio California Edition agenda
Amplify ELA California 6–8 Language Studio companion for teachers3 hoursAgenda

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Amplify Math

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify Math agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursGrade 6–Algebra 1
Geometry–Algebra 2
Program overview for teachers3 hoursGrade 6–Algebra 1
Geometry–Algebra 2
Program overview for leaders3 hoursGrade 6–Algebra 1
Geometry–Algebra 2

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify Math agendas
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Addressing prerequisite skills for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Using differentiation supports for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Using data to drive instruction for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Orchestrating math discussions for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hoursAgenda
Lesson-level planning for teachers1 hourAgenda
Unit-level planning for teachers1 hourAgenda
Increasing engagement with instructional routines for teachers1 hourAgenda
Building language with math routines for teachers1 hourAgenda

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Amplify Science

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify Science agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursK–5
6–8
Program overview for teachers3 hoursTK
K–5
6–8
Program overview for leaders3 hoursK–5
6–8

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify Science agendas
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
Supporting all learners with complex texts for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
Supporting multilingual/English learners for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
Writing in science for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
Engineering Internship for teachers3 hoursGrade 6–Metabolism
Grade 7–Plate Motion
Grade 8–Force and Motion
Science Seminar for teachers3 hours6–8
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hoursK–5
6–8
Assessment system for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
Enhancing the digital experience for teachers1 hourK–5
Planning with the Coherence Flowchart for teachers1 hourK–8
Planning an Amplify Science lesson for teachers1 hourK–8
Supporting all learners: Exploring the resources for teachers1 hourK–8
Supporting all learners: Teacher modeling and student discourse for teachers1 hourK–8
Supporting all learners: Multimodal instruction for teachers1 hourK–8
Analyzing student work for teachers1 hourK–8
Unit Materials Kits and prep for teachers1 hourK–8
Grading with Amplify Science for teachers1 hourK–8

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Boost Literacy

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationBoost ReadingBoost Close ReadingBoost LecturaBoost Reading/ Lectura
Getting started for teachers2 hoursK–56–8K–2K–2
Getting started for leaders2 hoursK–5

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationBoost ReadingBoost Close Reading
Maximizing data for teachers1 hourK–56–8

Online courses

Online courses prepare teachers to implement Boost Literacy programs.

Course topicBoost ReadingBoost Close ReadingBoost Lectura
Getting started for teachersK–56–8K–2
Getting started for leadersK–5

mCLASS® Intervention

mCLASS Intervention sessions

Session topicDurationmCLASS Intervention agendas
Initial training for interventionists and coordinators6 hoursK–6

mCLASS Intervention Universal sessions

Session topicDurationAgendas
Initial training + DIBELS 8th Edition:
Administration and scoring training for interventionists and coordinators		9 hoursK–6

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Online courses

Online courses prepare teachers to administer and score mCLASS Literacy programs.

Course topicCourse overviews
Program overview for interventionistsK–6

mCLASS Literacy

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition agendasmCLASS Lectura agendasmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/mCLASS Lectura agendasLouisiana K–3 Literacy Screener agendas
Administration and instruction essentials for teachers6 hoursK–8K–6 English
K–6 Spanish		K–8K–3
Administration and scoring training for teachers3 hoursK–8K–6 English
K–6 Spanish		K–3
Administration and reporting training for leaders3 hoursK–8K–6K–8

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition agendasmCLASS Lectura agendasmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/ mCLASS Lectura agendasLouisiana K–3 Literacy Screener agendas
Creating a data-driven classroom for teachers3 hoursK–8K–6K–8K–3
Building a data-driven culture for leaders3 hoursK–8K–6K–8K–3
Assessing with fidelity for teachers1 hourK–8K–6K–8K–3
Reporting and instruction basics for teachers1 hourK–8K–6K–8
Progress monitoring for teachers1 hourK–8K–6K–8K–3
Goal setting and growth outcomes for teachers1 hourK–8K–6K–8K–3
Reporting basics for leaders1 hourK–8K–6K–8K–3

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.PLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Online courses

Online courses prepare teachers to administer and score mCLASS Literacy programs.

Course topicmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition overviewsmCLASS Lectura overviewsLouisiana K–3 Literacy Screener overviewsmCLASS Literacy North Carolina overviewsmCLASS Lectura North Carolina overviewsPaper DIBELS 8th Edition overviews
Administration and instruction essentials for teachersK–8K–6K–3K–6
K–6
Calibration training for teachersK–8
Coming soon!		K–8
Coming soon!
Transition training for DDS teachersK–8
Administration and scoring training for DDS teachersK–8
Administration and reporting training for leadersK–3

mCLASS Math & Boost Math

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationmCLASS Math 2nd Edition agendasCalifornia Edition agendas
Program overview for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8		K–5
6–8
Program overview for leaders3 hoursK–8K–8

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationmCLASS Math 2nd Edition agendasCalifornia Edition agendas
Student thinking and instructional next steps for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8		K–5
6–8
mCLASS Math + Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention3 hoursK–5
6–8		K–5
6–8
Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical thinking for teachers1 hourK–5
6–8

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsResource
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching session.Coming soon!
2. If you select any PLC or grade-level meetings, select topics for those meetings.Coming soon!

Online courses

Online courses prepare teachers to administer and score mCLASS Literacy programs.

Course topicCourse overviews
Program overview and instructional next steps for teachersComing soon!

General sessions

Amplify Classroom

Amplify Classroom sessions build expertise in Activity Builder to design, organize, and facilitate engaging digital activities.

Session topicDurationAmplify Classroom agendas
Facilitating and building activities in Amplify Classroom for teachers6 hoursAgenda
Introduction to Amplify Classroom activities for teachers3 hoursAgenda
Building activities in Amplify Classroom for teachers3 hoursAgenda

Multilingual/English learners

Multilingual/English learners sessions align instruction with best practices for multilingual reading and writing development.

Session topicDurationMultilingual/English learners agendas
Build your knowledge of multilingual/English learners 90 minutesAgenda
Deepen your knowledge of multilingual/English learners3 hoursAgenda

Problem-based math

Problem-based math sessions identify actionable strategies that build students’ conceptual understanding while developing a sense of joy in learning math

Session topicDurationProblem-based math agendas
Build knowledge of problem-based math for teachers
90 minutesK–5
6–8
High school–Coming soon!
Deepen knowledge of problem-based math for teachers3 hoursK–5
6–8
High school–Coming soon!

Science of Reading

Science of Reading sessions examine the connections between literacy and the brain to align instructional practices with models that develop skilled reading and writing.

Session topicDurationScience of Reading agendas
Build your knowledge of the Science of Reading90 minutesK–5
Deepen your knowledge of the Science of Reading3 hoursK–5

Texas programs

Select your program from the sidebar to explore its sessions.

Amplify Desmos Math Texas sessions

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationmCLASS Math 2nd Edition agendas
Supporting and facilitating meaningful discourse for teachers3 hoursComing soon!
Assessment in action: Analyzing data, reports, and planning next steps for teachers3 hoursComing soon!

Amplify Texas ELAR & SLAR

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationAmplify Texas ELAR agendasAmplify Texas ELAR + SLAR agendasAmplify Texas SLAR agendas
Initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2
3–5
6–8		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Skills Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Knowledge Strand initial training for teachers6 hoursK–2K–2K–2
Program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5
6–8		K–2
3–5
Program overview for leaders3 hoursK–5
6–8		K–5
Skills Strand program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2
Knowledge Strand program overview for teachers3 hoursK–2K–2

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationAmplify Texas ELAR agendasAmplify Texas ELAR + SLAR agendasAmplify Texas SLAR agendas
Enhancing planning for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5
6–8		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Enhancing practice for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5
6–8		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Writing for teachers3 hoursK–2
3–5		K–2
3–5		K–2
3–5
Enhancing observations for leaders3 hoursK–5
6–8
Supporting all learners for 6–8 teachers3 hours6–8
Data-informed instruction for teachers3 hours6–8
Student engagement for teachers1 hourK–5
6–8		K–5K–5
Supporting all learners for teachers1 hourK–5K–5K–5
Teaching with print and digital for teachers1 hour6–8
Lesson planning for teachers1 hour6–8
Pacing for teachers1 hourK–5
6–8		K–5K–5
Grading and assessment for teachers1 hour6–8

Coach sessions

Coach sessions can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning. Use the resources to build your coaching session.

DirectionsELAR resourcesELAR + SLAR resources
1. Select agenda items to build your coaching sessionCoaching agenda optionsCoaching agenda options
2. If you select any PLC or grade level meetings, select topics for those meetingsPLCs or grade-level planning meeting options

Boost Reading Texas sessions

Launch & Strengthen sessions

Session topicDurationTexas Boost Reading agendas
Getting started for teachers2 hoursK–5
6–8
Getting started for leaders2 hoursK–5
Maximizing data for teachers1 hourK–5
6–8

mCLASS Literacy Texas sessions

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationmCLASS Texas agendasmCLASS Lectura Texas agendasmCLASS Texas DIBELS 8/ Lectura agendas
Administration and instruction essentials for teachers6 hoursK–8K–2K–2
Administration and scoring training for teachers3 hoursK–8K–2
Administration and reporting training for leaders3 hoursK–8K–2K–2

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition Texas agendasmCLASS Lectura Texas agendasmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura Texas
Creating a data-driven classroom for teachers3 hoursK–8K–6K–8
Building a data-driven culture for leaders3 hoursK–8K–6K–8
Assessing with fidelity for teachers1 hourK–8K–6
Reporting and instruction basics for teachers1 hourK–8K–6
Progress monitoring for teachers1 hourK–8K–6
Goal setting and growth outcomes for teachers1 hourK–8K–6K–8
Reporting basics for leaders1 hourK–8K–6

Online courses

Course topicmCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition Texas course overviewmCLASS Lectura Texas course overview
Administration and instruction essentials for teachersK–8K–6

mCLASS Math Texas sessions

Launch sessions

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

Session topicDurationmCLASS Math 2nd Edition agendas
Program overview for teachers3 hoursK–5
Program overview for leaders3 hoursK–5

Strengthen sessions

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of Amplify programs through targeted support.

Session topicDurationmCLASS Math 2nd Edition agenda
Student thinking and instructional next steps for teachers3 hoursK–5

Online courses

Course topicmCLASS Math 2nd Edition online agenda
Administration and instruction essentials for teachersComing soon!

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.
Four people are sitting at a table; one is reading, two are discussing notes, and one is writing on paper.

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

Amplify resource hub webinar library

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)

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

Launch

Build your Knowledge of Science of Reading (90 min)

Deepen your Knowledge of Science of Reading (3 hour)

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)

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)

Program Overview (3 hours) 

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

Launch

Initial training (6 hours)

Program overview (3 hours) 

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

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)

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

Core: Coaching options

Select your program to view options for building a coaching session and coaching PLC or grade-level meeting topic menus.

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. 

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. 

Assessment and intervention: Launch and Strengthen session agendas

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

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours) 

Administration and scoring training (3 hours) 

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

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)

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)  

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours) 

Administration and reporting training (3 hours)

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)  

Launch

Program overview (3 hours) 

Program overview (3 hours) 

Launch

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

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

Launch

Asset-based assessment training (3 hours)

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

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)

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Launch

Getting started (2 hours)

Launch

Getting started (2 hours) 

Strengthen

Focus (1 hour)  

Launch

Getting started (2 hours) 

Strengthen

Focus (1 hour)

Online course outlines

mCLASS

mCLASS Lectura

Boost Reading

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

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

mCLASS Lectura

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 scoring training (3 hours) 

Administration and reporting training (3 hours) 

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) 

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours) 

Focus (1 hour) 

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours) 

Administration and reporting training (3 hours) 

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours) 

Launch

Administration and instruction essentials (6 hours) 

Administration and scoring training (3 hours) 

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

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 scoring training (3 hours) 

Strengthen

Strengthen (3 hours)

Focus (1 hour)

mCLASS Professional Development

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Professional development for core programs

Amplify professional development provides learning experiences that intentionally develop the knowledge and skills you need for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Learn and apply impactful instructional techniques and develop a deeper understanding of your Amplify program(s) by investing in professional development.

Amplify professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Contact us
A man writes at a desk; adjacent images include a math graph with weights labeled 5 and 8, and an open book with stars above it.

About Amplify core programs

Amplify’s programs help you teach inspiring lessons that develop student brilliance through robust scaffolding and differentiated instruction.

Literacy

  • Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition
  • Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Edition
  • Amplify ELA 2nd Edition

STEM

  • Amplify Math
  • Amplify Desmos Math* (for Grades PreK–5, 6–Algebra 1, or high school)
  • Amplify Science (for Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Contact your account executive for extended PD catalog options or quotes.

*Amplify Desmos Math is our new K–12 program (English and Spanish) using a problem-based approach for deep conceptual understanding. Contact us for available packages.

About Amplify professional development (PD)

Take a systemic approach to drive lasting change. Partner with us to create a learning plan that enhances implementation, instruction, and student impact.

At each phase of your journey, packages include different types of learning experiences strategically bundled for multiple touchpoints throughout the year.

Four circular icons in a row showing a lightbulb, pencil, whiteboard, and podium, connected by arrows in a cycle, representing stages of a process.
Prepare
 Begin
 Practice
 Advance


Shift literacy and math instruction and deepen understanding of research-based practices to support new program implementation.


Build the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with your Amplify program(s).


Refine instructional skills, expand knowledge of your Amplify program(s), and explore more advanced instructional strategies.


Deepen understanding of content and pedagogy and build-in house capacity to support a robust, sustainable implementation.

Click to learn more:

Review this page to learn more about the Begin and Practice packages.

 

Click to learn more:

Session types within packages

LAUNCH STRENGTHEN COACH
Beginning of the year
 Mid-year, end of the year Mid-year, end of the year
Three people work together at a computer in a classroom; one woman points at the monitor while the others watch attentively.
Two people sit at a table reviewing documents together against a yellow background. An icon of a barbell is displayed in the top left corner.
Two women sit side by side at a table, each with a laptop. One woman points at the other’s screen as they focus on the display against a plain blue background.
Introduce programs and support implementation Target specific instructional practices

Explore the Strengthen sessions for your:

 Tailored learning for specific needs
Core literacy programs Core STEM programs

Begin packages

You’re ready to shift to evidence-based practices in your first year with Amplify programs. Let us support your educators with professional development that builds new skills and knowledge.

Choose from flexible on-site, hybrid, or virtual packages which include:

  • One Launch session to introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.
  • One Strengthen session to deepen understanding of the program.
  • One Coach session to elevate instructional practice and meet specific needs.
  • Suggested add-ons are available.

Each package supports up to 30 participants in similar grade bands.

On-site 15 package

Three people stand in front of a whiteboard with colorful sticky notes, discussing content on a tablet. A graphic indicates "Begin: On-site package" and "15 hours.

Participate in 15 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions.

Begin: On-site 15 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Launch (1) On-site, 6-hr. Initial training for teachers
Strengthen (1) On-site, 3-hr. Program-specific Strengthen session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual, 3-hr. Program overview for leaders
Launch add-on Virtual, 1 hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Begin: Launch: Initial training for teachers

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new to our program. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of their program(s), including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades PreK–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition sessions are available July 2026.

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively coordinating the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Grades 4 and 5 available July 2026

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5) or Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will partner closely with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach: Customized support

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 15 on-site package

Two women smiling and looking at a computer screen in an office setting; text reads "Begin: Hybrid package" and "15 hours.

Participate in 15 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions.

Begin: Hybrid 15 on-site package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Launch (1) On-site, 6-hr. Initial training for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. Program-specific Strengthen session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual, 3-hr. Program overview for leaders
Launch add-on Virtual, 1 hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Begin: Launch: Initial training for teachers

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new users. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of the program, including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition sessions are available July 2026.

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively coordinating the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Notes:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 10 package

Two women smile while looking at a computer monitor in an office. A graphic overlay reads “Begin: Hybrid package” and “10 hours,” with icons for power, fitness, and communication.

Participate in 10 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions.

Begin: Hybrid 10 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Launch (1) On-site, 3-hr. Program overview for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 1-hr. Program-specific Strengthen Focus session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual,
3-hr.		 Program overview for leaders
Launch add-on Virtual, 1 hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Begin: Launch: Program overview for teachers

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 3 hours

Program overview sessions provide a basic introduction for educators who are new users of the program. In a program overview session, educators learn how to get started with the key features and materials of the program.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades PreK–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition sessions are available July 2026.

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively supporting the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy (Grades PreK–5), Amplify ELA 2nd Edition (Grades 6–8), Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 15 virtual package

A person points at a laptop screen displaying an online training module. Icons and text indicate the start of a virtual package with a duration of 15 hours.

Participate in 15 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions.

Begin: Hybrid 15 virtual package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Launch (1) Virtual, 6-hr.
(2 half-days)		 Initial training for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. Program-specific Strengthen session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (1) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual, 3-hr. Program overview for leaders
Launch add-on Virtual, 1 hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Begin: Launch: Initial training for teachers

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

Virtual, 6 hours (2 half-days)

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new to our program. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of their program(s), including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Program overview for leaders

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition sessions are available July 2026.

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively supporting the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Virtual 7 package

A person points at a laptop screen displaying an educational webpage; icons and text indicate the start of a virtual package lasting 7 hours.

Participate in 7 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Launch, Strengthen, and Coach sessions.

Begin: Virtual 7 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Launch (1) Virtual, 3-hr. Program overview for teachers
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 1-hr. Program-specific Strengthen Focus session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (1) Virtual, 3-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual, 3-hr. Program overview for leaders
Launch add-on Virtual, 1 hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Begin: Launch: Program overview for teachers

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

Virtual, 3 hours

Program overview sessions provide a basic introduction for educators who are new users of the program. In a program overview session, educators learn how to get started with the key features and materials of the program.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades PreK, K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: Program overview for leaders

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition sessions are available July 2026.

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

The program overview for leaders session supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively coordinating the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, Amplify CKLA/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, and Amplify Desmos Math high school sessions are available July 2026.

Virtual, 3 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Practice packages

You’re familiar with Amplify programs and ready to deepen your knowledge and implementation. Let us support your educators with professional development that emphasizes continuous improvement and enhanced understanding.

Choose from flexible on-site, hybrid, or virtual packages:

  • One Strengthen session to deepen understanding of the program, expand practice, and drive student outcomes
  • Two Coach sessions to elevate instructional practice and meet specific needs

Each package supports up to 30 participants in similar grade bands.

On-site 15 package

Three people discuss work while looking at a tablet in front of a whiteboard with colorful sticky notes. A "Practice: On-site package" label and "15 hours" badge are displayed.

Participate in 15 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Strengthen and Coach sessions.

Practice: On-site 15 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Strengthen (1) On-site, 3-hr. Program-specific Strengthen session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (2) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify Caminos 1st–3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify CKLA 2nd Ed/Caminos 1st Ed to Amplify CKLA 3rd Ed/Caminos 3rd Ed transition training for teachers
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers
Launch substitution
 Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA 2nd–3rd Edition transition training for teachers
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. Language Studio for CKLA 3rd Edition session

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify CKLA, Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition, and Amplify Desmos Math K–5 and 6–A1 are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st and 3rd Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition to Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch substitution

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal substitution for CKLA 2nd Edition Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: Language Studio companion training for teachers

On-site and virtual, 3 hour

Ideal add-on for Amplify CKLA (2nd Edition or 3rd Edition) Launch sessions
Participants will be able to summarize the key features of Language Studio. During this session they will connect key segments of Language Studio to ELD instructional best practices, identify the segments of Language Studio, and plan and practice a Language Studio lesson.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd or 3rd Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 15 package

Two women look at a computer screen and smile in an office setting. Text reads "Practice: Hybrid package" and "15 hours" with icons on the left side.

Participate in 15 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Strengthen and Coach sessions.

Practice: Hybrid 15 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. Program-specific Strengthen session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (2) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify CKLA 2nd Ed./Caminos 1st Ed. to Amplify CKLA 3rd Ed./Caminos 3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. Language Studio for CKLA 3rd Edition session

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition and Amplify Desmos Math K–5 and 6–A1 sessions are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs,
and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition to Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch substitution

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal substitution for CKLA 2nd Edition Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: Language Studio companion training for teachers

On-site and virtual, 3 hours

Ideal add-on for Amplify CKLA (2nd Edition or 3rd Edition) Launch sessions
Participants will be able to summarize the key features of Language Studio. During this session they will connect key segments of Language Studio to ELD instructional best practices, identify the segments of Language Studio, and plan and practice a Language Studio lesson.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd or 3rd Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Hybrid 13 package

Two women work together at a computer in an office, smiling, with a graphic indicating "Practice: Hybrid package" and "13 hours.

Participate in 13 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Strengthen and Coach sessions.

Practice: Hybrid 13 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 1-hr. Program-specific Strengthen Focus session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (2) On-site, 6-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify CKLA 2nd Ed./Caminos 1st Ed. to Amplify CKLA 3rd Ed./Caminos 3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify CKLA; Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition; and Amplify Desmos Math K–5, 6–A1, and high school are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition to Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch substitution

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal substitution for CKLA 2nd Edition Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Virtual 9 package

A person points at a laptop screen displaying an educational program. Text indicates "Practice: Virtual package" and "9 hours" of activity. Icons for learning and fitness are shown on the side.

Participate in 9 hours of program-aligned professional development across three sessions for up to 30 participants. Build understanding of research-based practices and develop knowledge through curated Strengthen and Coach sessions.

Practice: Virtual 9 package
Session type Modality/duration What’s included
Strengthen (1) Virtual, 3-hr. Program-specific Strengthen session (selected based on your needs) for Core Literacy and STEM programs.
Coach (2) Virtual, 3-hr. Coach session
Suggested enhancements
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. NEW: Amplify CKLA 2nd Ed./Caminos 1st Ed. to Amplify CKLA 3rd Ed./Caminos 3rd Ed. transition training for teachers
Launch add-on Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers
Launch substitution Virtual, 1-hr. Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Strengthen: Program-specific sessions

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

To explore the available core Strengthen sessions, select your program:

Literacy Strengthen sessions STEM Strengthen sessions

Amplify will closely partner with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Coach session: Customized support

Amplify CKLA; Amplify Caminos 3rd Edition; and Amplify Desmos Math K–5, 6–A1, and high school are available July 2026.

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify CKLA (2nd and 3rd Edition), Amplify Caminos (1st Edition), Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition biliteracy, Amplify ELA 2nd Edition, Amplify Math (Grades 6–A1), Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school), Amplify Science (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition to Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Suggested enhancement: Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Caminos 1st Edition to Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition/Caminos 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify Caminos 1st and 3rd Editions, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition/Amplify Caminos 1st Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch substitution

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal substitution for Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Enhancement options

Want to extend learning for teachers and leaders? Have a unique need that you’d like to address? Seeking more targeted coaching options? Our package enhancements allow you to tailor your PD experience to meet the needs of your staff, whether they’re new or returning to the program.

Enhancements can be purchased for all teachers/leaders or a subset of educators.

General enhancement offerings

Session name On-site,
6-hr.		 On-site,
3-hr.		 Virtual,
6-hr.
(2 half days)		 Virtual,
3-hr. 		 Virtual,
1-hr.
Leadership Launch session       A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Leadership Strengthen session A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Launch (Practice) session for teachers and leaders   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Strengthen session for teachers and leaders   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Coach session for teachers and leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers         A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Launch add-on: Language Studio companion training for K–2 or 3–5 teachers   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Launch substitution: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition         A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: Amplify CKLA Grade 3–5 Skills supplement training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to implement Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills in the classroom. Learn the foundational elements of Amplify CKLA Grades 3–5 Skills, including becoming familiar with materials and key lesson components.

Note:

  • Grade 3 Skills is included in the purchase of Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition, while Grade 4 Skills and Grade 5 Skills can be added on.
  • Grades 3–5 Skills are included with the purchase of Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch add-on

Suggested enhancement: Language Studio companion training for teachers

On-site and virtual, 3 hours

Ideal add-on for Amplify CKLA (2nd or 3rd Edition) Launch sessions

Participants will be able to summarize the key features of Language Studio. During this session, they will connect key segments of Language Studio to ELD instructional best practices, identify the segments of Language Studio, and plan and practice a Language Studio lesson.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 2nd or 3rd Edition (Grades K–2 or 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Launch substitution

Suggested enhancement: Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition transition training for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Ideal substitution for CKLA 2nd Edition Launch sessions
Participants will get an overview of the similarities and differences between Amplify CKLA 2nd Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition, including becoming familiar with changes in materials; the digital platform; and key lesson, assessment, and reporting components.

Session options: Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition (Grades 3–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Biliteracy packages

Biliteracy packages for Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos

We also offer several of the core Amplify CKLA sessions for our biliteracy and Spanish immersion programs. These specialized sessions support educators teaching with both Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos programs, facilitated in English, Spanish, or both languages as appropriate.

Contact your account executive for extended PD catalog options or quotes.

Companion programs

Additional sessions are available for Amplify CKLA’s companion programs (Writing Studio and Language Studio).

Get in touch with a PD expert.

Amplify Texas, K–5

Built on a systematic scope and sequence, Amplify Texas, K–5 programs offer the explicit instruction needed in today’s classrooms. Amplify Texas includes both English and Spanish curriculums. The print version of the English curriculum is titled Amplify Texas ELAR (English Language Arts and Reading). The digital version of the English curriculum is titled Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program. The print version of the Spanish curriculum is titled Amplify Texas SLAR (Spanish Language Arts and Reading). The digital version of the Spanish curriculum is titled Amplify Texas Lectoescritura.

We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Teacher observes student completing activity

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

ELAR

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

SLAR

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Session overview

Recommended sessions are highlighted below.
Audience Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
K–5 instructional leaders Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
K–2 teachers Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training 1 day Onsite Yes
K–2 teachers Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training
2 half days
 Remote Yes
Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) Skills Strand initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) Skills Strand program overview Half day Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) Knowledge Strand initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) Knowledge Strand program overview Half day Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
K–2 teachers Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) initial training 1 day onsite or 2 half days remote Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
K–2 teachers Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Skills Strand (Habilidades y destrezas) initial training 1 day onsite or 2 half days remote Onsite/Remote 5/1/22 
Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Skills Strand (Habilidades y destrezas) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote  10/1/22 
Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Skills Strand (Conocimiento) initial training 1 day onsite or 2 half days remote Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Skills Strand (Conocimiento) program overview  Half day Onsite/Remote  5/1/22 
3–5 teachers Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training 1 day or 2 half days remote Onsite/Remote Yes
3–5 teachers Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy program (digital) and ELAR (print) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
3–5 teachers Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) initial training 1 day onsite or 2 half days remote Onsite/Remote Yes
3–5 teachers Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote 5/1/22
Strengthen
K–5 leaders Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing observations for leaders Half day Onsite/Remote 9/1/22
K–2 teachers
 
 
 		 Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & practice for K–2 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
K–2 teachers Amplify Texas ELAR writing for K–2 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas SLAR enhancing planning & practice for K–2 teachers 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas SLAR writing for K–2 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote 12/1/22
3–5 teachers Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & practice for 3–5 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote  Yes
3–5 teachers Amplify Texas ELAR writing for 3–5 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas SLAR enhancing planning & practice for 3–5 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas SLAR writing for 3–5 teachers Half day Onsite/Remote 12/1/22
K–5 teachers



 Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & instruction for English language learners Half day Onsite/Remote 9/1/22
Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & instruction for students with special needs
 Half day Onsite/Remote 9/1/22
Amplify Texas ELAR Strengthening consultation session 1 hour or 3 1-hour sessions Remote 2/1/22
Amplify Texas SLAR Strengthening consultation session 1 hour or 3 1-hour sessions Remote 2/1/22
Coaching sessions

K–5 educators (leaders, principals, coaches, and teachers)

 Amplify Texas ELAR Coaching session 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes 
K–5 educators (leaders, principals, coaches, and teachers)




 Amplify Texas ELAR Coaching session 1 day onsite or 2 half days remote
 		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas ELAR Coaching session Half day Remote

Yes

 
Amplify Texas SLAR Coaching session 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Amplify Texas SLAR Coaching session 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify Texas SLAR Coaching session Half day Remote Yes

Launch

K–5 instructional leaders

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training for K–5 instructional leaders

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify Texas instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify Texas supports students as they build literacy skills in the early grades and move among reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language activities in the upper grades. Understand the purpose of the Amplify Texas program (Skills, Knowledge, and Integrated Strands) and identify components of the Amplify Texas design principles within lessons. Participants will begin creating an action plan to support communication and change management related to Amplify Texas to staff, parents, and other stakeholders.

Audience: Instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

K–2 teachers

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas K–2 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas K–2 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) Skills Strand initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas Skills Strand program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) Skills Strand program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas Skills Strand in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) Knowledge Strand initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas Knowledge Strand program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) Knowledge Strand program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas Knowledge Strand in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement Amplify Texas program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement Amplify Texas in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Skills Strand (Habilidades y destrezas) initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement Amplify Texas Skills Strand (Habilidades y destrezas) program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Skills Strand (Habilidades y destrezas) program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement Amplify Texas Skills Strand (Habilidades y destrezas) in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Knowledge Strand (Conocimiento) initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement Amplify Texas Knowledge Strand (Conocimiento) program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) Knowledge Strand (Conocimiento) program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement Amplify Texas Knowledge Strand (Conocimiento) in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

3-5 Teachers

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) initial training for 3–5 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas 3–5 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Elementary Literacy Program (digital) and ELAR (print) program overview for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas 3–5 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) initial training for 3–5 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas 3–5 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Texas, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas Lectoescritura (digital) and SLAR (print) program overview for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Texas 3–5 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

K–5 leaders

Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing observations for K–5 leaders

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for instructional leaders

Elevate program knowledge to support colleagues with effective Amplify Texas implementation! Practice analyzing Amplify Texas lessons and identify key instructional elements and next steps. Participants will be prepared to collect data and enhance classroom observations.

Audience: Instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

K–2 teachers

Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & practice for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers

Elevate program knowledge to strengthen your Amplify Texas K–2 implementation! Understand the progression of foundational skills and focus on high-quality questioning and discussion techniques through lesson study and practice. Participants will practice implementing key instructional elements and leave with annotated lessons.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas ELAR writing for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers and 2–3 months of Amplify Texas instruction

Dig into Amplify Texas writing instruction and student work in grades K–2! Identify writing opportunities in the Amplify Texas Skills and Knowledge Strand through analysis of a unit and daily lessons and analyze student writing using a program-aligned rubric. Participants will leave with an annotated unit highlighting the writing opportunities and student grouping suggestions.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR enhancing planning & practice for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers

Elevate program knowledge to strengthen your Amplify Texas K–2 implementation! Understand the progression of foundational skills and focus on high-quality questioning and discussion techniques through lesson study and practice. Participants will practice implementing key instructional elements and leave with annotated lessons.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR writing for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers and 2–3 months of Amplify Texas instruction

Dig into Amplify Texas writing instruction and student work in grades K–2! Identify writing opportunities in the Amplify Texas curriculum through analysis of a unit and daily lessons and analyze student writing using a program-aligned rubric. Participants will leave with an annotated unit highlighting the writing opportunities and student grouping suggestions.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

3–5 teachers

Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & practice for
3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for 3–5 teachers

Elevate program knowledge to strengthen your Amplify Texas 3–5 implementation! Understand the progression of foundational skills and focus on high-quality questioning and discussion techniques through lesson study and practice. Participants will practice implementing key instructional elements and leave with annotated lessons.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas ELAR writing for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers and 2–3 months of Amplify Texas instruction

Dig into Amplify Texas writing instruction and student work in grades 3–5! Identify writing opportunities in the Amplify Texas curriculum through analysis of a unit and daily lessons and analyze student writing using a program-aligned rubric. Participants will leave with an annotated unit highlighting the writing opportunities and student grouping suggestions.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR enhancing planning & practice for
3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for 3–5 teachers

Elevate program knowledge to strengthen your Amplify Texas 3–5 implementation! Understand the progression of foundational skills and focus on high-quality questioning and discussion techniques through lesson study and practice. Participants will practice implementing key instructional elements and leave with annotated lessons.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR writing for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers and 2–3 months of Amplify Texas instruction

Dig into Amplify Texas writing instruction and student work in grades 3–5! Identify writing opportunities in the Amplify Texas curriculum through analysis of a unit and daily lessons and analyze student writing using a program-aligned rubric. Participants will leave with an annotated unit highlighting the writing opportunities and student grouping suggestions.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

K–5 teachers

Amplify Texas ELAR enhancing planning & instruction for English language learners for K–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Develop a strong understanding of how to support English language learners (ELLs) with Amplify Texas instruction! Identify program-embedded instructional supports and strategies for ELL students of varying proficiency levels and plan how to adjust instruction based on formative check points. Participants will begin to develop a plan for using program supports and strategies for ELL instruction.

Audience: K–5 classroom teachers and ELL specialists (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas enhancing planning & instruction for students with special needs for K–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Develop a strong understanding of how to support students with special needs! Identify program-embedded instructional supports and strategies for students with special needs, including connections to IEP goals, and plan how to adjust instruction. Participants will leave with an accommodation plan aligned to Amplify Texas instruction and IEP goals.

Audience: K–5 classroom teachers and special education specialists (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas ELAR Strengthening consultation session

1 hour or 3 1-hour sessions

These 60-minute sessions will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify Texas and equip them with the support they need to drive toward stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and supporting all learners.

Audience: K–5 classroom teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR Strengthening consultation session

1 hour or 3 1-hour sessions

These 60-minute sessions will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify Texas and equip them with the support they need to drive toward stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and supporting all learners.

Audience: K–5 classroom teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

K–5 educators (leaders, principals, coaches, teachers)

Amplify Texas ELAR Coaching for K–5 educators

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Texas with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–4 school sites for two days. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify Texas facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Amplify Texas ELAR Coaching for K–5 educators

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Texas with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–2 school sites for one day. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify Texas facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas ELAR Coaching for K–5 educators

Half day (3 hours)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Texas with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will virtually visit for a half day. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify Texas facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches)
Modality: Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR Coaching for K–5 educators

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Texas with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–4 school sites for two days. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify Texas facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Amplify Texas SLAR Coaching for K–5 educators

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Texas with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–2 school sites for one day. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify Texas facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify Texas SLAR Coaching for K–5 educators

Half day (3 hours)

Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Texas with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will virtually visit for a half day. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify Texas facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches)
Modality: Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
2-day onsite session$4,800
1-day onsite session$3,200
1-day remote session$1,200
Half day onsite session$2,500
Half day remote session$750
1-hour Strengthening consultation session$350
3 1-hour Strengthening consultation sessions$1000
Customized onsite or remote sessionPrice will vary

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Amplify ELA: Florida Edition professional development

Amplify ELA is an engaging and rigorous curriculum designed specifically 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.

We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Two women sit at a desk; one types on a laptop while the other writes in a spiral notebook. Both are smiling. Colorful posters are visible on the wall behind them.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Infographic showing three stages: Launch (rocket icon), Strengthen (person with cube), and Coach (people rowing), each representing phases of a teaching support program throughout the school year.

Recommended professional development plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recommended sessions are highlighted below

Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
Comprehensive initial training for teachers 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 1 day Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 2 half days Remote Yes
Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Initial training for instructional leaders Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen
Enhancing observations for leaders Half day Onsite/Remote 09/01/22
Enhancing planning and practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Analytic reading Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting all learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Data-informed instruction Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen consultation session 1 hour Remote Yes
Strengthen consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Coach
Coaching sessions 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Coaching sessions 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Half day Onsite/Remote Yes

Launch

Comprehensive initial training for teachers

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 hours total)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will engage in multiple opportunities to practice components of Amplify ELA and leave confident to begin teaching.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training for teachers

1 day (6 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will leave with an action plan to begin teaching Amplify ELA.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Initial training for teachers

Two half days (3 hours per day, 6 hours total)

This full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within ~2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content about key components of Amplify ELA, which includes learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Program essentials

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the program essentials including how to navigate the digital curriculum, print materials components and how to locate assessments, data reports and other features associated with the curriculum.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants.
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training for instructional leaders

Half day (3 hours)

This training will provide district- and school-level instructional leaders with an overview of Amplify ELA so that they can support their staff in implementing Amplify. Learn basic navigation and gain an understanding of Amplify ELA’s approach to reading, writing, and language instruction. Participants will then have the opportunity to choose how to best support teachers by either developing a school-wide implementation plan or learning strategies for effective classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

Enhancing observations for leaders

Half day (3 hours)

Elevate your program knowledge to support colleagues with effective ELA implementation! Practice analyzing ELA lessons and identify key instructional elements and next steps. Participants will be prepared to analyze data and enhance classroom observations.

Prerequisite training: Initial training for leaders

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Enhancing planning and practice

Half day (3 hours)

Dig into one unit to unpack standards, assessments, and student engagement. Through backward planning, this session guides teachers to think deeply about learning outcomes and key moments of formative assessments. Teachers will leave this session with a detailed plan of a unit of their choice that includes learning outcomes, key assessment moments, and aligned instructional strategies.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers or coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Analytic reading

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how close reading functions in Amplify ELA and which teacher moves support students as they tackle complex texts. Participants will learn how to facilitate a close reading session to support key reading routines, as well as promote academic discourse and the type of collaboration that drives analysis and deepens understanding.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Supporting all learners

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how to effectively use embedded and differentiated supports and the Classwork app to support all students, including English language learners (ELLs), students with learning disabilities, struggling readers and writers, and advanced students.

Audience: Ideal for new teachers or instructional leaders who want to learn more about included supports in Amplify ELA, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-informed instruction

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will review their own student data using the Reporting and Classwork apps and align embedded supports to specific student needs. The goal of this session is to become proficient in turning Amplify ELA data into differentiated and targeted instruction.

Note: This course can be combined with the supporting all learners session to make a full day of training.

Prerequisite: 4–6 weeks of student data in Amplify’s Reporting app. It is recommended that teachers are in at least Unit B.

Audience: Ideal for teachers or support staff who want to learn how to use student data to inform instruction and provide differentiation, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation session

1 hour

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on: engagement, pacing and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an onsite Coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an onsite Coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session type Pricing
2-day onsite session $4,800
1-day onsite session $3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days remote) $1,500
Half-day onsite session $2,500
Half-day remote session $750
1-hour remote session $350
3 1-hour remote sessions $1,000

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

S5-04. Coaching tips for managing math anxiety in teachers

A blue graphic with text reading "Math Teacher Lounge" in multicolored letters and "Amplify." at the bottom, with abstract geometric shapes and lines as decoration.

So far this season, we’ve investigated math anxiety in students and its causes with passionate researchers and curriculum experts, including one from Sesame Workshop! Now we hear from Dr. Heidi Sabnani, consultant, coach, and co-host of Math 4 All, as she gives us research-based tips for teachers who are facing math anxiety themselves! Listen as we discuss Heidi’s own math anxiety and journey through math, the effects teacher math anxiety can have on instruction, and practices educators can implement right away for overcoming math anxiety.

Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode!

Download Transcript

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (00:00):

Coaching is the opportunity to provide that just-in-time kind of professional development for teachers, if we go at it in a slightly different way.

Dan Meyer (00:10):

Hey folks, welcome back to Math Teacher Lounge. I’m your host, Dan Meyer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:14):

And I’m Bethany Lockhart Johnson.

Dan Meyer (00:16):

Bethany, how are you doing, and how are you feeling about our current trajectory through this exploration of math anxiety?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:24):

Dan, I gotta tell you — let me make it about me for a second. <laugh>.

Dan Meyer (00:29):

Go. Do it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:30):

If only I had known that so many other people experienced math anxiety, and I wasn’t the only one. I mean, I’ve said it before, but you know, I hope that this series so far is helping to reframe math anxiety for folks who maybe have a narrow definition of it … and I guess expand, reframe. And also, for those folks who are working with students who have math anxiety, or who they themselves have experienced math anxiety, I hope they’ve found some tools, some resources. Right? Like, “Yes!”

Dan Meyer (01:04):

Yes! Same.

New Speaker (01:06):

And what about you? How are you feeling?

Dan Meyer (01:08):

Yeah, I hope this has been cathartic for all of our listeners who have experienced math anxiety, and not re-traumatizing, that there are lots of people who feel this way about math in particular. And that it’s so well-experienced, so broadly experienced, that people have decided to study it a whole bunch. Which is great. And now we’re moving into our kind of solutioning. You know, in my relationships, I’m sometimes told that I rush too quickly to solutions before trying to understand what’s going on. So I’ve loved our episodes that have been about what is going on. And now, with Dr. Truglio last episode and our guest today, we’re moving more into some solutions, which I’m excited about.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:49):

I don’t know, Dan, I think next time I see you I’m gonna bring a list of some concerns or worries I have, and I would love if you just get right to the solution. I’m actually OK with that.

Dan Meyer (02:01):

All right. Good to know. Good to know. I’ll say I am coming off of a day where I was feeling some teacher anxiety today, because I taught really real students. So just to let you know where I’m coming from here. I taught some seventh grade students at Montera Middle, here in Oakland Unified School District. Taught ’em a lesson outta the Desmos curriculum. And it was one of those lessons where some thorny stuff comes up. I’m talking students who are wrong for smart reasons, who are right for the wrong reasons, and their minds are working so hard trying to figure out inequalities. And I’m like trying to just step into that process as an educator with some curriculum and help shape those ideas. But it’s just … I don’t know, you want it to be as easy as like, “let me just show you how it’s done a few times, and now you got it.” But whew, some of these ideas, they take a long time to form up and they’re really easily reshaped by lots of stuff going on. So that’s where I’m at, anxiety-wise, right now. The teacher anxiety stuff.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:04):

I think there’s probably plenty of teachers who do kind of just say, this is how you do it. And so, from what I have seen of your teaching and what I know of the Desmos curriculum, it is such an opportunity to think hard about the things that we are assuming about our students, assuming about what we know about the math itself. And yeah, that requires some thought.

Dan Meyer (03:30):

Yeah, for sure. I came in ready, like, “When you multiply both sides of an inequality by a negative, this sign flips around.” And I could just say that to kids and say, “Hey, remember that! Write that down!” And a lot of them would do it really well, you know, provided the assessment problems looked like ones we’ve gone over in class. And they’re also learning — in addition to that math, they’re learning that math is a giant sack of tricks they gotta memorize, right? So there’s just these pros and cons. And at the end of the one period I’m gonna teach this week, I was like, “Well, your teacher’s gonna go over that tomorrow, when they’re with you instead of me.” So it felt a bit like I copped out on that one. And I’m just in in my feelings about that right now. And I’m gonna try to come on down here and be present in the math-anxiety world.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:25):

I appreciate you sharing that, Dan. And I think … I have a feeling that you could write a pretty catchy rhyme to allow the students to flip and <starting to rap> “multiply by negative. and dit-dit-dit-dit.” Can you feel it? You picking up that beat?

Dan Meyer (04:40):

Ooh, yeah. A nice little beat. Uh-huh. Yup.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:41):

Yeah. You know, you could come up with something pretty clever, and yet you did not lean on your wordsmithing skills. You said, “No, let us dive in.” So what are you gonna do with this lesson, by the way? What happens now? You popped in for one period, and then what happens?

Dan Meyer (05:03):

Yeah. So this is gonna be a blast. I hope you folks tune in. We’re gonna actually release the footage of me teaching this lesson live. You know, it’ll be replayed live. And on top of that, a couple of my favorite teacher coaches and just smart people about teaching are going to be giving commentary. They are gonna be giving the director’s commentary, the sports announcers’ commentary on what they’re seeing. I beg for their generosity in their commentary. But I think it’ll be a lot of fun. I’ve never seen anything like this before, a commentary track on top of a teaching lesson, in this way. So I’m just gonna gonna be excited to see what they noticed that I didn’t, what they might have done, the thoughts they might have. Maybe I’ll do a post-game interview, you know.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (05:50):

Ooh, yes!

Dan Meyer (05:50):

With my towel around my neck, <laugh> looking all sweaty.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (05:54):

Ready, set, grow!

Dan Meyer (05:55):

Like, “Yup, we gave it all out there, you know, just a real team effort.” You know, that kind of thing. We’ll see how that goes.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:02):

I actually love that idea. I love that it’s not just this one random lesson that just kind of floats out there, and it’s about, you walk away with whatever feelings you have, and the students obviously walk away, but that this is gonna help other educators.

Dan Meyer (06:17):

Yeah. Yeah. We’ll multiply my anxiety and make it more people’s anxiety. We’ll see how that goes. So stay tuned on the Math Teacher Lounge feed for that. All right?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:25):

All right! And speaking of anxiety, Dan Meyer, we gotta get to today’s show. You know, last time we had some amazing strategies for helping students from Dr. Truglio from Sesame Workshop. I gotta tell you, I sent that episode to so many of my friends, like, “Listen to these ideas!” and have had some interesting follow-up conversations. And we would love to hear what you think about this season so far, at MTLShow on Twitter or in our Facebook group, Math Teacher Lounge. So today, we’re gonna focus on strategies for supporting teachers.

Dan Meyer (07:00):

Yes. Which is why we’re so excited to bring to you folks Heidi Sabnani, who — we’ve had researchers. We’ve had Sesame Workshoppers. And Heidi Sabnani has been a classroom teacher; she’s teacher-consultant; newly minted doctoral degree holder. We’re so pumped to bring to you folks: Heidi Sabnani.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:25):

Dr. Sabnani, thank you for being here. Can we call you Dr. Heidi? What would you. …

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (07:31):

You can just call me Heidi. Yeah. Heidi is good.

Dan Meyer (07:36):

Right on.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:36):

  1. Heidi, thank you for joining us in the Lounge. We’re so excited to talk with you.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (07:41):

I am super-honored to be here. It’s really exciting and I just really appreciate the opportunity.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:47):

I will say I don’t have a PhD, although the two people I’m talking with right now, both do, and you’re both like holding up your degrees as we speak and saying, “Wah-wah.” But I imagine that if I did, I’d wanna throw that doctor in more frequently, so.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (08:02):

Well—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:03):

If I sneak in a “Doctor,” Heidi, it’s only out of respect.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (08:05):

  1. I appreciate it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:07):

Dan makes me call him Dr. Meyer all the time.

Dan Meyer (08:10):

You don’t call me Dr. Dan or Dr. Meyer, ever. So—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:13):

I will now!

Dan Meyer (08:14):

—this respect only goes towards Dr. Heidi, it seems. But yeah, we’ll take that off the air.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:19):

Well, we are going to delve into your research on math anxiety soon, because I actually — speaking of becoming a doctor, a new doctor, I have some questions. We have questions about your research, but on a personal level, I really appreciated the way that you share that you yourself experienced math anxiety as a student. So I’m wondering if you could tell us a bit about your own math anxiety, your <laugh> journey through math.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (08:50):

Yeah, so much like the people in the research that I did, and with the research that I read by others, many of us can tie the beginnings — or like the evil villain origin story of math anxiety — to a particular event, or series of events. And my series of events started, the big blow-up, I guess, in fourth grade. And I had had some struggles in school — I have mild dyslexia and dyscalculia. And so I had always been in the special group of kids who got some extra attention <laugh> from the teacher, or from an aide, or whoever happened to be in the room. But in fourth grade — at that time, they taught multiplication and division facts in fourth grade. Many, many moons ago. And I struggled greatly with just understanding what was happening and why we were moving so quickly. And, my teacher was probably not the best person to be entrusted with my learning at the time. Like, her style may have been OK for others, but it was obvious that she felt like kind of wasting her time with some people in the classroom. And I happened to be one of those people.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:26):

Mmm. You said that really diplomatically, though. <Laugh>

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (10:30):

Well, you know, you look back at things from the perspective of many years. And having made lots of mistakes myself in the classroom as a teacher, I try to give some grace to things that happened, and how you remember them. Yeah, that’s my story, but maybe she had a different one, right?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:55):

Yeah. But fourth grade Heidi was still, you know, still experiencing that. Yeah.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (11:01):

Yeah. Fourth-grade Heidi didn’t like being in the “dumb group” and didn’t like being told that she would probably not graduate from high school. So that was kind of the general environment. And I got further and further behind in math. The dyslexia was less and less of an issue the older I got, because I had great comprehension. And so I could figure out the fluency thing just by the pattern of language, because mine is mild in comparison to so many who struggle with that. But math was not working in that same way. And I got more and more behind and to the point where I was having to stay in every day at recess. And I had had it after like a month. Like, I’m not staying in at recess anymore to do this math that I don’t understand, by myself. Like, not doing it. So I—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (11:53):

Which, by the way, if there’s one way to make you hate it, <laugh> like, to engender, to endear you to a subject, could it be, “Let’s have you stay in at recess”?

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (12:07):

Right. And so one day I just stormed out of the classroom, I was like, “I’m not coming. I’m not staying, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m done.” And I can remember her standing up at the top of the hill screaming at me to come back, and I was like, “No way. Not doing it. Done with this.” I went to a parochial school, though, and my dad is a pastor. So that whole little incident blew up in the greater community in a way that I didn’t really anticipate as a fourth grader. And my parents had no idea that this was going on. And so they were shocked and dismayed that their — up until that point — oldest child, rule-follower, had done this. But then even more upset when they found out what was happening with my math understanding, or lack thereof. And they did what they knew best at the time. So my mom was a great memorizer. She has a brain like an elephant. And my dad grew up in the British system in India and Singapore, and it was at that time very much based on memorization. And so they were like, “We are gonna just work really hard. We’re gonna buckle down and do this thing <laugh>.” And so that’s what we did, and that’s where all of it began. It was not — it was just about “We’re gonna learn the facts. We’re not gonna ask questions; we’re not gonna think about it, because it’s just the rules. And if you can figure out the rules or the system or what the teacher wants, and mimic what the teacher is doing, then you’ll be successful.” And it was really successful for me, once I figured that out all the way through. My whole goal in high school when I took high school math was to take enough math courses with a high-enough GPA that when I got my BA in college, that I would never have to take math again. And I succeeded in that and got an English degree and a Master’s in world lit. And I was in no way doing math ever again.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (14:31):

But little did you know that Future You was going to be researching math anxiety. How did you wind up researching it then? How did you wind up researching math anxiety?

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (14:43):

So I took a job in school improvement when I was working in Ohio, after a number of years teaching high school English in Southern California and Guatemala and Michigan, all over the place. And I took a job in school improvement with a co-consultant who was gonna be doing the math end, and I was gonna be doing the literacy end, and we were just gonna go in, and I was gonna make kids love reading, and she was gonna make kids love math, and it was gonna be so fun. And then she decided she didn’t like working with adults and they couldn’t find anyone else. And my boss said, “So you’re just gonna do both for the rest of the year.” After that year, I got requested to go back and, and do this again. I said, “Well, if I’m gonna do this, I’m going to go back and reteach myself the math in ways that I wish that fourth-grade Heidi had learned it, and fourth-grade-and-up Heidi had learned it.” And so that was like the, the beginning of the switch. And so now equal amounts of time in my career have been spent in both. But when I started, when I continued working, when I left the classroom to continue working with teachers, and when I transitioned more into an elementary setting, I began to notice the same behaviors that I had in high school of avoiding math, and avoiding teaching math, were happening in the classrooms that I was supporting. And so I would have teachers come and say, “Oh, can we talk about this literacy thing?” And even if it was like a math meeting, or we were supposed to split the time evenly, and ohhh, for some reason the literacy time talk would just like move over <laugh>. And then there was no time to talk about math at the end. And “Oh, that’s just too bad.” Like, we’re just gonna move on to this next thing. Funny how that happens, right?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:32):

Yeah. <laugh>.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (16:34):

And noticing teachers’ behaviors around going to and or avoiding math professional development that I was giving. Or getting sick. Or like having to leave the room for a long period of time. And so I began to notice these behaviors. And initially I thought I wanted to look at math anxiety in children, which is one branch of the research that I started with. But as I got into things more, the people that I have the most influence in are adults right now.

Dan Meyer (17:09):

Right.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (17:09):

And so as I started looking at the research that had already been done, I feel like we do a really nice job of admiring the problem of math anxiety, and we do less in the “what to do about” phase. And so I was like, “Well, if I’m going to continue to be in this career and in this profession, then I need to be doing something in the space of ‘what are we gonna do about it?’” And so that’s how I switched to looking at “what do we do to help teachers?” Particularly elementary school teachers, because that’s the area of greatest need, based on previous research that we could at least do something to help.

Dan Meyer (17:51):

Yeah. A previous guest mentioned that a lot of research is better understood as me-search, especially in this kind of arena, where we’re going back in to try to understand what it was that happened for us and how to prevent it for future generations. And I have nothing but respect for that motivation right there. And your point is well-put, that it is very possible to spend a ton of time examining math anxiety from every angle, every facet, you know, put it up there on a mounted board and admire it … and there’s a lot of value there, but I appreciate that you’re moving into, “So, now what?”

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (18:27):

Yep.

Dan Meyer (18:28):

And so I’d love if you’d share with us and our listeners the broad details of your study, and what you ultimately found. Like, if there are any large takeaways here, what were they?

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (18:40):

Yeah. So a couple of things to kind of just lay a little bit of the groundwork. One out of four teachers say that they have math anxiety. Those numbers increase rapidly, the younger of the grades that the teachers teach. So if we think about preK to two, it’s about 88%, based on other people’s research. So I was like, “Well that’s a lot of people <laugh>!” And so, that’s the scope of the problem. And so I was thinking, “OK, what do we do in these moments?” Because other researchers had said they’re spending — when they don’t like it, they’re spending less time teaching math and avoiding it, or relying on methods that were done to us. Just out of fear of trying something different, at many times. And so one thing that has become more prominent in math education since I transitioned 16 years ago into this has been the role of coaches in school systems. And so one of the questions I wanted to think about was, “What can coaches or math specialists who work with adults as well do to help the teachers that they work with?” So that was kind of the lens that I was looking at. Like, let’s think about the systems that we currently have in place. Is there something that we could be doing that would help teachers, that wouldn’t be so huge or so monumental that with little shifts in our own behavior as coaches or professional development providers that we could make that would make a difference? So that being said, this was a qualitative study, so a small group of people in very intense settings. So I kind of always wanna preface that, because in academic world, you know, there’s <laugh> all sorts of thoughts about that. So I had asked teachers from districts that I work with who self-identified as having math anxiety if they would be interested in the study. So, this is what we’re thinking of, this is what it would look like, and the scope of the support they would have.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (20:50):

So basically you’re tracking these four teachers who self-identified as math anxious. And were you serving as their coach and kind of seeing what was working?

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (21:00):

I was serving as their coach. Yeah. I was serving as their coach during that time period. And some fairly recent research that had been done was in the idea of “Can we do some reflective conversations or reflective writing around where your math anxiety started, and how that makes you feel both as a teacher of mathematics now, because you are teaching math, and how that affects your identity as a mathematician?” And so that was the first starting point. And that was a really critical moment that I’m glad that I had stumbled across the research on, because it turned out that having someone hear and acknowledge that what happened to them was both wrong and inappropriate, in many cases, and in a couple instances, was traumatic and also abusive — that that mattered. That it was OK to feel anger and hurt and frustration based on what happened to you in the past. And then have that moment to reflect on, “OK, so what do you want the classroom environment that you’re building as a teacher to feel like for your students?” So it was turning that moment of how they felt to thinking about, then, what kind of environment do we wanna make within the math classroom? And what steps can we take to ensure that happens? So that was like, Step One is just thinking about what that looks like. What kind of math identities then do you want to create for your students? Because all of the teachers were very concerned with not continuing the cyclical nature that often happens with math anxiety, from teacher to student and back again.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (22:54):

Well, and even that validation, right? Like, how many of them hadn’t even had, like you said, had that? We had another, when in our first episode, Dr. Gerardo Ramirez talked about that validation and how key.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (23:09):

Yeah. That was the first thing. The next step of it, which very different from what I often do — I don’t generally go in and model for teachers — just me, taking over your classroom. I really like to co-plan with teachers and co-teach with teachers and have it not feel like they’re losing control over what’s happening in that moment. And that’s generally the way that I go in when I’m doing professional development in a classroom, right? Like, I’m working with the teacher and we’re a team; we’re doing this together. But in these four cases, these teachers were very, very resistant <laughs> to co-teaching. And so I said, “OK, well, let’s throw everything out. Let’s try whatever it happens to be.” So the modeling aspect turned out to be really important, in part when three out of the four cases, because they were like, “Oh, I can do that.” <laugh> like, Well, yeah, I know you can! Like, it was that having a moment to sit back and see someone else doing it — which is harder to do when you’re co-teaching, right? It’s harder to be reflective in the moment when you’re still thinking about the teaching choices you’re making, because you’re both co-teaching.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:24):

Right. Or sometimes you see, like in co-teaching, it falls into “one teach, one manage,” you know, or something like that.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (24:31):

Yes.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:31):

I have definitely fallen into that. But you, by modeling … it was almost, I don’t know, it feels like you’re kind of holding their hand. Like, “I’ll show you!” And not that it has to exactly look like that, right? But you found if a coach is coming in and the teacher gets to sit back and basically watch their students learn, they’re probably gettinga ton of information about their students, and they’re really learning some teaching strategies for mathematics that they can then like dip their toe in. I think? <Laugh> Am I kind of thinking of this? I’m trying to picture this and it feels rich and rife with possibilities <laugh>.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (25:16):

Well, and it, it turned it from … I think sometimes, when I go into a classroom, I learn so much from watching teachers and being able to sit and listen to students, that you don’t always have the luxury of when you’re the teacher. <Laugh> Right? It’s so much harder to be like, “OK, I’m gonna be watching what a kid does, because I’m hoping someone uses this strategy, so I can connect it to this other person’s strategy, so that we can take that apart and look at it and really have immediate discussion around it.” Those are all so many things that are happening in the moment as a teacher. You don’t get to sit back and look at it from a researcher kind of lens. Or look, you know, from the up-above lens. And when I had these conversations with teachers, I was like, “That’s what I want you to do. I want you to be able to sit back and look at all the things that are happening.” Because then you begin to notice not only the moves that the teacher — in this case, me — who was modeling for them was doing, but also the student conversations. And it was almost like having a case study within that moment, where they got to sit back and just experience, versus thinking about all the decisions that they would make at the moment. So that was something that was really surprising to me.

Dan Meyer (26:33):

Yeah. And I love the idea that they’re seeing the pedagogical moves, but they’re also experiencing perhaps a sense of math that’s de-stressed. You know, they are allowing themselves to sit next to students and feel as though they are a student, in ways that if you’re co-teaching, you are still like enmeshed in the gears of the whole lesson. I wonder if that’s a part of this too. So I’m hearing from you that we’re taking these teachers who have all admitted to some math anxiety, and that one of the interventions, or one of the findings, was that modeling worked really well for, again, this set of teachers. But you modeling lessons that highlighted mathematics, that was less anxious, that helped the teachers see that students were engaging in really productive un-anxious ways, brave ways. Were there other kinds of takeaways that you experienced there?

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (27:24):

Yeah. So in addition to that, we had to think about and start at Step One. One of the teachers that I worked with had done her student teaching with a teacher who had math anxiety, and who never taught math. And so she entered her teaching career, never having taught math before or seen it taught. And so in her situation, she had had one course in her teacher preparation program, that was on fractions.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:54):

That’s often the case, right? One math methods course! Help, we have to get it all in in this semester! <Laugh>

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (28:01):

<Laugh> Yes. And so she came in and said, “I feel like I have to start at the beginning.” And so there was no question that was inappropriate, or that we weren’t going to explore or think about. And so that was, I think, the starting place with that particular teacher. And then one other, who was kind of in her same age range, where we had to start thinking about, “OK, how did you learn as a learner? What ways are you seeing your students learn as learners? And then let’s focus on those first as the areas that you wanna explore in your teaching.” And so a lot of that ended up being much more visual and hands-on ways of exploring. And so those were some of the changes in, I think, pedagogy that were the most significant. In a couple of cases, these are early elementary teachers who had had one experience with manipulatives in their whole teaching career up until that point. And so one teacher brought me a bucket of Cuisenaire rods and said, “These are in my room. I don’t know what they are. <Laugh> Are we building things with them? Are they blocks that are just small? <Laugh> Like what are they for?”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:20):

Yes!

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (29:21):

And so, <laugh> it was that idea of, “OK, let’s, let’s explore all the different ways that we can use these, and that we can think about how your students might learn best with this particular tool that you have in your room.”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:34):

So hearing you talk about this research — which by the way, I know, you’re like, for our listeners, it’s all, “Quick, boil down your years and hours of research and synthesize it for us.”

Dan Meyer (29:50):

Your life’s work.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:50):

In a little tiny neat package. But really though, even though I know there’s so many layers to your research, and your work with these teachers, I wanna flag for our listeners that even the things that you’ve identified for us, you were giving teachers space — as coach, giving teachers space, and validating their experience as a mathematician, as you know, as a young student, right? Making space for that experience and validating “Yeah, that was really lousy and your math anxiety is real.” Like, Step One is already powerful. And then you’re creating space where they get to be in their classroom as a learner, right? And have a lesson modeled. And then you’re creating more <laugh> space for them to learn and ask questions. And I have absolutely seen teachers like, “I don’t know what to do with these,” and kind of shove aside the district-provided tools or the curriculum-provided tools. And so even those things, Heidi — Dr. Heidi <laugh> — you know, even if … I don’t know, for me, I am listening to you and just holding those points in mind and feeling like that, alone, if a coach did even just that … I know there’s so much more to it, but what a powerful opportunity for reclaiming math as an educator, right? That’s what I’m feeling.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (31:25):

Well, and I was hoping that there wouldn’t be … I mean, OK, it’s a double-sided hope. If there was something like so novel and so fantastic that was so different from the things that we have already at our disposal, that would’ve made a much better book or dissertation. <Laugh> But the reality is, there are things that we already know work. And we don’t often take the time or, or are given the time to be able to explore those things. Right? So even as coaches, you have district initiatives or things like, “this is what we’re working on this year,” and that’s fantastic, right? We keep those things moving forward. But if we’re thinking about coaching teachers with math anxiety, no teacher with math anxiety is going to be coming to NCTM.

Dan Meyer (32:16):

Right. Right. Or the training.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (32:19):

Or the training. They’re like, “Oh, PD day? Literacy! Yes, please! Bye!” You know, it’s that piece of it. So when we have these moments, the coaching is the opportunity to provide that just-in-time kind of professional development for teachers, if we go at it in a slightly different way. It does not have to be huge. It can be things like, they feel that they’re stronger in literacy. Well, then, let’s explore some of the ideas around math, anxiety and math identity and examples of people who’ve overcome either those things or other barriers in their life. And how can those things help form not only your students’ math identity, but your math identity. And it gives entry points in ways that you have access to if you’re a person’s coach.

Dan Meyer (33:18):

So in that sense, I’d love to know from you, if someone came to you at a coach’s meeting at NCSM and asked you, “What is something I can do right now to support the teachers at my site and my district, who are commonly experiencing math anxiety?” What is something that you would offer them in that brief moment you had with that coach?

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (33:40):

So it is hearing their story first. That’s the big one. And then, can you, in your coaching, provide opportunities to slow down? We all have these pacing guides in some form or another, that drive the things that are coming. Is there a way that you can set up meetings a month or more in advance of the content that those teachers are going to teach? Can we explore a month in advance, that content? And ways to teach it and understand it? There’s the ways to teach it, but there’s also like, “What is this math and how do kids experience this math?” What kind of experiences do we want to have ourselves as learners and then have as kids? If we can create cycles like that, that then don’t feel so rushed. It’s so hard when we’re like, “Oh, we have a planning meeting and we’re meeting with our coach!” And you’re teaching this lesson tomorrow. “Learn all this stuff about adding and subtracting on a number line. Go!” It’s so fast. And so if we had those opportunities to build in cycles, where we could slow down that process, it would make a huge difference in the lives of so many teachers. And it’s finding that time and the willingness. If you listen to teachers, they will work with you. If you validate what happens to them, and acknowledge that sometimes that still happens to us. I mean, I still have experiences like that. Sometimes I’ll walk into a classroom and I’m like, “Oh, I forgot how to do that!” You know, like, “I’ve not reached that far in my remaking of my own education!”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (35:24):

Yehhhh, heh heh heh.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (35:25):

<laugh>. And you think, “I don’t wanna look like an idiot. I’m the math consultant who’s here to duh duh duh.” All of those things still come up. Yeah. And stopping and saying like, “OK, everybody, this is what’s happening to me right now.” <laugh> The vulnerability you have, you have to think about that. Even if you don’t have experiences of math anxiety in your own life. Let’s say you always rocked out in math, and you’re now a math specialist and you love it. You think it’s the most spectacular thing. There’s some other element in your life where you face some anxiety. All of us do. So it’s about thinking about, “OK, this is where I experience anxiety. Can I find that in the teachers that I work with? And then, can my teachers find that in the students they work with?” You know, the teachers, as they begin to reflect on their own experiences, began noticing which students always went to the nurse during math time, always asked to go to the bathroom during math time, always couldn’t find a pencil, or whatever it happened to be. And they began to be more aware of their students’ behaviors as well, and could then say, “Hey, let’s sit and talk about how you feel in math class. Like, I’ve been noticing that when it’s time for math, like your stomach hurts. Can we talk about like why that might be?” Because those teachers with math are more attuned, often, to those students. And so it just … the time factor, I guess is, is the bottom line.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (36:59):

I just wanna say, it’s so great to have you in the Lounge. Because I think you’re really bringing this perspective that we haven’t talked about, which … we are not expecting coaches to walk in and know it all. That’s actually the exact opposite. You are allowed to be vulnerable. We are not saying, “Come,” quote-unquote, “Fix this.” It’s like, “Hey, how can you facilitate and make space?” And I feel like you have given us just a taste of like how that might be possible. And you know, I think even if it’s just a chance for teachers to reflect on their own experience in math, even that would probably be kind of revolutionary for — and I don’t say that word lightly — for some PD spaces, especially if they have another peer in their team that is like quote-unquote, “a whiz,” or like, “Oh, I don’t feel like I can be vulnerable in my math anxiety because this teacher seems to know it all.” But you’re creating space where it’s like, “Hey, we all have strengths. We all have areas where we could support each other.” And I love that invitation for coaches. I love that invitation for teachers. And … yeah. I’m just, I’m so glad we get a snapshot of your research. Again, I know, I respect that this is not the whole thing!

Dan Meyer (38:22):

Can we find … is there a link to your dissertation in the show notes, for those of us who peruse dissertations? Can we add something here? Think about —

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (38:29):

Oh, I have no idea!

Dan Meyer (38:30):

Just think about it. Just think about it. But —

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (38:34):

It’s somewhere on ProQuest. It did get some. …

Dan Meyer (38:36):

Right on.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (38:36):

Is that a thing, Dan? Could I go, like, Google your dissertation?

Dan Meyer (38:39):

You definitely could. Yeah, for sure. It’s around. Yeah, same way. Well, that’s awesome. And I think it’s so helpful for those who write those enormous unwieldy essays to, you know, distill it in different ways. I hope it’s been … we’ve enjoyed so much, hearing you carve up a huge project into pieces that were really helpful for us to think about here in the Lounge. Thank you so much for coming on and hanging out with us. Dr. Sabnani, it’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (39:06):

Hey, I’m happy to do it any time. Always the biggest joy in the work that I do is little changes in a positive direction.

Dan Meyer (39:18):

Right on.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (39:19):

That’s all that this is about. Right? Whether it’s kids, whether it’s teachers, whether it’s administration. The work that we all do is so valuable, and it is more and more difficult over time. And just giving ourselves a little bit of space to think about and acknowledge that, I think, is really important. So I appreciate you all making space as well. And thinking about this idea. Because <laugh> we’re math people! And we don’t have math anxiety! Right?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:51):

<laugh>

Dan Meyer (39:51):

So people would assume

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (39:54):

<laugh>. Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:54):

Thank you so much. You’re welcome back in the Lounge anytime. <laugh> Thanks so much for listening to our conversation with Dr. Heidi Sabnani, consultant and co-host of the show “Math for All.” I can’t get enough about talking about math anxiety!

Dan Meyer (40:13):

Especially from people who are working with teachers so closely.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (40:18):

Yes, totally. I loved that lens of, “Hey, look at what happens if we actually focus on the teacher’s experience and help them kind of reclaim this comfort, this sense of identity, relationship with math that’s positive. How does that impact their teaching?” I loved talking about it, and I’m really interested in how that work continues to evolve. So thank you so much Dr. Sabnani, for your time. And you know, listeners, please keep in touch with us on our Facebook, in our discussion group, Math Teacher Lounge Community, or you can find us on Twitter at MTL show.

Dan Meyer (40:58):

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to Math Teacher Lounge, wherever you get podcasts. Also, if you like what you’re hearing, please rate us and leave us a review. It will help more listeners find the show. And it just makes me and Bethany feel good about ourselves, too. You can find more information on all of Amplify’s shows at our new podcast hub. Go to Amplify.com/hub.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (41:20):

You know, Dan, I also always like to say, I find most of my podcasts through recommendations from other listeners, friends, folks. So if you like what you’re hearing, share it in your teacher lounge. Just, like, on break, turn it up and start vibing and having the conversation right there.

Dan Meyer (41:40):

Yep. Yep. I got a better idea. Take the link to this podcast and then copy it and find the longest — the thread in your inbox with the most people on it. One of those ones that’s like, someone accidentally cc’d like 500 people, everyone at your school. Press “reply.” This is crucial. Not “reply,” but “reply all.” Paste that link in. Press “send.” Watch what happens.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:04):

Nothing but good —

Dan Meyer (42:04):

Good fortune will be yours.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:06):

Nothing but good things can happen when you send this to 500 people in the next 10 minutes. Next time on Math Teacher Lounge, we’re gonna be joined by Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer of St. Mary’s College for a conversation about math anxiety, and specifically Dan, how parents and caregivers, how their disposition influences the way their kiddos feel about math.

Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer (42:29):

I think the most important thing we know from literature right now is that high-math-anxious parents, when they interact with their children, their children learn less math over the course of the school year.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:40):

And get this, she’s gonna talk to us about an app that just might be something worth, you know, heading over to the app store for.

Dan Meyer (42:49):

I’ve used some apps, I have opinions, and I can’t wait. We just share recommendations on apps with Dr. Schaeffer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:56):

That’s next time on Math Teacher Lounge. Thanks so much for listening.

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What Dr. Heidi Sabnani says about math

“Much like the people in my research, many of us can tie the beginnings or the ‘evil villain origin story’ of our own math anxiety to an event or series of events.”

– Dr. Heidi Sabnani

Consultant and Co-host of Math 4 All

Meet the guest

Heidi Sabnani is always surprised that she works in math education. She developed math anxiety as a young student and spent much of her school life and early career avoiding math. After teaching English in the United States and Guatemala, and earning her MA in World Literature, she found herself in the uncomfortable position of working in math classrooms as a school improvement consultant. Once she realized that her life was going to involve math, Heidi decided to relearn math in the ways she wished she had learned the first time around. 18 years later she is still learning with and from the students and teachers she has the privilege to serve.

Heidi’s doctoral research at Northeastern University focused on interventions for math anxiety in elementary teachers. She currently works as a consultant, speaker, and author.

Portrait of a woman with long dark hair, wearing a light gray sweater, smiling in front of a blurred outdoor background, with graphic elements framing the photo—perfect for math teacher resources or a welcoming math teacher lounge.
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About Math Teacher Lounge

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!

You might also like:

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Math Teacher Lounge study guides

Track the tips and strategies you’re hearing with the MTL study guide!

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Free professional learning for math…

Join these live webinars to find tips and practices for enriching math instructi…

Desmos Math 6–8 receives perfect sc…

Learn more about Desmos Math 6–8 green rating from EdReports!

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Recommended professional development plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recommended sessions are highlighted below

Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
Comprehensive initial training for teachers 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 1 day Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 2 half days Remote Yes
Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Initial training for instructional leaders Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen
Enhancing observations for leaders Half day Onsite/Remote 09/01/22
Enhancing planning and practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Analytic reading Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting all learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Data-informed instruction Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen consultation session 1 hour Remote Yes
Strengthen consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Coach
Coaching sessions 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Coaching sessions 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Half day Onsite/Remote Yes

Launch

Comprehensive initial training for teachers

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 hours total)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will engage in multiple opportunities to practice components of Amplify ELA and leave confident to begin teaching.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training for teachers

1 day (6 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will leave with an action plan to begin teaching Amplify ELA.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Initial training for teachers

Two half days (3 hours per day, 6 hours total)

This full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within ~2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content about key components of Amplify ELA, which includes learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Program essentials

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the program essentials including how to navigate the digital curriculum, print materials components and how to locate assessments, data reports and other features associated with the curriculum.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants.
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training for instructional leaders

Half day (3 hours)

This training will provide district- and school-level instructional leaders with an overview of Amplify ELA so that they can support their staff in implementing Amplify. Learn basic navigation and gain an understanding of Amplify ELA’s approach to reading, writing, and language instruction. Participants will then have the opportunity to choose how to best support teachers by either developing a school-wide implementation plan or learning strategies for effective classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

Enhancing observations for leaders

Half day (3 hours)

Elevate your program knowledge to support colleagues with effective ELA implementation! Practice analyzing ELA lessons and identify key instructional elements and next steps. Participants will be prepared to analyze data and enhance classroom observations.

Prerequisite training: Initial training for leaders

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Enhancing planning and practice

Half day (3 hours)

Dig into one unit to unpack standards, assessments, and student engagement. Through backward planning, this session guides teachers to think deeply about learning outcomes and key moments of formative assessments. Teachers will leave this session with a detailed plan of a unit of their choice that includes learning outcomes, key assessment moments, and aligned instructional strategies.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers or coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Analytic reading

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how close reading functions in Amplify ELA and which teacher moves support students as they tackle complex texts. Participants will learn how to facilitate a close reading session to support key reading routines, as well as promote academic discourse and the type of collaboration that drives analysis and deepens understanding.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Supporting all learners

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how to effectively use embedded and differentiated supports and the Classwork app to support all students, including English language learners (ELLs), students with learning disabilities, struggling readers and writers, and advanced students.

Audience: Ideal for new teachers or instructional leaders who want to learn more about included supports in Amplify ELA, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-informed instruction

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will review their own student data using the Reporting and Classwork apps and align embedded supports to specific student needs. The goal of this session is to become proficient in turning Amplify ELA data into differentiated and targeted instruction.

Note: This course can be combined with the supporting all learners session to make a full day of training.

Prerequisite: 4–6 weeks of student data in Amplify’s Reporting app. It is recommended that teachers are in at least Unit B.

Audience: Ideal for teachers or support staff who want to learn how to use student data to inform instruction and provide differentiation, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation session

1 hour

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on: engagement, pacing and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an onsite Coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an onsite Coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
2-day onsite session$4,800
1-day onsite session$3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days remote)$1,500
Half-day onsite session$2,500
Half-day remote session$750
1-hour remote session$350
3 1-hour remote sessions$1,000

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Amplify ELA CA Edition professional development

Amplify ELA is an engaging and rigorous curriculum designed specifically 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.

We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Two women sit at a desk; one types on a laptop while the other writes in a spiral notebook. Both are smiling. Colorful posters are visible on the wall behind them.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended professional development plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recomended sessions are highlighted below

Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
Comprehensive initial + ELD training for teachers 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 1 day Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 2 half days Remote Yes
Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Initial training for instructional leaders Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Comprehensive ELD training for teachers Half day Remote Yes
Basic ELD training for teachers 90 min. Remote Yes
Strengthen
Enhancing observations for leaders Half day Onsite/Remote 09/01/22
Enhancing planning and practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Analytic reading Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting all learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Data-informed instruction Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Writing: Improving through feedback Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Strengthening consultation session 1 hour Remote Yes
Coach
Coaching sessions 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Coaching sessions 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Half day Onsite/Remote Yes

Launch

Comprehensive initial and ELD training

2 consecutive days (12 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA and Amplify ELD instruction in your schools! Learn about the integrated and designated approaches to supporting language learners using our ELD and ELA programs. Participants will learn how to navigate the Amplify platform, practice giving feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s reporting features and embedded supports to monitor student progress. Multiple opportunities to practice components of Amplify ELA and Amplify ELD are incorporated throughout this training. Participants will leave feeling confident to begin teaching Amplify ELA and Amplify ELD. Recommended for schools or districts that want embedded practice time. This session is designed for schools who have purchased Amplify ELD, Amplify’s English Language Development program.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite

Initial training for teachers

1 day (6 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn how to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will leave with an action plan to begin teaching Amplify ELA.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants; Remote, maximum 15 participants

Modality: Onsite

Initial training for teachers

2 half days (3 hours per day, 6 hours total)

This full day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within 2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content about key components of Amplify ELA, which includes learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Remote

Program essentials

Half day (3 hrs)

Learn the program essentials, including how to navigate the digital curriculum and print materials components and how to locate assessments, data reports, and other features associated with the curriculum.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training for instructional leaders

Half day (3 hours)

This training will provide district-and school-level instructional leaders with an overview of Amplify ELA so that they can support their staff in implementing Amplify. Learn basic navigation and gain an understanding of Amplify ELA’s approach to reading, writing, and language instruction. Participants will then have the opportunity to choose how to best support teachers by either developing a school-wide implementation plan or learning strategies for effective classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Comprehensive ELD training

Half day (3 hours)

This session is designed for schools who have purchased Amplify ELD, Amplify’s English Language Development program. It reviews the integrated and designated approaches to supporting language learners using our ELA and ELD programs. Participants will learn how to navigate the Amplify ELD platform, plan to teach a lesson, and monitor student progress. Multiple opportunities to practice components of Amplify ELD are incorporated throughout this training. Participants will leave feeling confident to begin teaching Amplify ELD.

Audience: This is an add-on for schools who have already been using or attended an ELA Initial training, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Remote

Basic ELD training

90 min.

This session is designed for schools that have purchased Amplify ELD, Amplify’s English Language Development program. It reviews the integrated and designated approaches to supporting language learners using our ELA and ELD programs. Participants will learn how to navigate the Amplify ELD platform, plan to teach a lesson, and monitor student progress. Participants will leave feeling prepared to begin teaching Amplify ELD.

Audience: This is an add-on for schools who have already been using or attended an ELA Initial training, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Remote

Strengthen

Enhancing observations for leaders

Half day (3 hours)

Prerequisite training: Initial training for leaders

Elevate your program knowledge to support colleagues with effective ELA implementation! Practice analyzing ELA lessons and identify key instructional elements and next steps. Participants will be prepared to analyze data and enhance classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Enhancing planning and practice

Half day (3 hours)

Dig into one unit to unpack standards, assessments, and student engagement. Through backward planning, this session guides teachers to think deeply about learning outcomes and key moments of formative assessments. Teachers will leave this session with a detailed plan for a unit of their choice that includes learning outcomes, key assessment moments, and aligned instructional strategies.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers or coaches, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Analytic reading

half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how close reading functions in Amplify ELA and which teacher moves support students as they tackle complex texts. Participants will learn how to facilitate a close reading session to support key reading routines, as well as promote academic discourse and the type of collaboration that drives analysis and deepens understanding.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Supporting all learners

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how to effectively use embedded and differentiated supports and the Classwork app to support all students, including ELLs, students with learning disabilities, struggling readers and writers, and advanced students.

Audience: Ideal for new teachers or instructional leaders who want to learn more about included supports in Amplify ELA, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-informed instruction

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will review their own student data using the Reporting and Classwork apps and align embedded supports to specific student needs. The goal of this session is to become proficient in turning Amplify ELA data into differentiated and targeted instruction.

Note: This course can be combined with the supporting all learners session to make a full day of training.

Prerequisite: 4–6 weeks of student data in Amplify’s Reporting app. It is recommended that teachers are in at least Unit B.

Audience: Ideal for teachers or support staff who want to learn how to use student data to inform instruction and provide differentiation, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Writing: Improving through feedback

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how writing functions in Amplify ELA and which teacher moves support students as they build writing skills. Participants will learn how feedback supports student growth and will practice giving targeted feedback based on rubrics and assessment data.

Audience: This course tasks teachers to look at their students’ writing, so it is recommended for delivery after 4–6 weeks of curriculum use, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on: engagement, pacing and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation session

1 hour

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an Onsite coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an Onsite coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders

Modality: Onsite/Remote, maximum 30 participants

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants

Modality: Onsite/Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session type Pricing
2 consecutive days onsite session $4,800
1-day onsite session $3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days remote) $1,500
Half-day onsite session $2,500
Half-day remote session $750
90-min. remote session $500
1-hour remote session $350
3 1-hour remote sessions $1,000

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended professional development plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Comprehensive initial training for teachers 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for teachers 1 day Onsite Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for teachers 2 half days Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for instructional leaders Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Getting started package Sess 1: 90 min.
Sess 2: 60 min.
Sess 3: 60 min.		 Remote Yes
Strengthen
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Enhancing observations for leaders
 Half day Onsite/Remote 09/01/22
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Enhancing planning and practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Analytic reading Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Supporting all learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Data-informed instruction Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Strengthening consultation session 1 hour Remote Yes
Coach
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching sessions 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching sessions
 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Half day Onsite/Remote Yes

Launch

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Comprehensive initial training for teachers

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 hours total)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELAR Texas instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELAR Texas supports students through rigorous and engaging instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELAR Texas platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use the embedded supports and the Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will engage in multiple opportunities to practice components of Amplify ELAR Texas and leave confident to begin teaching.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for teachers

1 day (6 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELAR Texas instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELAR Texas supports students through rigorous and engaging instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELAR Texas platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use the embedded supports and the Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will leave with an action plan to begin teaching Amplify ELAR Texas.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for teachers

2 half days (3 hours per day, 6 hours total)

This full day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within ~2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content about key components of Amplify ELAR Texas, which includes learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for instructional leaders

Half day (3 hours)

This training will provide district and school-level instructional leaders with an overview of Amplify ELAR Texas so that they can support their staff in implementing Amplify. Learn basic navigation and gain an understanding of Amplify’s approach to reading, writing, and language instruction. Participants will then have the opportunity to choose how to best support teachers by either developing a school-wide implementation plan or learning strategies for effective classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Getting started package

Participants will review the foundational elements of the program, including the structure of materials, and engage in a structured planning process. This 90 minute consultation session will focus on the upcoming unit participants are preparing to teach. This package includes 90 minutes of remote PD and two 60 minute follow-up remote sessions.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthen

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Enhancing observations for leaders

Half day (3 hours)

Prerequisite Training: Initial training for leaders

Elevate your program knowledge to support colleagues with effective ELAR implementation! Practice analyzing Amplify ELAR Texas lessons and identify key instructional elements and next steps. Participants will be prepared to analyze data and enhance classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Enhancing planning and practice

Half day (3 hours)

Dig into one unit to unpack standards, assessments, and student engagement. Through backward planning, this session guides teachers to think deeply about learning outcomes and key moments of formative assessments. Teachers will leave this session with a detailed plan of a unit of their choice, that includes learning outcomes, key assessment moments, and aligned instructional strategies.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELAR Texas teachers or coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Analytic Reading

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how analytic reading functions in Amplify ELAR Texas and which teacher moves support students as they tackle complex texts. Participants will learn how to facilitate a close reading session to support key reading routines and promote academic discourse and the type of collaboration that drives analysis and deepens understanding.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELAR Texas teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Supporting all learners

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how to effectively use embedded and differentiated supports and the Classwork app to support all students, including English language learners (ELL), students with learning disabilities, struggling readers, and writers, and advanced students.

Audience: Ideal for new teachers or instructional leaders who want to learn more about included supports in Amplify ELAR Texas, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Data-informed instruction

Half day (3 hours)

Prerequisite: 4–6 weeks of student data in Amplify’s Reporting app. It is recommended that teachers are in at least Unit B.

Participants will review their own student data using the Reporting and Classwork apps and align embedded supports to specific student needs. The goal of this session is to become proficient in turning Amplify ELAR Texas data into differentiated and targeted instruction. Note: This course can be combined with the Supporting All Learners session to make a full day of training.

Audience: Ideal for teachers or support staff who want to learn how to use student data to inform instruction and provide differentiation, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Strengthening consultation session


1 hour

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators” understanding in Amplify ELAR Texas and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching session

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELAR Texas with an onsite Coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELAR Texas with an onsite Coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELAR Texas with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to supporting effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session type Pricing
2-day onsite session $4,800
1-day onsite session $3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days remote) $1,500
Half-day onsite session $2,500
Half-day remote session $750
1-hour remote session $350
Remote getting started package $1,000
3 1-hour remote sessions $1,000

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

mCLASS Intervention professional development

mCLASS® Intervention (formerly known as Burst: Reading) 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.

We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

A woman and a young boy looking at a book together in a classroom, with colorful artwork displayed in the background.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Infographic describing three stages of an educational program: Launch, Strengthen, Coach. Each stage includes brief descriptions and a graphic illustration.

Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Do you also use Amplify CKLA, mCLASS, and/or Boost Reading?

View the planning guide below to explore learning plans for teachers and leaders who are either new to or currently using multiple early literacy products.

View the Early Literacy Professional Development Planning Guide

mCLASS intervention overview

What’s the difference between mCLASS Intervention and mCLASS Intervention Universal?

An mCLASS Intervention school screens with mCLASS with DIBELS® 8th Edition.* An mCLASS Intervention Universal school screens with any other screener on the market. Some of the most common are iReady, iStation, MAP, AIMSweb, and paper/pencil DIBELS.

What else is different?

Here are a few other areas in which the programs differ:

AreamCLASS InterventionmCLASS Intervention Universal
Onboarding processDoes not require Amplify’s Implementation team to explain staff and student enrollment because staff and students are already enrolled in our system.Requires Amplify’s implementation team to explain staff and student enrollment since the tech coordinator hasn’t yet enrolled any students in mCLASS.
Professional developmentFacilitator does not spend time practicing DIBELS measures with staff because they’re already familiar with these measures.Facilitator spends time practicing DIBELS measures with staff because they usually haven’t administered them before.
AssessmentsThese schools administer DIBELS to all students because they have paid to use mCLASS as a screener.These schools administer DIBELS only to intervention students because they haven’t paid to use mCLASS as a screener.

*Utah and Colorado schools screen with mCLASS: Acadience Reading (formerly called mCLASS:DIBELS Next).

Getting optimal results with mCLASS Intervention

There are two critical roles at a school that need to work together in order for mCLASS Intervention to deliver optimal results. At some schools, an individual may hold both roles.

  • Intervention Coordinator
    Oversees the mCLASS Intervention program, groups students, determines group assignments and adjusts schedules, and works closely with your school’s Interventionists.
  • Interventionist
    Teaches mCLASS Intervention lessons to small groups of students based on the assignments and schedules provided by your school’s Intervention Coordinator and progress monitors students every two weeks.

mCLASS Intervention sessions overview

Audience Title Duration Modality
Launch packages  
New mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention customers mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention initial training bundle 4 half days, non-consecutive Remote
New mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention customers mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention initial training bundle 2 days of onsite training, consecutive Onsite
Launch  
New mCLASS Intervention customers (mCLASS has been trained in the past) mCLASS Intervention initial training 1 day onsite or 2 half days remote Onsite/Remote
Interventionists online course Self-paced Online
Coach  
All mCLASS Intervention customers Coaching session 1 day Onsite
All mCLASS Intervention customers Coaching session Half day Onsite/Remote
Coaching session 60 mins Remote

Launch packages

mCLASS initial training + mCLASS Intervention initial training

2 days (12 hours); consecutive

Prepare to launch mCLASS Intervention with fidelity! This bundle is intended for schools or districts who are implementing mCLASS Intervention for the first time and want the highest levels of support.

The first day will prepare all educators to administer the mCLASS assessment.

The second day will prepare all educators (including Intervention Coordinators) to implement mCLASS Intervention, including instruction on how to prepare for lessons, practice lesson delivery, administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures, and configure grouping and scheduling for maximum effectiveness.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

mCLASS initial training + mCLASS Intervention initial training

2 days (12 hours) or 4 half days (12 hours); non-consecutive

Prepare to launch mCLASS Intervention with fidelity! This bundle is intended for schools or districts who are implementing mCLASS Intervention for the first time and want the highest levels of support.

The first part will prepare all educators to administer the mCLASS assessment.

The second part will prepare all educators (including Intervention Coordinators) to implement mCLASS Intervention: how to prepare for lessons, practice lesson delivery, administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures, and configure grouping and scheduling for maximum effectiveness.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Launch

mCLASS Intervention initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days (6 hours)

This session is intended for those schools or districts that have been trained in mCLASS in the past.

This training will prepare all educators (including Intervention Coordinators) to implement mCLASS Intervention: how to prepare for lessons, practice lesson delivery, administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures, and configure grouping and scheduling for maximum effectiveness.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Interventionists online course

Self-paced

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 3 hours of training. Participants will learn how to prepare for lessons and administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Interventionists
Modality: Online course

Coach

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of mCLASS Intervention with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders! A certified mCLASS Intervention facilitator can visit 1–2 school sites per day. Participants may choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: observing lessons and providing feedback, analyzing mCLASS Intervention data and planning instruction, refining groups and schedules, or co-planning and modeling lessons.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and/or Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of mCLASS Intervention with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders! A certified Intervention facilitator will visit one school site. Participants may choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: observing lessons and providing feedback; analyzing mCLASS Intervention data, reviewing student progress, and planning next steps; refining groups and schedules; or co-planning and modeling lessons.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and/or Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

60 min.

Strengthen your implementation of mCLASS Intervention with a quick Coaching session to improve implementation or student outcomes. During this remote hourly session, a certified mCLASS Intervention facilitator will help school leaders and/or Intervention Coordinators review usage, student progress data, and work to define an opportunity and develop a solution.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and/or Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

mCLASS Intervention Universal sessions overview

Title Duration Modality
Launch packages
Hybrid PD package Half day, then 1 day Hybrid (remote, then onsite)
Remote PD package Half day, then 2 half days Remote
Launch sessions
Training for Interventionists 1 day or 2 half days Onsite/Remote
Training for Intervention Coordinators Half day Remote
Coach
Coaching session 1 day Onsite
Coaching session Half day Onsite
Coaching session Hourly Remote

Launch packages

Hybrid PD Package

Half day, then 1 day (9 hours)

Prepare to launch mCLASS Intervention Universal with fidelity! This package is intended for schools or districts implementing mCLASS Intervention Universal for the first time and want the highest levels of support.

Session 1 will prepare Intervention Coordinators to develop the school’s mCLASS Intervention Universal implementation plan, learn how to strategically group students, and schedule intervention supports.

Session 2 will prepare Interventionists to do an in-depth exploration of lesson activities and engage in real-time practice with diagnostic and progress monitoring measures.

Both sessions should be scheduled at least two weeks apart so the Intervention Coordinator has time to group students, draft schedules, and select the team of interventionists.

Audience:
Session 1: Intervention Coordinators, maximum 30 participants
Session 2: Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Hybrid

Remote PD Package

3 half days (9 hours)

Prepare to launch mCLASS Intervention Universal with fidelity! This package is intended for schools or districts implementing mCLASS Intervention Universal for the first time.

Session 1 will prepare Intervention Coordinators to develop the school’s mCLASS Intervention Universal implementation plan, learn how to strategically group students, and schedule intervention supports.

Both sessions should be scheduled at least two weeks apart so the Intervention Coordinator has time to group students, draft schedules, and select the team of interventionists.

Audience:
Session 1: Intervention Coordinators, maximum 30 participants
Session 2: Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Launch

Training for Interventionists

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This one-day training will ensure that Interventionists are prepared to teach mCLASS Intervention Universal with fidelity and accurately progress monitor students with the mCLASS platform throughout the year. Participants will do an in-depth exploration of lesson activities and engage in real-time practice with diagnostic and progress monitoring measures.

This session is ideal for new Interventionists at a school or district that has been previously implementing mCLASS Intervention Universal. We encourage the Coordinator to attend this session as well.

Audience: Interventionists (Intervention Coordinators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Training for Intervention Coordinators

Half day (3 hours)

This half-day training will ensure that Intervention Coordinators are prepared to launch mCLASS Intervention Universal at their school site(s) with fidelity and best practice. Participants will consider grouping and scheduling configurations to make the most of the program, and create launch plans.

This session is paired with the Training for Interventionists full-day session.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

1 day onsite (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of mCLASS Intervention Universal with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders! A certified mCLASS Intervention Universal facilitator can visit 1–2 school sites per day. Participants may choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: observing lessons and providing feedback, analyzing mCLASS Intervention Universal data and planning instruction, refining groups and schedules, or co-planning and modeling lessons, maximum 30 participants.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and/or Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

Half day onsite (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of mCLASS Intervention with a Coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders! A certified Intervention facilitator will visit one school site. Participants may choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: observing lessons and providing feedback; analyzing mCLASS Intervention data, reviewing student progress, and planning next steps; refining groups and schedules; or co-planning and modeling lessons.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and/or Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

60 min.

Strengthen your implementation of mCLASS Intervention with a quick Coaching session to improve implementation or student outcomes. During this remote hourly session, a certified mCLASS Intervention facilitator will help school leaders and/or Intervention Coordinators review usage, student progress data, and work to define an opportunity and develop a solution.

Audience: Intervention Coordinators and/or Interventionists, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention initial training bundle, 2 days onsite, consecutive$4,800
mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention initial training bundle, 2 days onsite, non-consecutive$6,400
mCLASS + mCLASS Intervention initial training bundle, 4 half days remote$3,000
mCLASS Intervention initial training, onsite$3,200
mCLASS Intervention initial training, remote, 2 half-days$1,500
Interventionists self-paced online course$49 per individual seat
Intervention Coordinators self-paced online course$49 per individual seat
mCLASS Intervention Universal hybrid PD package$3,950
mCLASS Intervention Universal remote PD package$2,250
mCLASS Intervention Universal training for Interventionists, onsite$3,200
mCLASS Intervention Universal training for Interventionists, remote$1,500
1-day coaching session, onsite$3,200
Half-day coaching session, onsite$2,500
Remote coaching, hourly$350

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Amplify ELA professional development

Amplify ELA is an engaging and rigorous curriculum designed specifically 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.

We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs. Find out more below!

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

A male teacher in a red shirt explaining a lesson to a young female student who is reading a book in a classroom.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recomended sessions are highlighted below

Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
Comprehensive initial training for teachers 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 1 day Onsite Yes
Initial training for teachers 2 half days Remote Yes
Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Initial training for leaders Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen
Enhancing observations for leaders Half day Onsite/Remote 09/01/22
Enhancing planning and practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Analytic reading Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting all learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Data-informed instruction Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Writing: Improving through feedback Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthening consultation session 1 hour Remote Yes
Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Coach
Coaching sessions 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Coaching sessions 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Half day Onsite/Remote Yes

Launch

Comprehensive initial training for teachers

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 hours total)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your school! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will have multiple opportunities to practice components of Amplify ELA and leave confident to begin teaching.

Audience: Teachers and coaches
Modality: Onsite, maximum 30 participants

Initial training for teachers

1 day (6 hours)

Prepare to implement and support Amplify ELA instruction in your schools! Learn how Amplify ELA supports students through rigorous and engaging ELA instruction. Participants will navigate the Amplify ELA platform, learn to give feedback on student work, and explore how to use Amplify ELA’s embedded supports and Reporting app to monitor student progress. Participants will leave with an action plan to begin teaching Amplify ELA.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Initial training for teachers

2 half days (3 hours per day, 6 hours total)

This full day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within ~2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content about key components of Amplify ELA, which includes learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Program essentials

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the program essentials, including how to navigate the digital curriculum and print materials and where to locate features like assessments and data reports.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training for instructional leaders

Half day (3 hours)

This training will provide district- and school-level instructional leaders with an overview of Amplify ELA so that they can support their staff in implementing Amplify.

Learn basic navigation and gain an understanding of Amplify ELA’s approach to reading, writing, and language instruction. Participants will then have the opportunity to choose how to best support teachers by either developing a school-wide implementation plan or learning strategies for effective classroom observations.

Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

Enhancing observations for leaders

Half day (3 hours)

Elevate your program knowledge to support colleagues with effective ELA implementation! Practice analyzing ELA lessons and identify key instructional elements and next steps. Participants will be prepared to analyze data and enhance classroom observations.

Prerequisite training: Initial training for leaders
Audience: Ideal for instructional leaders, principals, and district staff who oversee the implementation of the new curriculum, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Enhancing planning and practice

Half day (3 hours)

Dig into one unit to unpack standards, assessments, and student engagement. Through backward planning, this session guides teachers to think deeply about learning outcomes and key moments of formative assessments. Teachers will leave this session with a detailed plan of a unit of their choice that includes learning outcomes, key assessment moments, and aligned instructional strategies.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers or coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Analytic reading

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how close reading functions in Amplify ELA and which teacher moves will support students tackling complex texts. Participants will also learn how to facilitate a close reading session to develop key reading routines, promote academic discourse, and encourage the type of collaboration that drives analysis and deepens understanding.

Audience: Ideal for new or experienced Amplify ELA teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Supporting all learners

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how to effectively use embedded and differentiated supports and the Classwork app to support all students, including ELLs, students with learning disabilities, struggling readers and writers, and advanced students.

Audience: Ideal for new teachers or instructional leaders who want to learn more about included supports in Amplify ELA, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-informed instruction

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will review their own student data using the Reporting and Classwork apps and align embedded supports to specific student needs. The goal of this session is to become proficient in turning Amplify ELA data into differentiated and targeted instruction.

Note: This course can be combined with the supporting all learners session to make a full day of training.

Prerequisite: 4–6 weeks of student data in Amplify’s Reporting app. It is recommended that teachers are in at least Unit B.
Audience: Ideal for teachers or support staff who want to learn how to use student data to inform instruction and provide differentiation, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Writing: Improving through feedback

Half day (3 hours)

Participants will learn how writing functions in Amplify ELA and which teacher moves support students as they build writing skills. Participants will learn how feedback supports student growth and will practice giving targeted feedback based on rubrics and assessment data.

Audience: This course asks teachers to look at their students’ writing, so it is recommended for delivery after 4–6 weeks of curriculum use, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation session

1 hour

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in Amplify ELAR Texas and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on: engagement, pacing and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions

This package consists of three 60-minute session that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding in ELA and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on: engagement, pacing and grading/assessment.

Audience: Teachers and coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an onsite coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with an onsite coaching visit for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify ELA with a coaching session for your teachers and/or leaders. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling and debrief (conducted by an Amplify ELA coach), grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, coaches, and/or instructional leaders, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

TypePricing
2-day onsite session$4,800
1-day onsite session$3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days remote)$1,500
Half-day onsite session$2,500
Half-day remote session$750
1-hour remote session$350
3 1-hour remote sessions$1,000

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

9

Professional development for assessment and intervention programs

Amplify professional development (PD) provides learning experiences that intentionally develop the knowledge and skills you need for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Learn how to administer and score your assessment and develop a deeper understanding of reporting and instruction by investing in professional development.

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Contact us
A teacher talks to a student at a desk; two other students, a boy and a girl, are shown smiling and sitting at desks in separate portraits.

About Amplify PD

Change is more likely to stick and get results if 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 professional development is designed to ensure successful, sustained implementation of our programs. Sessions are strategically bundled to provide continuous support, adapting to your K–8 educators’ evolving needs throughout the year.

Four circular icons in a row showing a lightbulb, pencil, whiteboard, and podium, connected by arrows in a cycle, representing stages of a process.

Prepare
Begin
Practice
Advance

Program-agnostic sessions will set up educators for success 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’s programs.

Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify’s programs.

Offerings will support advanced implementation, build capacity for instructional leaders, certify in-house trainers to deliver Launch sessions, and more.

Our packages include:

  • Launch sessions: Propel your teachers into the new school year by introducing them to their Amplify program, laying a strong foundation for effective implementation.
  • Strengthen sessions: Enhance implementation with mid-year sessions that target specific instructional practices, providing the support needed to enhance program efficacy.
  • Coach sessions: Provide tailored guidance and support for educators and leaders to address specific needs, refining and advancing their instructional practices.

About Amplify assessment and intervention programs

Amplify’s high-quality programs make it easier for K–8 educators to teach inspiring, impactful lessons that celebrate and develop the brilliance of their students. Equipped with tools that provide robust scaffolding and differentiated instruction, assessment, and intervention, educators gain real-time insights and can provide personalized, actionable plans that support every learner.

Learn how to get the most out of your assessment and intervention program(s) through Amplify’s PD.

Assessment

  • mCLASS® DIBELS® 8th Edition (grades K–8)
  • mCLASS Lectura (grades K–6)
  • mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura biliteracy
  • mCLASS Math (grades K–8)

Intervention

  • mCLASS Intervention

We provide PD sessions for all Amplify programs. Contact your account executive to discuss the extended catalog of PD session options or request a quote.

mCLASS Assessments

We’ve created professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Explore the Begin and Practice packages available for mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS Math (K–8) by selecting the session titles to learn more.

Please note that mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura biliteracy sessions are currently unavailable for the Hybrid 4 and Virtual 4 packages.

Begin packages for mCLASS Literacy

Assessment programs

  On-site package
(9 hours)		 Hybrid 9 package
(9 hours)		 Hybrid 4 package
(4 hours)		 Virtual 9 package
(9 hours)		 Virtual 4 package
(4 hours)
  One Launch and Strengthen session per package
Launch sessions
  On-site
6 hr.		 On-site or virtual 3 hr. On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
6 hr.
(2 half-days)		 Virtual
3 hr.
Administration and instruction essentials for K–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Administration and scoring training for K–8 teachers
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Administration and reporting training for K–8 leaders     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
      Virtual
1 hr.		   Virtual
1 hr.
NEW: mCLASS additional assessment measures training for K–3 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
NEW: mCLASS Español assessment measures training for K–3 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
NEW: mCLASS/mCLASS Español additional assessment measures training for K–3 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Strengthen sessions
  On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual 
3 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.		 Virtual 
3 hr.		 Virtual 
1 hr.
Creating a data-driven classroom for K–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Building a data-driven culture for K–8 leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Assessing with fidelity for K–8 teachers
     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Reporting and instruction basics for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Goal setting and growth outcomes for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Progress monitoring for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Reporting basics for K–8 leaders
     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.

*Assessment Strengthen sessions should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed for participants to work with their own data.

Add-on
  On-site or virtual,
3 hr.		 On-site,
6 hr.		 Self-paced,
online course
Coach session for individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura: Administration and instruction essentials training for teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Calibration training for teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Transition training for DDS teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.

Begin: Launch: Administration and instruction essentials for K–8 teachers


On-site or virtual, 6 hours

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS assessment program. Learn how to administer and score the assessment(s) and leave ready to leverage mCLASS reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Launch: Administration and scoring training for K–8 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Learn how to administer and score your mCLASS assessment(s) and leave ready to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Launch: Administration and reporting training for K–8 leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Prepare to implement your assessment program(s) at your school site(s). Determine systems-level actions that will ensure assessment fidelity and leave ready to leverage key admin reports to support data-informed decisions.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English only.

Available July 2026

Begin: Launch: mCLASS additional assessment measures training for K–3 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Spelling, RAN, Vocabulary, and/or Oral Language and leave ready to administer the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–3)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Begin: Launch: mCLASS Español assessment measures training for K–3 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Spelling Español, Vocabulary Español, and/or Oral Language Español and leave ready to administer the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS Lectura (K–3)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English.

Available July 2026

Begin: Launch: mCLASS/mCLASS Español additional assessment measures training for K–3 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Spelling/Spelling Español, RAN, Vocabulary/Vocabulary Español, and/or Oral Language/Oral Language Español and leave ready to administer the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–3) and mCLASS Lectura (K–3)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen: Creating a data-driven classroom for K–8 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive deep into mCLASS reports and instructional recommendations to drive stronger student outcomes in your classroom. You will leave ready to leverage mCLASS progress monitoring and grouping tools to support a robust MTSS program.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen: Building a data-driven culture for K–8 leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Cultivate a schoolwide culture of data-driven practices. Use mCLASS reports to drill into key school-level data and leave with a systems-level action plan to drive stronger student and teacher outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English only.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Assessing with fidelity for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Fortify your assessment administration with trainer-led practice targeted to your unique needs.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Reporting and instruction basics for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS classroom reporting, instructional tools, and resources to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Goal setting and growth outcomes for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS Zones of Growth (Zonas de crecimiento for mCLASS Lectura) reports to set meaningful, ambitious, and attainable student goals that drive student progress and growth.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Progress monitoring for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Implement mCLASS progress monitoring and MTSS best practices to track student progress and accelerate growth.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Reporting basics for K–8 leaders

Examine your school-level mCLASS benchmark assessment data to identify key levers for improving student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English only.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours or virtual, 3 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura: Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Online course, self-paced

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS assessment program through this on-demand course. Learn how to administer and score the assessment and leave ready to leverage mCLASS reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately 8 hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition, mCLASS Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Available July 2026

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Calibration training course for teachers

Online course, self-paced

Ensure accuracy and reliability of mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition test administration through this on-demand course. Review how to administer and score each teacher-administered measure, then calibrate your scoring through scoring mastery checks.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately 1–3 hours to complete, depending on learner needs. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Transition training course for DDS teachers

Online course, self-paced

Prepare to administer and score the DIBELS 8th Edition assessment in the mCLASS platform through this on-demand course. Learn the essentials of your mCLASS assessment program and leave ready to leverage mCLASS reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately 8 hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Begin packages for mCLASS Math 2nd Edition

Assessment programs

  On-site package
(6 hours)		 Hybrid 6 package
(6 hours)		 Hybrid 4 package
(4 hours)		 Virtual 6 package
(6 hours)		 Virtual 4 package
(4 hours)
  One Launch and Strengthen session per package
Launch sessions
  On-site
3 hr.		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr.
 Virtual
3 hr.
mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview for K–5 or 6–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
NEW: mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview for K–8 leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Strengthen sessions
  On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual 
3 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.		 Virtual 
3 hr.		 Virtual 
1 hr.
mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Student thinking and instructional next steps for K–5 or 6–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical explanations for K–5 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
mCLASS Math and Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention for K–5 or 6–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Add-on
mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview and instructional next steps course for K–5 teachers

Self-paced online course
mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview and instructional next steps course for 6–8 teachers

Self-paced online course

New

Begin: mCLASS Math: Program overview for K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Available for grades 6–8 teachers July 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS Math assessment program. Learn how these assessments both highlight students’ strengths and help identify what’s next through an asset-based approach. Leave ready to administer assessments and understand reporting.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New

Begin: mCLASS Math: Program overview for K–5 or 6–8 leaders

Available for grades K–5 and grades 6–8 leaders July 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Prepare to implement your mCLASS Math assessment program at your school site(s). Determine systems-level actions that will ensure successful assessment administration and leave ready to leverage key admin reports to support data-informed decisions.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New

Begin: mCLASS Math: Student thinking and instructional next steps for grades K–5 teachers

Available for grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Explore how mCLASS Math helps determine what students know in relation to grade-level content, and how to use data to inform instructional next steps that support, strengthen, and stretch student thinking. Dig into your own student data and leave with actionable next steps that connect directly to the ways your students are thinking about mathematics.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New

Begin: mCLASS Math + Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Available for grades K–5 teachers July 2026 and grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Explore how Boost Math uses mCLASS Math data to inform intervention recommendations and monitor student progress. Dig into your student data, explore relevant instructional resources, and leave with actionable next steps for intervention.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New

Begin: Strengthen Focus: mCLASS Math: Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical explanations for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Available for grades K–5 teachers July 2026 and grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

Virtual, 1 hour

Dig into mCLASS Math to reveal what students understand about mathematical concepts and give them the tools to become more clear and confident communicators in math class.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Begin: mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview and instructional next steps for grades K–5 teachers

Online course, self-paced

Through this self-paced, on-demand online course, participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Math K–5 and leave ready to administer the assessment, understand reporting, and take instructional next steps based on the data.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately six hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Available July 2026

Begin: mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview and instructional next steps for grades 6–8 teachers

Online course, self-paced

Through this self-paced, on-demand online course, participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Math 6–8 and leave ready to administer the assessment, understand reporting, and take instructional next steps based on the data.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately six hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Practice packages for mCLASS Literacy

  On-site package
(6 hours)		 Virtual 6 package
(6 hours)		 Virtual 4 package
(4 hours)		 Virtual 2 package
(2 hours)
Two Strengthen sessions per package
Strengthen session titles*
  On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr. and 1 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.
Creating a data-driven classroom for K–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Building a data-driven culture for K–8 leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Assessing with fidelity for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Reporting and instruction basics for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Progress monitoring for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Goal setting and growth outcomes for K–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Reporting basics for K–8 leaders      A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
NEW: mCLASS DIBELS 8 additional assessment measures training for K–8 teachers       A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
NEW: mCLASS Español assessment measures training for K–8 teachers       A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
NEW: mCLASS DIBELS 8 and mCLASS Lectura additional assessment measures training for K–8 teachers       A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.

*Assessment Strengthen sessions should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed for participants to work with their own data.

Add-on
  On-site or virtual, 3 hr. On-site, 6 hr. Self-paced, online course
Coach session for individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition: Data-driven instruction for K–5 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.    
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura: Administration and instruction essentials training for teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Calibration training for teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Transition training for DDS teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.

Practice: Creating a data-driven classroom for K–8 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive deep into mCLASS reports and instructional recommendations to drive stronger student outcomes in your classroom. You will leave ready to leverage mCLASS progress monitoring and grouping tools to support a robust MTSS program.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Building a data-driven culture for K–8 leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Cultivate a schoolwide culture of data-driven practices. Use mCLASS reports to drill into key school-level data and leave with a systems-level action plan to drive stronger student and teacher outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English only.

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Assessing with fidelity for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Fortify your mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition assessment administration with trainer-led practice targeted to your unique needs.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Reporting and instruction basics for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS classroom reporting, instructional tools, and resources to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Progress monitoring for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Implement mCLASS progress monitoring and MTSS best practices to track student progress and accelerate growth.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Goal setting and growth outcomes for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS Zones of Growth (Zonas de crecimiento for mCLASS Lectura) reports to set meaningful, ambitious, and attainable student goals that drive student progress and growth.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Reporting basics for K–8 leaders

Virtual, 1 hour

Examine your school-level mCLASS benchmark assessment data to identify key levers for improving student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8), mCLASS Lectura (K–6), and/or mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition/Lectura

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English.

Available July 2026

Practice: Strengthen Focus: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition additional assessment measures training for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Spelling, RAN, Vocabulary, and/or Oral Language and leave ready to administer the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available July 2026

Practice: Strengthen Focus: mCLASS Español assessment measures training for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Spelling Español, Vocabulary Español, and/or Oral Language Español and leave ready to administer the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS Lectura (K–6)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English.

Available July 2026

Practice: Strengthen Focus: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura additional assessment measures training for K–8 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS Spelling/Spelling Español, RAN, Vocabulary/Vocabulary Español, and/or Oral Language/Oral Language Español and leave ready to administer the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition (K–8) and mCLASS Lectura (K–6)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Add on: Coach session

On-site, 6 hours or virtual, 3 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Available October 2026

Add on: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition: Data-driven instruction for K–5 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive deep into mCLASS reports and instructional recommendations to drive instructional decisions in Amplify CKLA and stronger student outcomes in your classroom. You will leave ready to leverage mCLASS progress monitoring and grouping tools to support a robust Multi-Tiered System of Supports program with Amplify CKLA as your core instruction.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and Amplify CKLA 3rd Edition

Audience: K–2 or 3–5 teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Add on: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura: Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Online course, self-paced

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS assessment program through this on-demand course. Learn how to administer and score the assessment and leave ready to leverage mCLASS reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately eight hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition, mCLASS Lectura

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Available July 2026

Add on: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Calibration training course for teachers

Online course, self-paced

Ensure accuracy and reliability of mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition test administration through this on-demand course. Review how to administer and score each teacher-administered measure, then calibrate your scoring through scoring mastery checks.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately 1–3 hours to complete, depending on learner needs. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Available July 2026

Add on: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Transition training course for DDS teachers

Online course, self-paced

Prepare to administer and score the DIBELS 8th Edition assessment in the mCLASS platform through this on-demand course. Learn the essentials of your mCLASS assessment program and leave ready to leverage mCLASS reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately eight hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Amplify intervention PD sessions

Each intervention program offers Launch and Coach sessions for up to 30 participants per program for year one and beyond. Our interactive sessions are available on-site or virtually, empowering teachers and leaders anywhere with the tools and skills they need to inspire all students to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves.

mCLASS Intervention

mCLASS Intervention is a staff-led Tier 2 and Tier 3 reading intervention program that does the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson sequencing, freeing up teachers to teach the reading skills each student needs. View the table and select the session title to learn more about each mCLASS Intervention PD session.

  On-site or virtual sessions
6 hr.
 Self-paced course
Launch sessions
Initial training for K–6 interventionists and intervention coordinators A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Initial training for K–6 interventionists and intervention coordinators   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. 

Coach sessions

  On-site sessions
6 hr.
 On-site or virtual sessions
3 hr.
Coach session
  
Coach session
  

Launch

Propel your teachers into the new school year with sessions that introduce them to their Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Initial training for K–6 interventionists and intervention coordinators

On-site or virtual, 6 hours

In part 1 of this training, interventionists and intervention coordinators will prepare to deliver mCLASS Intervention lessons and learn how to administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures. In part 2, intervention coordinators will learn the essentials of coordinating mCLASS Intervention and leave ready to implement the program at their school site.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff, intervention coordinators (maximum 30 participants)

Initial training course for K–6 interventionists and intervention coordinators

Online course, self-paced

Prepare to deliver mCLASS Intervention lessons and learn how to administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures through this on-demand course. Intervention coordinators will additionally learn the essentials of coordinating mCLASS Intervention to support implementation at their school site.

Upon finishing the course, participants can download a certificate of completion. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately three hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Coach

Support teachers and leaders with learning experiences tailored to meet their specific needs.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS Intervention. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Coach session

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS Intervention. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Additional assessment and intervention programs

Additional sessions and online courses are also available for other mCLASS programs (Paper DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Intervention Universal).

To learn more about enhancing your Amplify experience by purchasing other mCLASS programs and/or accompanying PD sessions, please contact your account executive.

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Amplify professional development: Coaching

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Professional development for assessment and intervention programs

Amplify professional development (PD) provides learning experiences that intentionally develop the knowledge and skills you need for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Learn how to administer and score your assessment and develop a deeper understanding of reporting and instruction by investing in professional development.

Amplify professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

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About Amplify PD

Change is more likely to stick and get results if you take a systemic approach. As our partner, you’ll develop a learning plan that will drive your program implementation, enrich your instructional practices, and increase student impact.

Amplify’s professional development is designed to ensure successful, sustained implementation of our programs. Through strategically bundled packages, our PD sessions provide continuous support that adapts to your educators’ evolving needs.


Prepare
Begin
Practice
Advance
Program-agnostic sessions will set up educators for success 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’s programs. Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify’s programs. Offerings will support advanced implementation, build capacity for instructional leaders, certify in-house trainers to deliver Launch sessions, and more.

Our packages include:

  • Launch sessions: Propel your teachers into the new school year by introducing them to their Amplify program, laying a strong foundation for effective implementation.
  • Strengthen sessions: Boost implementation with mid-year sessions that target specific instructional practices, providing the support needed to enhance program efficacy.
  • Coach sessions: Provide tailored guidance and support for educators and leaders to address specific needs, refining and advancing their instructional practices.

About mCLASS Texas® assessment PD packages:

  • Begin packages: Ideal for the first year of implementation, these packages help educators transition to evidence-based practices. Each package includes Launch and Strengthen sessions to set the foundation and support the initial phases of program adoption.
    • Format options: On-site, Hybrid, Virtual
    • Components: One Launch session introduces and supports a strong implementation and one Strengthen session deepens understanding of the program.
  • Practice packages: Designed for the second year of implementation and beyond, these packages deepen educators’ knowledge and refine their practice. They focus on continuous improvement, using data to drive instructional decisions and enhance student outcomes.
    • Format options: On-site, Hybrid, Virtual
    • Components: Two Strengthen sessions expand practice and drive outcomes. We recommend enhancement Coach sessions for ongoing support and addressing customized needs.

About mCLASS Intervention PD sessions:

  • Each intervention program offers Launch and Coach sessions for up to 30 participants per program for year one and beyond.
  • Our interactive sessions are available on-site or virtually, empowering teachers and leaders anywhere with the tools and skills they need to inspire all students to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves.

About Amplify assessment and intervention programs

Amplify’s high-quality programs make it easier for educators to teach inspiring, impactful lessons that celebrate and develop the brilliance of their students. Empowering teachers with tools to provide robust scaffolding and differentiated instruction, assessment, and intervention programs take the hassle and guesswork out of assessments with real-time, actionable plans personalized for every learner.

Learn how to get the most out of your assessment and intervention program(s) through Amplify’s PD.

Assessment

  • mCLASS Texas
  • mCLASS Lectura Texas
  • mCLASS Texas + Lectura

Intervention

  • mCLASS Intervention

We provide PD sessions for all Amplify programs. Contact your account executive to discuss the extended catalog of PD session options or request a quote.

mCLASS Texas Assessments

We’ve created professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Explore the Begin and Practice packages available for mCLASS Texas Edition and mCLASS Lectura Texas by selecting the session titles to learn more.

Please note that mCLASS Texas and mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy sessions are currently unavailable for the Hybrid 4 and Virtual 4 packages.

Begin packages

Assessment programs

  On-site package
(9 hours)		 Hybrid 9 package
(9 hours)		 Hybrid 4 package
(4 hours)		 Virtual 9 package
(9 hours)		 Virtual 4 package
(4 hours)
  One Launch and Strengthen session per package
Launch sessions
  On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
6 hr.		 On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
6 hr.
(2 half-days)		 Virtual
3 hr.
Administration and instruction essentials for teachers    
Administration and scoring training for teachers
      
Administration and reporting training for leaders      
Strengthen sessions
  On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual 
3 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.		 Virtual 
3 hr.		 Virtual 
1 hr.
Creating a data-driven classroom for teachers    
Building a data-driven culture for leaders    
Assessing with fidelity for teachers
      
Reporting and instruction basics for teachers      
Goal setting and growth outcomes for teachers      
Progress monitoring for teachers      
Reporting basics for leaders
      

*Assessment Strengthen sessions should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed for participants to work with their own data.

  Coach session
Suggested enhancements

 On-site On-site or virtual
6 hr. 3 hr.

Begin: Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

On-site or virtual, 6 hours

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS Texas assessment program. Learn how to administer and score the assessment and leave ready to leverage mCLASS Texas reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Administration and scoring training for teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Learn how to administer and score your mCLASS Texas assessment(s) and leave ready to collect data using standardized guidelines.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Administration and reporting training for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Prepare to implement your assessment program(s) at your school site(s). Determine systems-level actions that will ensure assessment fidelity and leave ready to leverage key admin reports to support data-informed decisions.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English only.

Begin: Creating a data-driven classroom for teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive deep into mCLASS Texas reports and instructional recommendations to drive stronger student outcomes in your classroom. You will leave ready to leverage mCLASS Texas progress monitoring and grouping tools to support a robust MTSS program.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Building a data-driven culture for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Cultivate a schoolwide culture of data-driven practices. Use mCLASS Texas reports to drill into key school-level data and leave with a systems-level action plan to drive stronger student and teacher outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English only.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Assessing with fidelity for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Fortify your assessment administration with trainer-led practice targeted to your unique needs.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Reporting and instruction basics for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS Texas classroom reporting, instructional tools, and resources to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Goal setting and growth outcomes for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS Texas Zones of Growth (Zonas de crecimiento for mCLASS Lectura) reports to set meaningful, ambitious, and attainable student goals that drive student progress and growth.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Progress monitoring for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Implement mCLASS progress monitoring and MTSS best practices to track student progress and accelerate growth.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Reporting basics for leaders

Virtual, 1 hour

Examine your school-level mCLASS benchmark assessment data to identify key levers for improving student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English only.

Practice packages

  On-site package
(6 hours)		 Virtual 6 package
(6 hours)		 Virtual 4 package
(4 hours)		 Virtual 2 package
(2 hours)
Two Strengthen sessions per package
Strengthen session titles*
  On-site
3 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr.		 Virtual
3 hr. and 1 hr.		 Virtual
1 hr.
Creating a data-driven classroom for teachers  
Building a data-driven culture for leaders
  
Assessing with fidelity for teachers    
Reporting and instruction basics for teachers    
Progress monitoring for teachers
    
Goal setting and growth outcomes for teachers
    
Reporting basics for leaders     

*Assessment Strengthen sessions should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed for participants to work with their own data.

  Coach session
Suggested enhancements

 On-site   On-site or virtual
6 hr.   3 hr.

Practice: Creating a data-driven classroom for teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive deep into mCLASS Texas reports and instructional recommendations to drive stronger student outcomes in your classroom. You will leave ready to leverage mCLASS Texas progress monitoring and grouping tools to support a robust MTSS program.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Building a data-driven culture for leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Cultivate a schoolwide culture of data-driven practices. Use mCLASS Texas reports to drill into key school-level data and leave with a systems-level action plan to drive stronger student and teacher outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English only.

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Assessing with fidelity for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Fortify your mCLASS Texas Edition assessment administration with trainer-led practice targeted to your unique needs.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

New session

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Reporting and instruction basics for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS Texas classroom reporting, instructional tools, and resources to accelerate data-driven student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Progress monitoring for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Implement mCLASS Texas progress monitoring and MTSS best practices to track student progress and accelerate growth.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

New session for mCLASS Lectura Texas and mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Practice: Goal setting and growth outcomes for teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Learn how to use mCLASS Texas Zones of Growth (Zonas de crecimiento for mCLASS Lectura Texas) reports to set meaningful, ambitious, and attainable student goals that drive student progress and growth.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English or Spanish.

Practice: Reporting basics for leaders

Virtual, 1 hour

Examine your school-level mCLASS Texas benchmark assessment data to identify key levers for improving student outcomes.

Session options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Texas + Lectura biliteracy

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Language: The mCLASS Lectura Texas session is facilitated in English.

Amplify intervention PD sessions

Intervention programs

Each intervention program offers Launch and Coach sessions for up to 30 participants per program for year one and beyond.

mCLASS Texas Intervention

mCLASS Intervention is a staff-led Tier 2 and Tier 3 reading intervention program that does the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson sequencing, freeing up teachers to teach the reading skills each student needs. View the table and select the session title to learn more about each mCLASS Intervention PD session.

  On-site or virtual sessions
3 hr.
 Self-paced course
Launch sessions
Program overview for interventionists  
Program overview for intervention coordinators  
Program overview course for interventionists    

Coach sessions

  On-site sessions
6 hr.
 On-site or virtual sessions
3 hr.
Coach session
  
Coach session
  

Launch

Propel your teachers into the new school year with sessions that introduce them to their Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Program overview for interventionists

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Prepare to deliver mCLASS Intervention lessons and learn how to administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Program overview for intervention coordinators

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Intervention coordinators will learn the essentials of coordinating mCLASS Intervention and leave ready to implement the program at their school site.

Audience: Intervention coordinators (maximum 30 participants)

Program overview for interventionists

Online course, self-paced

Prepare to deliver mCLASS Intervention lessons and learn how to administer the diagnostic and progress monitoring measures through this on-demand course. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately 3 hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Coach

Support teachers and leaders with learning experiences tailored to meet their specific needs.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS Intervention. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Coach session

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS Intervention. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Enhancement options

Enhancement options are available for assessment programs such as:

  • mCLASS Texas
  • mCLASS Lectura Texas

Enhancements can be purchased for all teachers/leaders or a subset of educators.

Enhancement offerings for assessment programs

Add the following session to any assessment or intervention package.

  On-site
6 hr.		 Virtual
6 hr.
 On-site or virtual
3 hr.
Coach session for individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders
  

Coach session

On-site or virtual, 6 hours; On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Coach sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence to accelerate data-driven student outcomes for teachers using mCLASS Texas. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include observations, modeling, real-time coaching, and/or co-planning.

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Online courses

Launch online courses are available for the following assessment programs:

  • mCLASS Texas
  • mCLASS Lectura Texas

Please view the table below for more information.

Online courses for assessment programs

  Self-paced
Online course
Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Administration and instruction essentials for teachers

Online course, self-paced

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS Texas assessment program through this on-demand course. Learn how to administer and score the assessment and leave ready to leverage mCLASS Texas reports and lessons to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. This subscription includes an individual seat to the course, which takes approximately 8 hours to complete. Participants will be able to access and revisit the course as needed for up to one year.

Course options: mCLASS Texas, mCLASS Lectura Texas, and/or mCLASS Math

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (individual seat)

Additional assessment and intervention programs

Additional sessions and online courses are available for other mCLASS programs (mCLASS Express, mCLASS Math, and mCLASS Intervention Universal).

To learn more about enhancing your Amplify experience by purchasing other mCLASS Texas programs and/or accompanying PD sessions, contact your account executive.

Contact us

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.

Amplify professional development: coaching and tutoring

Amplify provides consistent, job-embedded coaching services to deepen teacher capacity in planning data-driven instruction. Amplify’s high-impact tutoring extends teachers’ reach to all students through data-driven small group instruction.

We have a wide suite of tutoring and coaching services that will help meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Coaching Overview

Grade(s) Coaching Program Audience Modality
K–2 Start Strong Virtual Coaching Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade teacher teams and school leaders using DIBELS Next OR DIBELS 8th Edition Remote
K–12 Data Coaching Teacher teams and school leaders Remote or Onsite

Download the overview as a PDF.

Coaching Sessions

Start Strong Virtual Coaching, K–2

Amplify provides virtual coaching to schools and districts using DIBELS to ensure that all K–2 students receive high-quality early literacy instruction that will put them on the pathway for future success.

Start Strong is a consistent, year-long, and job-embedded program where coaches meet virtually with school leaders and K–2 teacher teams in order to build their capacity in planning whole group and small group data-driven instruction based on DIBELS error patterns. School leaders will also receive support on how to lead data and planning meetings and optimize their school schedules.

Through an increased understanding of early literacy development and data-driven instruction, teachers and school leaders in the Start Strong program will be better positioned to increase K–2 student reading achievement as measured by DIBELS.

Audience: K–2 teacher teams and school leaders
Modality: Remote, maximum 8 participants per grade level team

To learn more about launching Start Strong in your school or district, please click here: Start Strong Overview

Data Coaching

Amplify’s data coaching program provides educators throughout a school, district and/or state with ongoing support to take action with their data, make changes to their teaching practices and realize significant gains in student achievement.

The data coaching program is offered in remote and/or onsite sessions and tailored to a school, district or state’s specific needs around intensity and frequency.

Teachers and school leaders work closely with their Amplify data coach to understand, analyze, and develop instructional plans using current student data sources in a collaborative learning environment. Through their participation in the data coaching program, teachers and leaders will be able to create a stronger data-driven culture and increase investment in realizing both short and long term goals in student achievement.

Audience: Teachers and school leaders
Modality: Remote or Onsite

To learn more about launching data coaching in your school or district, please click here: Data Coaching Overview

Tutoring Overview

Title Audience Modality
Comprehensive Virtual Reading Tutoring Program Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students Remote
Training for District Tutors Tutors hired at the district/school level Remote

Tutoring Sessions

Comprehensive Virtual Reading Tutoring Program

Amplify will support schools, districts, and states in ensuring all K–5 students have a strong foundation in early literacy skills by providing tutors who develop trusting relationships with students and meet their data-based needs.

In this program, tutors meet with students for 30 minutes, three days each week and use research-based, high-quality instructional materials to close literacy gaps and develop stronger social-emotional learning. While Amplify collaborates with school leaders to determine scheduling and identify participating students, Amplify will manage all other aspects of the program, thus reducing the burden for school leaders to launch this program independently. Amplify services will include, but not be limited to: creating homogeneous student groups, progress monitoring students on a consistent schedule, and hiring, training and managing tutors.

Through targeted, data-driven virtual reading tutoring, participating schools increase their capacity to provide high-quality instruction with caring adults in a small group setting to the students most in need.

Audience: K–5 students
Modality: Remote

To learn more about launching Comprehensive Virtual Tutoring in your school or district, please click the link below: Virtual Tutoring Overview

Training for District Tutors

Amplify will provide guidance and support to schools, districts, and states that are interested in developing systems and structures for launching a tutoring program focused on increasing early literacy skills for K–5 students.

At the start of the planning process, Amplify will support program managers in understanding the necessary systems, structures, and action steps required to implement the program (e.g., hiring and managing tutors). Amplify will help create a tailored training plan for tutors using the Amplify products of either mCLASS Intervention and/or Amplify Reading. The training plan for tutors will include initial product training and best practices for tutoring. Ongoing training will focus on topics such as, but not limited to: data analysis needed for flexible small groups, underlying theories for early literacy development, and strategies for engaging all students. Amplify will also provide ongoing individual support through observation/ feedback cycles for tutors.

Through their participation in the training for district tutors, districts and schools will be able to strategically launch high-quality tutoring programs and support tutors through initial and ongoing training.

Audience: District tutors
Modality: Remote

Contact

We are happy to discuss how to scale any of our coaching and tutoring services to meet the needs of a school or district’s budget or scheduling realities.

If you would like to discuss any of our coaching or tutoring services, please call Dr. Lindsay Sullivan, Ed.D. at (800) 823-1969 or email lsullivan@amplify.com.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition sessions overview

AudienceTitleDurationModality
Launch
New mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customers with limited time for PDmCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition program overviewHalf dayOnsite/Remote
New mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customersInitial training1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial training: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial trainingSelf-pacedOnline course
Strengthen
mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customers with limited time for PDUnderstanding your classroom dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
All mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customersClassroom data analysis and instructional planning1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Classroom data analysis and instructional planningSelf-pacedOnline course
All mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customersUnderstanding your school or district dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices 1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practicesSelf-pacedOnline course
Strengthening consultation session60 min.Remote
Strengthening consultation session package3 60-min. sessionsRemote
Coach
All mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customersCoaching session1 dayOnsite
Coaching sessionHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Building readers
All mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition customersBuilding readers for leaders2 half daysOnsite/Remote
Building readers for teachers3 half daysOnsite/Remote

Launch

mCLASS with DIBELS 8th edition program overview

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

Self-paced

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Online

Strengthen

Understanding your classroom data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to understand their students’ data by utilizing the reports available on mCLASS. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

Online course (self-paced)

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Online

Understanding your school or district data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making school-wide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making school-wide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices

Online course (self-paced)

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to use their data in making school-wide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Administrators
Modality: Online

Strengthening consultation session

(60-min.)

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of mCLASS and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs.
Topics include:

  • Progress Monitoring
  • Zones of Growth
  • Data Walkthrough for Leaders

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation session package

(3 hours)

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of mCLASS and equip them in driving towards stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topics that will best meet educators’ unique needs.
Topics include:

  • Progress Monitoring
  • Zones of Growth
  • Data Walkthrough for Leaders

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

This PD will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit one or two school sites for one day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

This PD is up to 3 hours of training and will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit one school site for a half-day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Building readers

Building readers for leaders

2 half days (6 hours)

This training session is split into 2 half-day sessions (3 hours each). The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content, which includes learning the Science of Reading and how to align this theory with schoolwide instruction. Part 2 should be scheduled two to three weeks after Part 1.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Building readers for teachers

3 half days (9 hours)

This training series is split into three half-day sessions (3 hours each). The same participants should attend all sessions in order to receive all content, which includes learning the Science of Reading and how to align this theory with classroom instruction. Part 2 should be scheduled two to three weeks after Part 1, and Part 3 should be scheduled two to three weeks after Part 2.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition and TRC sessions overview

AudienceTitleDurationModality
Launch
New mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition and TRC customersInitial training1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial training: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial trainingSelf-pacedOnline course
Strengthen
All mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition and TRC customersClassroom data analysis and instructional planning1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Coach
All mCLASS with DIBELS 8th Edition and TRC customersCoaching session1 dayOnsite
Coaching sessionHalf dayOnsite/Remote

Launch

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

Self-paced

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to implement the assessment, and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Online

Strengthen

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Data-driven leadership practices

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coach

Coaching session

1 day onsite (6 hours)

This PD will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit one or two school sites for one day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

This PD is up to 3 hours of training and will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit one school site for a half-day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Lectura sessions overview

AudienceTitleDurationModality
Launch
New mCLASS Lectura Customers with limited time for PDmCLASS Lectura program overviewHalf dayOnsite/Remote
New mCLASS Lectura customersmCLASS Lectura initial training1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
mCLASS Lectura initial training: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
mCLASS Lectura Initial trainingSelf-pacedOnline course
Strengthen
All mCLASS Lectura customers with limited time for PDUnderstanding your classroom dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
All mCLASS Lectura customersClassroom data analysis and instructional planning1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Understanding your school or district dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices 1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Strengthening consultation session60 min.Remote
Coach
All mCLASS Lectura customersCoaching session1dayOnsite
Coaching sessionHalf dayOnsite/Remote

Launch

mCLASS Lectura program overview

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Lectura initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. While the assessment must be administered in Spanish, English-speaking educators educators who would like to learn about the program but will not be administering the assessment may attend.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Lectura initial training: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines. While the assessment must be administered in Spanish, English-only speaking educators who would like to learn about the program but will not be administering the assessment may attend. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Lectura initial training

Online course (self-paced)

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Online

Strengthen

Understanding your classroom data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to understand their students’ data by utilizing the reports available on mCLASS. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Understanding your school or district data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making school-wide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation session package

(3 hours)

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of mCLASS and equip them with the tools needed to drive stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. Topics include progress monitoring, goal setting, and a data walkthrough for leaders.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

1 day (6 hours)

This PD will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–2 school sites for one day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

This PD is up to 3 hours of training and will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit 1 school site for a half-day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

LaunchStrengthenOngoing
BOYAfter BOY or MOYAfter BOY or MOY
New customersProgram overviewUnderstanding your classroom dataCoaching session
Initial trainingUnderstanding your school or district dataBuilding readers for teachers
Strengthening consultation session/packageBuilding readers for leaders
Returning customersCoaching session (refresher content)Classroom data analysis and instructional planningCoaching session
Data-driven leadership practicesBuilding readers for teachers
Strengthening consultation session/packageBuilding readers for leaders
*Note: If you are currently delivering instruction in a hybrid or remote model, we recommend that all of the sessions above be delivered remotely.

mCLASS Express sessions overview

TitleDurationModality
Launch
Initial trainingHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Initial trainingSelf-pacedOnline course

Launch

Initial training

Half day (3 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Express! The half-day initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Express’ voice-recognition scoring generates immediate instructional recommendations for students reading below grade level. Educators will also learn how to utilize the teacher portal to assign assessments, review and correct scoring, track student growth over time, and leverage the program’s activities to create an action plan for a single classroom or across classes/grades.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

Self-paced (2 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Express! The two-hour initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Express’ voice-recognition scoring generates immediate instructional recommendations for students reading below grade level. Educators will also learn how to utilize the teacher portal to assign assessments, review and correct scoring, track student growth over time, and leverage the program’s activities to create an action plan for a single classroom or across classes/grades.

As this is a self-paced, on-demand online course, participants will be able to access the course anytime, move as quickly or slowly as needed through different sections, and revisit the course up to one year as a refresher in the future.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Online

mCLASS: IDEL sessions overview

TitleDurationModality
Launch
mCLASS IDEL program overviewHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Initial training1 dayOnsite/Remote
Initial training: Train the Trainer1 dayOnsite/Remote
Initial trainingSelf-pacedOnline course

Launch

mCLASS IDEL program overview

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement your mCLASS:IDEL assessment with fidelity! Learn about the five basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, and understand how they are assessed on the mCLASS:IDEL assessment. Then, practice administering and scoring each assessment measure and receive targeted feedback from a facilitator. Upon completion of this session, participants will be on their way to collecting reliable data to support all students.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement your mCLASS:IDEL assessment with fidelity! Learn about the five basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, and understand how they are assessed on the mCLASS:IDEL assessment. Then, practice administering and scoring each assessment measure and compare your responses to exemplars. As this is a Train the Trainer session, participants will receive annotated session materials in order to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

Online course (self-paced)

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Online

TRC Atlas Español

Launch

TRC Atlas Español program overview

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Math sessions overview

AudienceTitleDurationModality
Launch
New mCLASS Math customers with limited time for PDmCLASS Math program overviewHalf dayOnsite/Remote
New mCLASS Math customersInitial training1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial training: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Strengthen
All mCLASS Math customers with limited time for PDUnderstanding your classroom dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
All mCLASS Math customersClassroom data analysis and instructional planning1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Understanding your school or district dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote

Launch

mCLASS Math program overview

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Learn the foundational research for mCLASS Math and how it supports students’ abilities in mathematical reasoning. Understand the various assessment components and develop techniques for interviewing students and documenting their thinking. Interpret assessment results, and brainstorm suggested instructional activities. Upon completion of this session, participants will be on their way to collecting reliable data.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Learn the foundational research for mCLASS Math and how it supports students’ abilities in mathematical reasoning. Understand the various assessment components, and develop techniques for interviewing students and documenting their thinking. Interpret assessment results, and brainstorm suggested instructional activities. Upon completion of this session, participants will be on their way to collecting reliable data. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

Understanding your classroom data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to understand their students’ data by utilizing the reports available on mCLASS. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports available on mCLASS.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer

1 day Onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days Remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports available on mCLASS. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Understanding your School or District Data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practice: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Professional development for multi-program suites

Amplify professional development provides learning experiences that intentionally develop the knowledge and skills you need for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Now you can learn and apply impactful instructional techniques and develop a deeper understanding of the suite of Amplify programs.

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Contact us
A diagram shows three math programs: mCLASS Math with a student's photo, Amplify Desmos Math with math tools, and Boost Math with a robot illustration, all connected by orange lines.

Amplify suites

Each of Amplify’s high-quality, research-based programs is designed to help you teach inspiring math lessons that celebrate and develop your students’ brilliance. When used together, our comprehensive math suite provides even greater support and coherence for every student across your curriculum.

Contact your account executive to discuss PD options or request a quote.

Math

Amplify Desmos Math with mCLASS Math assessments and Boost Personalized Learning combine the best of problem-based lessons, intervention, personalized practice, and assessment into a coherent and engaging experience for both students and teachers. With the full suite, teachers gain access to all the tools they need to inspire and motivate all learners in math class.

Empower educators with:

  • High-quality professional development
    Comprehensive PD sessions equip teachers with the skills and knowledge necessary for effective program implementation, enhancing instructional practices and boosting student outcomes. These sessions support educators in leveraging the full suite of Amplify’s K–5 math programs, ensuring seamless integration and maximizing classroom impact.
  • Core instruction for grades K–12
    Amplify Desmos Math lessons provide a structured approach to problem-based learning, helping teachers create a collaborative math community with students at its center. Each lesson systematically builds on students’ curiosity to develop lasting grade-level understanding for all students. Available in English and Spanish.
  • Integrated personalized practice
    Personalized Learning activities help students access grade-level math through engaging, independent digital practice. Responsive FeedbackTM adjusts to students’ work, providing item-level adaptivity to further support their learning.
  • Screening and progress monitoring
    mCLASS Assessments, along with daily formative checks, measure what students know and how they think. The asset-based assessment system provides teachers with targeted, actionable insights, linked to core instruction and intervention resources.
  • Embedded intervention
    Integrated resources like Mini-Lessons, Fluency Practice, and Math Adventures provide targeted intervention on a specific skill or concept connected to the daily lesson. Extensions are also available to stretch students’ understanding.

Each suite package will include:

LAUNCH STRENGTHEN COACH
Beginning of year Mid-year, end of year Mid-year, end of year
Three people work together at a computer in a classroom; one woman points at the monitor while the others watch attentively.
Two people sit at a table reviewing documents together against a yellow background. An icon of a barbell is displayed in the top left corner.
Two women sit side by side at a table, each with a laptop. One woman points at the other’s screen as they focus on the display against a plain blue background.
Receive one on-site or virtual Launch session for Amplify Desmos Math.
 Receive one on-site or virtual Strengthen session for Amplify Desmos Math.
 Receive one on-site or virtual Coach session for Amplify Desmos Math.
  In addition, select one 1-hour virtual Strengthen Focus session for the program of your choice:

  • Amplify Desmos Math
  • mCLASS Math
  • Boost Math
 In addition, select one more on-site or virtual Coach session for the program of your choice:

  • Amplify Desmos Math
  • mCLASS Math
Add-on: Suggested enhancements are available for each Launch, Strengthen, and Coach session options.
Before teaching After 6+ weeks of teaching  

Begin packages for grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school

Launch sessions

  On-site package
(22 hr.)		 Hybrid 22, on-site package
(22 hr.)		 Hybrid 17 package
(17 hr.)		 Hybrid 22,
virtual
package
(22hr.)		 Virtual
package
(14 hr.)
One Launch session per package On-site,
6 hr.		 On-site,
6 hr.		 On-site,
3 hr.		 Virtual,
6 hr.
(2 half-days)		 Virtual,
3 hr.
Amplify Desmos Math: Initial training for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
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Amplify Desmos Math: Program overview for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Suggested enhancements
Launch add-on On-site or virtual, 3 hr. session Amplify Desmos Math: Program overview for K–5, 6–A1, or high school leaders
Launch add-on On-site or virtual, 3 hr. session mCLASS Math 2nd Edition: Program overview for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Strengthen and Coach sessions

One Strengthen session and one additional Strengthen session (1 hr. Focus only) per package. Choose any of the following as a secondary Strengthen touchpoint.

  On-site package
(22 hr.)		 Hybrid 22,
on-site package
(22 hr.)		 Hybrid 17 package
(17 hr.)		 Hybrid 22,
virtual
package
(22hr.)		 Virtual
package
(14 hr.)		 Virtual
package
Strengthen On-site, 3 hr. Virtual, 3 hr. Virtual,
1 hr.		 Virtual, 3 hr. Virtual, 1 hr. Virtual, 2 hr.
Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing planning for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
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Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing practice for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
 A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.    
Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing observations for K–5, 6–A1, or high school leaders A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.    
Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting all learners: Differentiation in Amplify Desmos Math for K–5 or 6–A1 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.    
Amplify Desmos Math: Teaching a lesson with digital student screens for K–5 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Amplify Desmos Math: Unit-level planning for
K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers		     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Amplify Desmos Math: Snapshots in the Teacher Dashboard for 6–A1 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
mCLASS Math: Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical explanations for K–5 or 6–8 teachers     A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.   A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.  
Coach On-site,
6 hr.		 On-site,
6 hr.		 On-site,
6 hr.		 On-site,
6 hr.		 Virtual,
3 hr.
Coach session
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Suggested enhancements
Strengthen add-on On-site or virtual, 3 hr. session mCLASS Math + Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers
Strengthen add-on On-site or virtual, 3 hr. session Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting and facilitating meaningful discussions for teachers

Launch session options

Propel your school or district into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Begin: Amplify Desmos Math: Initial training for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

On-site, 6 hours

Initial training sessions are designed for educators who are new to our program. In our initial training session, educators are oriented to the key components of their program(s), including learning how to navigate, teach, and monitor student progress, while exploring content and program resources. Participants will leave the session with foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with the program.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Amplify Desmos Math: Program overview for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Program overview sessions provide a basic introduction for educators who are new users of the program. In a program overview session, educators learn how to get started with the key features and materials of the program.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: Amplify Desmos Math: Program overview for K–5, 6–A1, or high school leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Ideal add-on to Launch sessions
The Program overview for leaders supports district and school-level instructional leaders in effectively coordinating the implementation of the program. Leaders will learn the foundational elements of the program, build an understanding of the key teacher and student practices to look for in classrooms, and develop an implementation plan.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Launch add-on: mCLASS Math 2nd Edition Program overview for K–5 or 6–8 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS Assessments. Learn how these assessments both highlight students’ strengths and help identify what’s next through an asset-based approach. Leave ready to administer assessments and understand reporting.

Session options: mCLASS Math (grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen session options

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

Amplify will partner closely with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve student’s learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

Begin: Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing planning for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive into planning for Amplify Desmos Math, both big picture and day-to-day. Practice using lesson- and unit-planning protocols that will help you build a deep understanding of the math content you’ll be teaching and the planning resources available to you in the curriculum. Walk away with practical strategies for planning, even when you may not have much time.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing practice for K–5 or 6–A1, or high school teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dig into Amplify Desmos Math’s Launch, Monitor, Connect framework to level up the student discourse in your math class. Explore in-the-moment differentiation support to help you orchestrate discussion and make the most out of key opportunities for conversation and collaboration.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing observations for K–5 or 6–A1 leaders

Virtual, 1 hour

Elevate your program knowledge to support teachers with effective Amplify Desmos Math implementation. Leave prepared to identify key instructional elements in a problem-based math lesson, analyze data, and conduct effective classroom observations.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Supporting all learners: Differentiation in Amplify Desmos Math for K–5 or 6–A1 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Learn how to use the differentiation supports in Amplify Desmos Math to effectively support all learners, both in the moment during a lesson and beyond the lesson. Leave with a plan for implementing resources to support, strengthen, and stretch students’ thinking.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Amplify Desmos Math: Teaching a lesson with digital student screens for K–5 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Get ready to facilitate digital lessons with your students. Explore what’s possible with the Teacher Dashboard and plan to make the most of these exciting instructional moments.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (K–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Amplify Desmos Math: Unit-level planning for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Dive into unit-level planning to learn the story of your upcoming unit, and discover the big ideas you will explore alongside your students in Amplify Desmos Math.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Strengthen Focus: Amplify Desmos Math: Snapshots in the Teacher Dashboard for 6–A1 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Explore how to use the Snapshots tool in the Teacher Dashboard to create a collaborative classroom that invites and celebrates student thinking. Leave with planning tips and tricks that will get you ready to use Snapshots during your busy math classes.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades 6–A1)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Begin: Strengthen Focus: mCLASS Math: Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical thinking for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Available for grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

Virtual, 1 hour

Dig into mCLASS Math to reveal what students understand about mathematical concepts, and give them the tools to become more clear and confident communicators in math class.

Session options: mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Begin: mCLASS Math and Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Available for grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Ideal add-on Strengthen session
Explore how Boost Math uses mCLASS Math data to inform intervention recommendations and monitor student progress. Dig into your student data, explore relevant instructional resources, and leave with actionable next steps for intervention.

Session options: mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Begin: Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting and facilitating meaningful discussions for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Explore how Boost Math uses mCLASS Math data to inform intervention recommendations and monitor student progress. Dig into your student data, explore relevant instructional resources, and leave with actionable next steps for intervention.

Session options: mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Coach session options

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (K–5 or 6–A1) and/or mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Practice packages (grades K–5 or 6–8)

Launch sessions

  On-site package
(16 hr.)		 Hybrid 16, on-site package
(16 hr.)		 Virtual package
(16 hr.)
One Launch session per package On-site, 3 hr. Virtual, 3 hr. Virtual, 3 hr.
mCLASS Math 2nd Edition Program overview for K–5 or 6–8 teachers
 A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.

Strengthen and Coach sessions

  On-site package
(16 hr.)		 Hybrid 16, on-site package
(16 hr.)		 Virtual package
(16 hr.)
One Strengthen and two Coach sessions per package Virtual, 1 hr. Virtual, 1 hr. Virtual, 1 hr.
Amplify Desmos Math: Teaching a lesson with digital student screens for K–5 teachers
 A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Amplify Desmos Math: Unit-level planning for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
 A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Amplify Desmos Math: Increasing engagement with instructional routines for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
mCLASS Math: Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical thinking for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Coaching On-site, 6 hr. On-site, 6 hr. Virtual, 3 hr.
Coach session
 A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background. A large, light peach-colored checkmark on a transparent background.
Suggested enhancements
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing planning for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing practice for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing observation for K–5, 6–A1, or high school leaders
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting all learners for K–5 or 6–A1 teachers
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting and facilitating meaningful discussions for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. Amplify Desmos Math: Assessment in action: Analyzing data and reports and planning next steps for K–5 or 6–A1 teachers
Strengthen add-on Virtual or on-site, 3 hr. mCLASS Math and Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention for K–5 teachers

Launch session options

Propel your school or district into the new school year. Program-aligned Launch sessions introduce teachers and leaders to their unique Amplify program(s) and support a strong implementation.

Practice: mCLASS Math 2nd Edition Program overview for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive into the essentials of your mCLASS Math assessment program. Learn how these assessments both highlight students’ strengths and help identify what’s next through an asset-based approach. Leave ready to administer assessments and understand reporting.

Session options: mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Strengthen session options

Strengthen your Amplify implementation with program-specific sessions that support personalized learning and practice in your classroom.

Amplify will partner closely with you to select the appropriate session(s) that will deepen educators’ understanding of your Amplify program(s) and equip them with the tools they need to improve students’ learning outcomes. Each package includes one Strengthen session. Additional sessions can be added as Enhancements.

New session

Practice: Amplify Desmos Math: Strengthen: Focus: Teaching a lesson with digital student screens for K–5 teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Get ready to facilitate lessons with digital student screens. Explore what’s possible with the Teacher Dashboard and plan to make the most of these exciting instructional moments.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (K–5)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Amplify Desmos Math: Unit-level planning for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

Virtual, 1 hour

Dive into unit-level planning to learn the story of your upcoming unit, and discover the big ideas you will explore alongside your students in Amplify Desmos Math.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Practice: Strengthen Focus: Amplify Desmos Math: Increasing engagement with instructional routines for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

Available Oct. 2026

Virtual, 1 hour

Explore how to use the instructional routines in Amplify Desmos Math to support and engage students as they make sense of new contexts, develop mathematical language, and solve problems.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Practice: Strengthen Focus: mCLASS Math: Leveraging assessment data to strengthen mathematical explanations for grades K–5 or 6–8 teachers

Available for grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

Virtual, 1 hour

Dig into mCLASS Math to reveal what students understand about mathematical concepts, and give them the tools to become more clear and confident communicators in math class.

Session option: mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing planning K–5 or 6–A1 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dive into planning for Amplify Desmos Math, both big picture and day-to-day. Practice using lesson- and unit-planning protocols that will help you build a deep understanding of the math content you’ll be teaching and the planning resources available to you in the curriculum. Walk away with practical strategies for planning, even when you may not have much time.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing practice for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Dig into Amplify Desmos Math’s Launch, Monitor, Connect framework to level up the student discourse in your math class. Explore in-the-moment differentiation support to help you orchestrate discussion and make the most out of key opportunities for conversation and collaboration.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: Amplify Desmos Math: Enhancing observations for K–5, 6–A1, or high school leaders

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Elevate your program knowledge to support teachers with effective Amplify Desmos Math implementation. Leave prepared to identify key instructional elements in a problem-based math lesson, analyze data, and conduct effective classroom observations.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: Supporting all learners: Differentiation in Amplify Desmos Math for K–5 or 6–A1 teachers

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Learn how to use the differentiation supports in Amplify Desmos Math to effectively support all learners, both in the moment during a lesson and beyond the lesson. Leave with a plan for implementing resources to support, strengthen, and stretch students’ thinking.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting and facilitating meaningful discussions for K–5, 6–A1, or high school teachers

Available Oct. 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Explore how to transform your mathematics classroom into a social and collaborative environment where students deepen their understanding by sharing their mathematical thinking. Learn more about how Amplify Desmos Math provides support for these meaningful mathematical conversations.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5, 6–A1, or high school)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: Amplify Desmos Math: Assessment in action: Analyzing data, reports, and planning next steps for K–5 or 6–A1 teachers

Available Oct. 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Deepen your understanding of the different types of assessments in Amplify Desmos Math and how they provide evidence of student learning. Analyze sample student work to calibrate on assessment scoring, interpret student thinking, and make a plan for instructional next steps.

Session option: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

New session

Suggested enhancement: Practice: mCLASS Math and Boost Math: Understanding and using data to plan intervention for K–5 teachers

Available for grades 6–8 teachers Oct. 2026

On-site or virtual, 3 hours

Ideal add-on Strengthen session
Explore how Boost Math uses mCLASS Math data to inform intervention recommendations and monitor student progress. Dig into your student data, explore relevant instructional resources, and leave with actionable next steps for intervention.

Session option: mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Teachers, instructional staff (maximum 30 participants)

Coach session options

Elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs with customizable Coach sessions.

Coach session

On-site, 6 hours

Coaching sessions focus on building internal school and district capacity and leadership excellence. Coaching is customized to meet a school or district’s needs and can include model lessons, observations, walk-throughs, and/or co-planning.

Session options: Amplify Desmos Math (Grades K–5 or 6–A1) and mCLASS Math (Grades K–5 or 6–8)

Audience: Individual teachers, grade-level teams, PLCs, and/or instructional leaders (maximum 30 participants)

Contact us

Ready to lock in your dates? Want to learn more about developing a professional development plan to meet your needs?

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with you to design professional development plans to meet the needs of your staff. Whether you’re returning or new to Amplify program(s), we provide guidance in answering your questions and making package/session recommendations.

If you’d like to order professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Amplify Caminos

Built on a systematic scope and sequence, Amplify Caminos offers the explicit instruction needed in today’s classrooms.

We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Teacher observes student completing activity

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recommended sessions are highlighted below.
Audience Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
K–2 teachers Initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
K–2 teachers Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Skills Strand (Lectoescritura) initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Skills Strand (Lectoescritura) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Knowledge Strand (Conocimiento) initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Knowledge Strand (Conocimiento) program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
3–5 teachers Initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
3–5 teachers Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen
K–2 teachers Enhancing planning & practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Writing Half day Onsite/Remote 12/1/22
3–5 teachers Enhancing planning & practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Writing Half day Onsite/Remote 12/1/22
K–5 teachers Strengthening consultation session 1 hour or 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Coach
K–5 educators (leaders, principals, coaches, and teachers) Coaching session 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
K–5 educators (leaders, principals, coaches, and teachers) Coaching session 1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes
Coaching session Half day Remote Yes

Launch

K–2 teachers

Initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Caminos K–2 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Caminos, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Caminos, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Skills Strand initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Participants will learn the foundational elements of Amplify Caminos Skills Strand, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Skills Strand program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the foundational elements of the Amplify Caminos Skills Strand, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Knowledge Strand initial training for K–2 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Participants will learn the foundational elements of the Amplify Caminos Knowledge Strand, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Knowledge Strand program overview for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the foundational elements of Amplify Caminos, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

3–5 teachers

Initial training for 3–5 teachers

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half-days remote (6 hours)

Prepare to implement the Amplify Caminos 3–5 program in your classroom! Learn the foundational elements of the program, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully. Participants will begin planning for the first unit and lessons.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Program overview for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)

Learn the foundational elements of the Amplify Caminos curriculum, including the structure of materials, key lesson elements, and how to deliver specific lesson types successfully.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

K–2 teachers

Enhancing planning & practice for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers

Elevate program knowledge to strengthen your Amplify Caminos K–2 implementation! Understand the progression of foundational skills and focus on high-quality questioning and discussion techniques through lesson study and practice. Participants will practice implementing key instructional elements and leave with annotated lessons.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Writing for K–2 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for K–2 teachers and 2–3 months of Amplify Caminos instruction

Dig into Amplify Caminos writing instruction and student work in Grades K–2! Identify writing opportunities in the curriculum through analysis of a unit and daily lessons and analyze student writing using a program-aligned rubric. Participants will leave with an annotated unit highlighting the writing opportunities and student grouping suggestions.

Audience: K–2 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

3–5 teachers

Enhancing planning & practice for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training for 3–5 teachers

Elevate program knowledge to strengthen your Amplify Caminos 3–5 implementation! Deepen ability to scaffold complex texts by sequencing reading types, prioritizing questions, and using discussion techniques. Participants will practice implementing key instructional elements and leave with scaffolds for complex texts.

Audience: Teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Writing for 3–5 teachers

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial Training for 3–5 teachers and 2–3 months of Amplify Caminos instruction

Dig into Amplify Caminos writing instruction and student work in grades 3–5! Identify writing opportunities in the program through analysis of a unit and daily lessons and analyze student writing using a program-aligned rubric. Participants will leave with an annotated unit highlighting the writing opportunities and student grouping suggestions.

Audience: 3–5 teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

K–5 teachers

Strengthening consultation session

1 hour or 3 1-hour sessions
Prerequisite training: Initial training

These 60-minute sessions will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of Amplify Caminos and equip them with the support they need to drive toward stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance of the session on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet educators’ unique needs. The menu includes sessions on engagement, pacing, and supporting all learners.

Audience: K–5 classroom teachers (instructional leaders welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

K–5 educators (leaders, principals, coaches, and teachers)

Coaching for K–5 educators

2 days consecutive (6 hours per day, 12 total)
Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Caminos with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–4 school sites for two days. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Coaching for K–5 educators

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Caminos with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will visit 1–2 school sites for one day. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation. The flexible onsite coaching design allows for a collaborative approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching for K–5 educators

Half day (3 hours)
Prerequisite training: Initial training

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Caminos with a Coaching onsite visit for your teachers and/or leaders! An Amplify facilitator will virtually visit for a half day. Participants can choose from a variety of topics that include, but are not limited to: lesson modeling (conducted by an Amplify facilitator) and debriefing, grade-level planning, classroom observations, and leadership consultation.

Audience: Teachers and/or instructional leaders (principals and coaches)
Modality: Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
2-day onsite session$4800
1-day onsite session$3200
1-day remote session (2 half days remote)$1500
Half-day onsite session$2500
Half-day remote session$750
1-hour strengthening consultation session$350
3 1-hour strengthening consultation sessions$1000
Customized Amplify Caminos onsite or remote sessionPrice will vary

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Amplify Science professional development

Amplify Science blends hands-on investigations, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools to empower students to think, read, write, and argue like real scientists and engineers. We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Three women sitting at a table using a tablet to discuss stimulus funding for schools in a professional meeting.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

AudienceTitleDurationModalityAvailable
Foundations
K–5 instructional leadersAdministrators’ program overviewHalf dayOnsite/Remote6/2022
Administrators’ program overview for interactive classroomHalf dayOnsite/Remote6/2022
K–5 teachersInitial training1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		Onsite/RemoteYes*
Program overviewHalf dayOnsite/RemoteYes
Initial training for Interactive Classroom1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		Onsite/Remote6/2022
Program overview for Interactive ClassroomHalf dayOnsite/RemoteYes
6–8 instructional leadersAdministrators’ program overviewHalf dayOnsite/RemoteYes
6–8 teachersInitial training1 day onsite
or 2 half days
remote		Onsite/Remote6/2022
Program overviewHalf dayOnsite/RemoteYes
Strengthening
K–5 instructional leadersStrengthening consultation session60 min.Remote6/2022
Strengthening consultation package3 1-hour sessionsRemote6/2022
K–5 teachersGuided unit internalizationHalf dayOnsite/RemoteYes
Strengthening consultation session60 min.Remote6/2022
Strengthening consultation package3 1-hour sessionsRemote6/2022
6–8 instructional leadersStrengthening consultation session60 min.Remote6/2022
Strengthening consultation package3 1-hour sessionsRemote6/2022
6–8 teachersGuided unit internalizationHalf dayOnsite/RemoteYes
Strengthening consultation session60 min.Remote 6/2022
Strengthening consultation package3 1-hour sessionsRemote 6/2022
Coaching
K–5 instructional leadersJob-Embedded Coaching (JEC)1 dayOnsiteYes
K–5 teachersJob-Embedded Coaching (JEC)1 dayOnsite/RemoteYes
6–8 instructional leadersJob-Embedded Coaching (JEC)1 dayOnsiteYes
6–8 teachersJob-Embedded Coaching (JEC)1 dayOnsite/RemoteYes

Note for all workshops:  Any single three-hour offering can be repeated on the same day with different audiences to make one full-day session.

*When delivered remotely, this full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within ~2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content. This flexible scheduling opportunity for remote sessions will be available starting 6/2022.

Launch sessions

For teachers

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)*
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

In the first half of this session, participants learn the essentials necessary to implement Amplify Science with success. They learn to navigate the digital Amplify Science platform and become familiar with planning resources and strategies. Through a model lesson and guided reflection, participants build an understanding of the instructional approach to teaching and learning. In the second half of this session, participants dig deeper into unit resources to start planning for instruction for their first grade-level unit.

When delivered as a grade band session, Part 1 will feature an exemplar from the following units:

  • K–5 workshops feature an exemplar from the grade 4 unit Energy Conversions.
  • 6–8 workshops feature an exemplar from the Metabolism Core unit.

When delivered as a grade level session, Part 1 features the following units:

  • K: Needs of Plants and Animals
  • 1: Animal and Plant Defenses
  • 2: Plant and Animal Relationships
  • 3: Balancing Forces
  • 4: Energy Conversions
  • 5: Patterns of Earth and Sky

6–8 workshops feature one of the following units:

  • Metabolism
  • Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate
  • Phase Change

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*When delivered remotely, this full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within two weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content. This flexible scheduling opportunity for remote sessions will be available starting 6/2022.

Initial training for Interactive Classroom

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)*
Grade band: K–5
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

In the first half of this session, participants learn to navigate with Amplify Science Interactive Classroom and prepare to start teaching. The session opens with a model lesson that introduces the functionality of the Interactive Classroom interface and highlights the Amplify Science instructional approach. Next, participants experience a guided navigation walkthrough that prepares them to use the full suite of Interactive Classroom features with their students. The session closes with time to reflect on implementation and a walkthrough of additional resources available to support further professional learning. In the second half of this session, participants dig deeper into unit resources to start planning for instruction for their first grade-level unit.

When delivered as a grade band session, Part 1 will feature an exemplar from the grade 4 unit Energy Conversions.

When delivered as a grade level session, Part 1 features the following units:

  • K: Needs of Plants and Animals
  • 1: Animal and Plant Defenses
  • 2: Plant and Animal Relationships
  • 3: Balancing Forces
  • 4: Energy Conversions
  • 5: Patterns of Earth and Sky

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*When delivered remotely, this full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within two weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content. This flexible scheduling opportunity for remote sessions will be available starting 6/2022.

Program overview

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: 6, 7, 8

In this session, participants learn the essentials necessary to implement Amplify Science with success. They learn to navigate the digital Amplify Science platform and become familiar with planning resources and strategies. Through a model lesson and guided reflection, participants build an understanding of the instructional approach to teaching and learning.

When delivered as a grade band session, an exemplar will be featured from the following units:

  • K–5 workshops feature an exemplar from the grade 4 unit Energy Conversions.
  • 6–8 workshops feature an exemplar from Metabolism.

When delivered as a grade level session, the following units will be featured:

  • K: Needs of Plants and Animals
  • 1: Animal and Plant Defenses
  • 2: Plant and Animal Relationships
  • 3: Balancing Forces
  • 4: Energy Conversions
  • 5: Patterns of Earth and Sky

6–8 workshops feature one of the following units:

  • Metabolism
  • Ocean, Atmosphere, and Climate
  • Phase Change

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Program overview for Interactive Classroom

Half day (3 hours)
Grand band: K–5
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

In this session, participants learn to navigate with Amplify Science Interactive Classroom and prepare to start teaching. The session opens with a model lesson that introduces the functionality of the Interactive Classroom interface and highlights the Amplify Science instructional approach. Next, participants experience a guided navigation walkthrough that prepares them to use the full suite of Interactive Classroom features with their students. The session closes with time to reflect on implementation and a walkthrough of additional resources available to support further professional learning.

When delivered as a grade band session, the workshop features an exemplar from the Grade 4 unit Energy Conversions.

When delivered as a grade level session, the workshop features the following units:

  • K: Needs of Plants and Animals
  • 1: Animal and Plant Defenses
  • 2: Plant and Animal Relationships
  • 3: Balancing Forces
  • 4: Energy Conversions
  • 5: Patterns of Earth and Sky

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

For instructional leaders

Administrators’ program overview

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8

In this session, instructional leaders become familiar with the principles of phenomenon-based teaching and learning, and experience the instructional approach of Amplify Science units. Leaders consider their essential role supporting teachers and students with the implementation of a new science curriculum.

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Administrators’ program overview for Interactive Classroom

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K-5

In this session, instructional leaders become familiar with the functionality of Amplify Science with Interactive Classroom and are introduced to the instructional approach of Amplify Science units. Leaders consider their essential role supporting teachers and students with the implementation of a new science curriculum.

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening sessions

For teachers

Guided unit internalization

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this session, participants leverage a planning protocol to internalize an upcoming unit. They apply their understanding of how students engage in three-dimensional learning throughout the unit to plan for the diverse needs of their classrooms and students.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation session

60-minute session
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

This 60-minute session focuses on a specific topic that will deepen teachers understanding of Amplify Science. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet teachers unique options.

Topics include supporting diverse learners (for K–8 teachers), Classwork/My Work/Assign/Reporting (for 6–8 teachers), and planning an Amplify Science lesson (for K–8 teachers).

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen teachers understanding of Amplify Science. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet teachers unique needs.

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

For instructional leaders

Strengthening consultation session

60-minute session
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Administrators’ program overview

These 60 minute sessions will focus on a specific topic that will deepen instructional leaders’ understanding in Amplify Science and equip them in driving towards stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet instructional leaders’ unique needs.

Topics include data analysis with Admin Reports (for 6-8 leaders), and Amplify Science classroom look-fors (for K-8 leaders).

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Administrators’ program overview

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen leaders’ understanding of Amplify Science. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet leaders’ unique needs.

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coaching sessions

For teachers

Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC) services: Teachers

1 day (6 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Science with a coaching onsite visit for your teachers. An Amplify Science Professional Learning Specialist can visit classrooms for observation and debriefs with focused feedback and/or facilitate PLC or grade-level meetings to support teachers with planning decisions. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative and personalized approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

For instructional leaders

Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC): Administrators

1 day (6 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Administrators’ program overview

In our Coaching sessions, instructional leaders engage in facilitated Professional Learning Walks (PLW)—non-evaluative classroom observations of Amplify Science classrooms that focus on building capacity to identify indicators of strong implementation of the program. Classroom look-fors focus on the use of instructional resources (material access/use and the Classroom Wall), instructional delivery (unpacking the unit phenomena and multimodal instruction), and monitoring of instruction (supporting all learners and use of the Assessment System). Leaders collaboratively analyze collected data in order to identify strengths and areas for growth specific to the implementation of Amplify Science for their teaching teams. Leaders leave with an action plan for supporting their teachers based on the analysis and reflection from the PLW.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
2 consecutive full day onsite sessions$4,800
1-day onsite session$3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days)$1,500
1-day remote coaching session$1,200
Half-day onsite session$2,500
Half-day remote session$750
60-minute remote session$350
3 1-hour remote sessions$1,000
Customized Amplify Science onsite or remote packagesPrice will vary

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

Amplify Science professional development

Amplify Science blends hands-on investigations, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools to empower students to think, read, write, and argue like real scientists and engineers. We’ve created a wide suite of professional development offerings that will help you meet your unique needs this school year. Find out more below!

Professional Learning Partner Guide Certified Provider

Amplify CKLA, ELA, and Science professional development has been vetted by Rivet Education’s team through a rigorous three-step process and is listed in the Professional Learning Partner Guide.

Three women sitting at a table using a tablet to discuss stimulus funding for schools in a professional meeting.

Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

Illustration of three educational phases: a teacher launches a rocket, another reads a book, and four individuals discuss in a meeting setting.

Recommended professional development plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recommended sessions are highlighted below.
Audience Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
K–5 instructional leaders Administrators’ program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes^
TK teachers Transitional kindergarten program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
K–5 teachers Initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes*^
K–5 teachers Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Interactive Classroom consultation 90 min. Remote Yes
6–8 instructional leaders Administrators’ program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
6–8 teachers Initial training 1 day onsite
or 2 days
remote		 Onsite/Remote Yes*
6–8 teachers Program overview Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthen
K–5 instructional leaders Strengthening consultation session 60 min. Remote 6/2022
Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote 6/2022
K–5 teachers Guided unit internalization Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
K–5 teachers The Assessment System Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting all learners with complex texts Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Writing in science Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting English learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthening consultation session 60 min. Remote 6/2022
Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote 6/2022
6–8 instructional leaders Strengthening consultation session 60 min. Remote 6/2022
Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote 6/2022
6–8 teachers Guided unit internalization Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
6–8 teachers The Assessment System Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting all learners with complex texts Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Writing in science Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Supporting English learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Engineering Internships Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Science Seminar Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Strengthening consultation session 60 min. Remote  6/2022
Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote  6/2022
Coach
K–5 instructional leaders Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC) 1 day Onsite Yes
K–5 teachers Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC) 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
6–8 instructional leaders Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC) 1 day Onsite Yes
6–8 teachers Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC) 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Note for all workshops:  Any single three-hour offering can be repeated on the same day with different audiences to make one full-day session.
*When delivered remotely, this full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within ~2 weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content. This flexible scheduling opportunity for remote sessions will be available starting 6/2022.

^Session will be available for IC customers after June 1, 2022.

Launch

For teachers

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)*
Grade band: K–1 / K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

In the first half of this session, participants learn the essentials necessary to implement Amplify Science with success. They learn to navigate the digital Amplify Science platform and become familiar with planning resources and strategies. Through a model lesson and guided reflection, participants build an understanding of the instructional approach to teaching and learning. In the second half of this session, participants dig deeper into unit resources to start planning for instruction for their first grade-level unit.

When delivered as a grade band session, Part 1 will feature an exemplar from the following units:

  • K–1 workshops feature an exemplar from the grade 1 unit Animal and Plant Defenses.
  • K–5 workshops feature an exemplar from the grade 4 unit Energy Conversions.
  • 6–8 workshops feature an exemplar from the Metabolism Core unit.

When delivered as a grade level session, Part 1 features the following units:

  • K: Needs of Plants and Animals
  • 1: Animal and Plant Defenses
  • 2: Plant and Animal Relationships
  • 3: Balancing Forces
  • 4: Energy Conversions
  • 5: Patterns of Earth and Sky

6–8 workshops feature one of the following units:

  • Metabolism
  • Plate Motion
  • Force and Motion

Interactive Classroom customers: Select K-5 grade band or K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 grade level sessions (available starting 6/2022)

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*When delivered remotely, this full-day initial training session (6 hours) is split into two half-day sessions (3 hours each). Part 1 and Part 2 may be scheduled consecutively on the same day or on different days, ideally within two weeks. The same participants should attend both sessions in order to receive all content. This flexible scheduling opportunity for remote sessions will be available starting 6/2022.

Interactive Classroom consultation

90 minutes
Grade band: K–5
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this remote consultation session, participants prepare to leverage Amplify Science’s new K-5 Interactive Classroom experience. The session includes a walkthrough of new digital features available to teachers and an opportunity for participants to experience these enhancements through modeled activities from an exemplar K-5 unit. The session closes with time for participants to explore the digital features and ask questions to support their planning.

*This session is designed for experienced Amplify Science users who are new to adding Interactive Classroom.

Audience: Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Program overview

Half day (3 hours)
Grand band: K–1, K–5, 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

In this session, participants learn the essentials necessary to implement Amplify Science with success. They learn to navigate the digital Amplify Science platform and become familiar with planning resources and strategies. Through a model lesson and guided reflection, participants build an understanding of the instructional approach to teaching and learning.

When delivered as a grade band session, an exemplar will be featured from the following units:

  • K–1 workshops feature an exemplar from the grade 1 unit Animal and Plant Defenses.
  • K–5 workshops feature an exemplar from the grade 4 unit Energy Conversions.
  • 6–8 workshops feature an exemplar from Metabolism.

When delivered as a grade level session, the following units will be featured:

  • K: Needs of Plants and Animals
  • 1: Animal and Plant Defenses
  • 2: Plant and Animal Relationships
  • 3: Balancing Forces
  • 4: Energy Conversions
  • 5: Patterns of Earth and Sky

6–8 workshops feature one of the following units:

  • Metabolism
  • Plate Motion
  • Force and Motion

Interactive Classroom customers: Select K-5 grade band or K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 grade level sessions

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Transitional kindergarten program overview

Half day (3 hours)
Grade level: TK

In this session, participants dive into exploring and planning for the first TK unit, Wondering About Noises in Trees. They engage with model activities, experience key instructional routines, and plan how they’ll implement this flexible curriculum in their classrooms. Participants collaborate to build a deep understanding of the TK instructional approach and structure. They will leave ready to start instruction in their classrooms, and take away a suite of additional resources to support their preparation for other TK units.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remotewelcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

For instructional leaders

Administrators’ program overview

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8

In this session, instructional leaders become familiar with the principles of phenomenon-based teaching and learning, and experience the instructional approach of Amplify Science units. Leaders consider their essential role supporting teachers and students with the implementation of a new science curriculum.

Interactive Classroom customers: Select K-5 grade band session (available starting 6/2022)

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthen

For teachers

The Assessment System

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this session, participants learn about the structure and purpose of the varied formative and summative opportunities in the Amplify Science Assessment System. Participants experience and analyze a sample formative assessment, deepen their understanding of unit learning progressions, and acquire strategies for collecting, analyzing, and responding to student assessment data. Collaborative reflections and discussions support participants’ understanding of the relationships among different types of assessments and their unit’s learning goals.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Supporting all learners with complex texts

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this session, participants learn strategies to support all students as they access the complex texts in Amplify Science units. They explore the connections among the ways professional scientists read and how Amplify Science lessons build students’ capacity as science readers. The workshop includes a model reading sequence, collaborative problem-solving around common student reading challenges, and planning time for upcoming reading lessons in participants’ units.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Writing in science

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

K–5: In this session, participants develop an understanding of how the Amplify Science writing approach supports students to engage in science practices, make sense of science ideas, and develop as writers. Participants experience an example multimodal instructional sequence that demonstrates the connections among informal daily writing and the more structured formal scientific explanations and arguments students write in each Amplify Science unit. They dig into resources for analyzing student writing then apply their learning to plan for supporting student writing in their unit.

6-8: In this session, participants develop an understanding of how the Amplify Science writing approach supports students to engage in science practices, make sense of science ideas, and develop as writers. Participants experience an example instructional sequence that demonstrates the varied purposes for frequent small, informal writing opportunities in multimodal science instruction, then they analyze how each core unit’s culminating Science Seminar experience works as a scaffold to support students as they write sophisticated scientific arguments. The session closes with a guided reflection on strategies for supporting student writing.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Supporting English learners

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this session, participants explore strategies to support English learners’ ability to do, talk, read, write, visualize, and construct arguments like scientists. By engaging in model activities, participants deepen their knowledge of the critical role that language and literacy play in developing scientific understanding. Participants become familiar with the research-based principles underlying the embedded supports and strategies in Amplify Science, which aid in students’ development of disciplinary literacy in science.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Guided unit internalization

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: TK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this session, participants leverage a planning protocol to internalize an upcoming unit. They apply their understanding of how students engage in three-dimensional learning throughout the unit to plan for the diverse needs of their classrooms and students.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Engineering Internships

Half day (3 hours)
Grade level: 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

In this session, participants explore and plan for the first Engineering Internship of their grade-level course. Participants are oriented to the Futura Workspace and other digital tools used with students in the internship experience. Participants also dive deeper into how students apply science concepts from core units to construct design solutions, learning engineering concepts and practices throughout the process.

Workshop will feature one of the following units:

  • Metabolism Engineering Internship
  • Plate Motion Engineering Internship
  • Force and Motion Engineering Internship

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Science Seminar

Half day (3 hours)
Grade band: 6–8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

This session focuses on the culminating Science Seminar sequence at the end of the grades 6–8 core units, in which students apply the conceptual understanding built throughout the unit to engage in argumentation about a unique but related phenomenon. Participants experience a Science Seminar sequence from an exemplar unit as students do, then dive into a unit at their grade level to internalize the Science Seminar sequence and plan for instruction.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Strengthening consultation session

60-minute session
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

This 60-minute session focuses on a specific topic that will deepen teachers understanding of Amplify Science. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district leadership team in advance on the topic (chosen from a menu of options) that will best meet teachers’ unique options.

Topics include:

  • Supporting Diverse Learners: Exploring the resources (for K–8 teachers)
  • Supporting Diverse Learners: Leveraging and Building upon Embedded Supports A: Teacher modeling and student discourse (for K–8 teachers)
  • Supporting Diverse Learners: Leveraging and Building upon Embedded Supports B: Multimodal instruction
  • Planning an Amplify Science lesson (for K–8 teachers)
  • Unit kits and materials prep (for K–5 teachers)
  • Grading with Amplify Science (for K–8 teachers)
  • Analyzing Student Work (for K–8 teachers)

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions
Grade band:K–5 / 6–8
Grade level:K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite:Initial training or program overview

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen teachers understanding of Amplify Science. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet teachers’ unique needs.

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience:Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

For instructional leaders

Strengthening consultation session

60-minute session
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Administrators’ program overview

These 60 minute sessions will focus on a specific topic that will deepen instructional leaders’ understanding in Amplify Science and equip them in driving towards stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet instructional leaders’ unique needs.

Topic available for summer 2022: Amplify Science classroom look-fors (for K-8 leaders).

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation package

3 1-hour sessions
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Administrators’ program overview

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen leaders’ understanding of Amplify Science. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet leaders’ unique needs.

Available starting 6/2022.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

For teachers

Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC) services: Teachers

1 day (6 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Grade level: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Prerequisite: Initial training or program overview

Strengthen your implementation of Amplify Science with a coaching onsite visit for your teachers. An Amplify Science Professional Learning Specialist can visit classrooms for observation and debriefs with focused feedback and/or facilitate PLC or grade-level meetings to support teachers with planning decisions. The flexible coaching design allows for a collaborative and personalized approach to support effective program implementation.

Audience: Teachers, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

For instructional leaders

Job-Embedded Coaching (JEC): Administrators

1 day (6 hours)
Grade band: K–5 / 6–8
Prerequisite: Administrators’ program overview

In our Coaching sessions, instructional leaders engage in facilitated Professional Learning Walks (PLW)—non-evaluative classroom observations of Amplify Science classrooms that focus on building capacity to identify indicators of strong implementation of the program. Classroom look-fors focus on the use of instructional resources (material access/use and the Classroom Wall), instructional delivery (unpacking the unit phenomena and multimodal instruction), and monitoring of instruction (supporting all learners and use of the Assessment System). Leaders collaboratively analyze collected data in order to identify strengths and areas for growth specific to the implementation of Amplify Science for their teaching teams. Leaders leave with an action plan for supporting their teachers based on the analysis and reflection from the PLW.

Audience: Administrators, department chairs, coaches, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
2 consecutive full day onsite sessions$4,800
1-day onsite session$3,200
1-day remote session (2 half days)$1,500
1-day remote coaching session$1,200
Half-day onsite session$2,500
Half-day remote session$750
90-minute remote session$500
60-minute remote session$350
3 1-hour remote sessions$1,000
Customized Amplify Science onsite or remote packagesPrice will vary

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

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Invest in high-quality professional development.

Amplify’s professional development (PD) provides a variety of learning experiences over multiple years to incrementally develop and apply the knowledge and skills needed for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Gain insights into effective instructional techniques and develop a deeper understanding of your Amplify program(s) by investing in PD.

Contact us

The foundation for long-lasting and sustainable change

Partner with us to plan long-lasting and sustainable change for your school or district. Change achieved deliberately is much more likely to stick and get results. We can support you through this journey to drive your professional improvement, enrich your instructional practice, and increase student impact.

Professional learning journey

Prepare

You’ll understand research-based practices to support new program implementation.

Prepare learning experiences will help shift literacy and math instruction in areas such as the Science of Reading and/or problem-based approaches to math.

Begin

You’ll build the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with your Amplify program(s).

Program-aligned packages will support those who are new to Amplify’s programs.

Practice

You’ll refine instrucional skills, expand knowledge of your Amplify program(s), and explore more advanced insturctional strategies.

Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify’s programs.

Advance

You’ll deepen understanding of content and pedagogy and build-in house capacity to support a robust, sustainable implementation.

Program-aligned offerings will support advanced implementation, build capacity for instructional leaders, certify in-house trainers to deliver Launch sessions, and more.

Learn more about our curated catalog of packages and sessions to support each stage of your learning journey.

Multi-program, suite packages

Core program packages

Literacy

  • Amplify Texas ELAR/SLAR K–5
  • Amplify Texas ELAR 6–8

STEM

  • Amplify Math
  • Amplify Desmos Math (K–A2)
  • Amplify Science
 

Supplemental program sessions

  • Boost Reading Texas K–8
  • Boost Lectura K–2

Assessment program packages

  • mCLASS Texas Edition
  • mCLASS Lectura Texas

mCLASS Intervention K–6 program sessions

  

Empower teachers to continuously improve.

Professional development helps teachers stay motivated and inspired to grow professionally. Demonstrate your commitment to your staff by empowering them with professional development packages that include on-site or virtual Launch, Strengthen, or Coach sessions, all of which will orient you and your team to the full features of Amplify programs.

You can also personalize your learning experience by adding enhancement sessions to base packages.

Launch

Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation.

After learning about the program’s foundational principles and key features, you’ll practice administering the program within a collaborative environment.

Strengthen

Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of the program. Session offerings are targeted and meant to take your practice—and your students’ learning—to the next level.

Offered as part of core packages, as well as enhancements, Strengthen sessions are intended to effectively address your students’ needs. Examples include:

  • A focus on data analysis.
  • Examining student writing.
  • Targeted intervention instruction.

Coach

Coach sessions elevate instructional practice and help meet teachers’ and schools’ specific needs.

Partner with an Amplify coach who will support you in planning a day tailored to meet the needs of teachers and/or leaders. Your customized session will leverage our menu of support, which can include:

  • Lesson modeling by an Amplify facilitator.
  • Classroom observations and debriefs.
  • Grade-level planning.

Coach sessions are customized to you with an Amplify facilitator.

Commit to sustainable change for long-term impact.

Learning may ebb and flow between phases depending on your teachers’ and leaders’ needs, experiences, and professional goals. Amplify PD aims to continually grow, develop, and refine instructional practices to support student learning and achievement.

Frequently asked questions

We value your partnership and aim to provide you with the highest quality learning experiences. Check out our frequently asked PD questions below, along with responses.

View the PD FAQs

Additional learning

Once you become an Amplify customer, you’ll have access to many opportunities to continue learning how to get the most out of your Amplify program(s).

To get a sense of our support, check out some of our free resources:

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Biliteracy supports

Sessions are available to support educators teaching with both Amplify ELAR and Amplify SLAR core programs, or both mCLASS Texas Edition and mCLASS Lectura Texas assessment programs.

Facilitated in both English and Spanish, these specialized sessions should be scheduled for biliteracy teachers using both curriculums and/or assessments. Substitute a biliteracy session for the six-hour initial training in your package, or add these sessions on to your package for your biliteracy teachers.

Speak to our team to learn more!

Order and payment support

If you’re ready to submit your price quote, purchase order, or payment, please visit our Ordering Support site for more information.

Submit an order to make a payment
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Community of collaboration

Connect with fellow Science of Reading, math, or science advocates in one of our public Facebook groups. Join a community or tune into one of our podcasts today:

Amplify customers can join our exclusive, program-specific Facebook communities to ask pedagogical questions, share Amplify teaching hacks, and more!

Our experts

We are educators supporting educators. Every member of Amplify’s national team of highly experienced and qualified facilitators is a former educator with years of hands-on classroom and/or administrative experience. Our facilitators are passionate about supporting educators in the implementation of their Amplify programs and creating transformational change for all students.

Get in touch with a PD expert

We’re here to provide answers and guidance as you explore your PD journey. Fill out the form to connect with us and discover how Amplify PD can enhance your educational journey.

Introducing our 2023 Science of Reading Star Award finalists!

Roll out the red carpet and shine those spotlights—it’s time to meet the 25 finalists for our 2023 Science of Reading Star Awards!

These educators and leaders help light the way for the next generation. They’ve implemented Science of Reading principles and guided their students toward lifelong literacy. They’ve demonstrated expert change management and professional development. Get ready to meet some of the brightest minds in education as we celebrate their achievements and see what makes them truly stellar!

Join our virtual event and awards program on May 23.

But first…meet our 2023 finalists! Below, you’ll hear from the nominees themselves, as well as the colleagues who nominated them, about what makes them stars.

The Changemaker Award

For exemplary leadership in guiding a district through a shift to the Science of Reading.

And the finalists are…

Heather Campbell
Learning Coach, Sunset Elementary, Washington County District, UT
Why she’s a star: “Heather’s philosophy that all students can learn to read if given proper instruction has changed the data. Our school made the change and the data is showing our students are thriving.” —Shelli Campbell, Learning Coach

Javonna Mack
Lead Content Teacher, Caddo Parish School, LA
Why she’s a star: “Whether working with students or teachers, Mrs. Mack keeps best practices grounded in the Science of Reading at the forefront. She constantly strives to build teachers’ expertise in teaching students to read through content-rich professional learning communities, often on Saturdays or after the workday has ended.” —Shannon Southwell, Lead Content Teacher

Aaron Jura
Reading Interventionist, Bloomingdale, IL School District
Why he’s a star: “Aaron has been the catalyst for our entire district embracing this shift to the Science of Reading, and we are just at the beginning of this amazing journey.” —Nicole Gabany, Reading Interventionist

Nicole Peterson
Director of PreK–8 Education, Sampson County Schools, NC
Why she’s a star: “She has created, initiated, implemented, monitored, evaluated, and adjusted processes and systems to ensure that teachers have access to resources, training, materials, and professional development to ensure that all students gain equitable access to high-quality, evidence-based instruction.” —Matthew McLean, Director, PreK–8th Grade Education

Virginia Quinn-Mooney
Teacher, Northville Elementary School, CT
Why she’s a star: “Virginia has gone from one person with a personal commitment to advancing her literacy knowledge. She has now impacted countless educators, parents, etc., with her tenacity and learning journey.” —Nicole Gregory, Teacher

The Data Dynamo Award

For commendable use of data to align a literacy system and maximize student achievement

Shennoy Barnett
Kindergarten Teacher, South Smithfield Elementary, NC
Why she’s a star: “My objective is to help as many children as I can become fluent readers and critical thinkers. As a literacy specialist here for just four months, I made great strides with literacy with my students.” —Shennoy Barnett, Kindergarten Teacher

Anne Elizabeth Carter
Kindergarten Teacher, Wake County District, NC
Why she’s a star: “Through systematic and explicit phonics instruction as well as targeted language comprehension instruction—using texts that incorporate science and social studies content as well as build knowledge systematically—my kiddos were TRULY learning how to read accurately and fluently.” —David Gaudet, Principal

Bethani Ploegstra
Kindergarten Teacher, Union Colony Elementary, CO
Why she’s a star: “She takes data from mCLASS® DIBELS®, Lexia, and SchoolPace (part of our reading curriculum), as well as formative feedback from what she hears and sees students doing daily in the classroom, to immediately adjust what she presents next to students, whether individually, in small groups, or whole class.” —Mandy Bailey, Assistant Principal

The Knowledge Builder Award

For showing the world that the Science of Reading is more than just phonics, and empowers students with knowledge from elementary to middle school

Corey Beil
Instructional Interventionist, Quakertown Community School District, PA
Why he’s a star: “He incorporated literacy into his daily math instruction by providing our students with opportunities to understand and connect with the content more deeply. Our students were exposed to practicing literacy concepts while expanding their mathematical knowledge and foundational understanding.” —Julianne Pennabaker, Teacher

Kim Smaw
Principal, Rosalyn Yalow Charter School, NY
Why she’s a star: “She was able to persuade the learning community to adopt the Science of Reading, firmly convincing them that this curriculum could empower students to gain rich learning experiences.” —Deirdre Frost, Reading Intervention Specialist

Angie Dutton
Instructional Coach, Onslow County Schools, NC
Why she’s a star: “Her positive attitude about the Science of Reading is contagious and is most likely why other educators feel comfortable reaching out to her for questions and guidance.” —Stacey Horne, Instructional Coach

Nicole Brodie
ELA Grade 7 Teacher, Long Middle School, GA
Why she’s a star: “She encourages her students to use their [voices] for change and impact and supports them in their learning process academically, [socially, and emotionally].”
—Renee Dawson, Grade 7 English Language Arts Teacher

The Intervention Innovator Award

For admirable use of intervention strategies to get at-risk readers back on track

Suzanne Maddox
RTI Teacher, Robertson County Schools, TN
Why she’s a star: “Mrs. Maddox reviewed individual student data, worked with teachers, and began using CKLA Skills and the intervention materials provided with this curriculum to continue a sounds-first approach to meeting the individual needs of students.” —Brooke Callis, RTI Teacher

Sara Thornton
Reading Interventionist, Senior Team Lead, Schmitt Elementary, CO
Why she’s a star: “Sara’s enthusiasm for and dedication to her work has been an inspiration to all involved and has resulted in a successful transition to the Science of Reading—as evidenced by our students’ amazing academic growth!” —Hayley Gunter, Reading Interventionist, Senior Team Lead

Markaya Aga
Reading Interventionist, Merit Academy, CO
Why she’s a star: “Since she has come on board at our school, the mindset around literacy and the growth of our programming [has improved] ten-fold. We need more educators like Markaya!” —Allison Hanson, Reading Interventionist

The Language Luminary Award

For outstanding success in developing the skills and strengths of emergent bilingual students

Wanda Ramirez
Grade 2 Teacher, El Sol Science and Arts Academy, CA
Why she’s a star: “We used to emphasize to students that what they know in one language cannot be used in the other language. Now, as a dual-immersion educator, I have the opportunity to change that mindset, teach my students to embrace their native [language], and empower them to use their entire linguistic ability. It’s a very powerful thing to be able to do.” —Wanda Ramirez, Grade 2 Teacher

Esmeralda Martinez
Kindergarten Teacher, Compass Community Schools, TN
Why she’s a star: “She has consistently worked on improving her teaching methods, tried new ways to engage the class, and worked diligently to support all of our students.” —Rachel, Marinari, Teacher

Christine Black
ESL Teacher, North Dover Elementary School, NJ
Why she’s a star: “We have a rapidly expanding ESL population, and Mrs. Black works tirelessly to ensure that her students are expanding their ELA skills in accordance with the major tenets of the Science of Reading.” —Dawn Gawalis, ESL Teacher

Rookie of the Year Award

For showing the world that the Science of Reading is more than just phonics, and empowers students with knowledge from elementary to middle school

Caitlyn Cockram
Teacher, Patrick County Schools, VA
Why she’s a star: “We have offered professional development in vocabulary and implementing SOR strategies, and Caitlyn is always one of the first teachers to sign up. She is dedicated to improving student achievement through research and evidence-based practices.” —Callie Wheeler, Teacher

Andrea Mason
Academic Interventionist, County Line Elementary School, GA
Why she’s a star: “Making the shift from balanced literacy to the Science of Reading hasn’t always been easy. But I continue to research and implement these best practices with my students because I can see that they are now on a path to becoming strong readers.” —Jennifer Ezell, Academic Interventionist

Mallory Pendergast
Phonics Teacher, Literacy Interventionist, Circle City Prep, IN
Why she’s a star: “As a kindergarten teacher, she led 100% of her scholars to be reading on grade level in the first quarter and maintained that momentum through the first semester.” —Sami Hyde, Senior Instructional Coach

ESSER Ace Award

For notable and innovative use of stimulus funds to help kids rediscover the joy of reading

Stephanie Hurst
District Literacy Specialist, Maple Avenue Elementary, NH
Why she’s a star: “She is also a voice on the utilization of [the] ESSER Fund—using the distribution of funds per federal protocol to ensure that the district’s lowest-performing schools have access to quality instructional materials and professional development all grounded in the Science of Reading.” —Mark Blount, K–12 Literacy Specialist

Callie Wheeler and Sara Vernon
Instructional Coaches, Patrick County Schools, VA
Why Callie’s a star: “Mrs. Wheeler played a key role in creating a culture of literacy within our schools, where the Science of Reading is central to the education of our students.” —Sara Vernon, Instructional Coach
Why Sara’s a star: “Sara has worked tirelessly to make the shift from the vision that was grounded in balanced literacy to one that is now making waves in Southwest Virginia with its Know Better, Do Better, Be Better approach to reading instruction.” —Callie Wheeler, Instructional Coach

Edie Bostic
Literacy Coach, Gallia Local, OH
“As a teacher, district Title I coordinator, elementary principal, and now district literacy coach, she continually champions the students under her care and is passionate about those students receiving the highest levels of instruction.” —Leslie Henry, Principal

Inspired? We are! Register to join our May 23 Science of Reading Star Awards virtual ceremony!

More to explore

Learn with and from other top-notch educators like you through our family of podcasts.

Listen to Science of Reading: The Podcast now

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

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

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

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Aryanna Trejo (00:00):

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

Eric Cross (00:19):

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

Aryanna Trejo (01:11):

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

Eric Cross (01:16):

You’re coming back?

Aryanna Trejo (01:17):

I’m coming back. Yeah.

Eric Cross (01:19):

So if you need a classroom to visit….

Aryanna Trejo (01:21):

I would love to do more classroom observations!

Eric Cross (01:24):

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

Aryanna Trejo (01:26):

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

Eric Cross (01:35):

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

Aryanna Trejo (01:40):

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

Eric Cross (01:53):

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

Aryanna Trejo (01:58):

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

Eric Cross (02:06):

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

Aryanna Trejo (02:11):

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

Eric Cross (02:15):

<laugh> Oh, we already started.

Aryanna Trejo (02:16):

Huh? We already started?

Eric Cross (02:17):

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

Aryanna Trejo (02:19):

We’re into it.

Eric Cross (02:21):

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

Aryanna Trejo (02:26):

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

Eric Cross (02:40):

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

Aryanna Trejo (02:49):

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

Eric Cross (03:11):

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

Aryanna Trejo (03:17):

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

Eric Cross (04:07):

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

Aryanna Trejo (04:11):

Yeah. We’re meant to be coworkers.

Eric Cross (04:13):

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

Aryanna Trejo (04:17):

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

Eric Cross (04:28):

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

Aryanna Trejo (04:34):

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

Eric Cross (05:26):

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

Aryanna Trejo (06:00):

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

Eric Cross (06:41):

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

Aryanna Trejo (07:28):

Sure.

Eric Cross (07:28):

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

Aryanna Trejo (07:54):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s correct.

Eric Cross (07:57):

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

Aryanna Trejo (08:41):

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

Eric Cross (09:39):

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

Aryanna Trejo (10:06):

Sure.

Eric Cross (10:08):

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

Aryanna Trejo (10:16):

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

Eric Cross (11:00):

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

Aryanna Trejo (11:05):

Sure, yeah, I’m familiar.

Eric Cross (11:05):

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

Aryanna Trejo (11:28):

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

Eric Cross (12:50):

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

Aryanna Trejo (13:12):

Sure.

Eric Cross (13:13):

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

Aryanna Trejo (13:44):

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

Eric Cross (14:19):

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

Aryanna Trejo (14:31):

Exactly.

Eric Cross (14:32):

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

Aryanna Trejo (15:08):

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

Eric Cross (15:58):

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

Aryanna Trejo (16:27):

Sure.

Eric Cross (16:28):

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

Aryanna Trejo (17:10):

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

Eric Cross (19:07):

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

Aryanna Trejo (19:19):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (19:19):

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

Aryanna Trejo (19:42):

Yep.

Eric Cross (19:42):

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

Aryanna Trejo (20:19):

Oh yeah.

Eric Cross (20:20):

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

Aryanna Trejo (20:25):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (20:26):

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

Aryanna Trejo (21:06):

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

Eric Cross (21:39):

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

Aryanna Trejo (21:47):

It’s exactly that.

Eric Cross (21:47):

That’s exactly what it is.

Aryanna Trejo (21:49):

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

Eric Cross (24:31):

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

Aryanna Trejo (24:59):

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

Eric Cross (25:10):

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

Aryanna Trejo (25:15):

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

Eric Cross (25:42):

You work at Code.org! You get to—

Aryanna Trejo (25:42):

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

Eric Cross (26:46):

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

Aryanna Trejo (27:08):

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

Eric Cross (28:13):

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

Aryanna Trejo (28:20):

Yep.

Eric Cross (28:21):

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

Aryanna Trejo (28:32):

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

Eric Cross (29:32):

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

Aryanna Trejo (29:39):

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

Eric Cross (29:53):

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

Aryanna Trejo (30:40):

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

Eric Cross (31:36):

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

Aryanna Trejo (31:44):

Oh yeah.

Eric Cross (31:45):

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

Aryanna Trejo (31:48):

Absolutely.

Eric Cross (31:48):

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

Aryanna Trejo (32:03):

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

Eric Cross (32:19):

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

Aryanna Trejo (33:20):

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

Eric Cross (33:44):

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

Aryanna Trejo (33:49):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (33:49):

So I was really excited.

Aryanna Trejo (33:50):

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

Eric Cross (34:20):

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

Aryanna Trejo (34:26):

You would be overselling it.

Eric Cross (34:27):

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

Aryanna Trejo (34:35):

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

Eric Cross (34:37):

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

Aryanna Trejo (36:22):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (36:23):

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

Aryanna Trejo (36:27):

Yeah! You really said it.

Eric Cross (36:29):

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

Aryanna Trejo (36:31):

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

Eric Cross (36:34):

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

Aryanna Trejo (36:56):

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

Eric Cross (37:39):

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

Aryanna Trejo (37:54):

Of course. Happy to.

Eric Cross (37:59):

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

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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

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

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In this episode, Eric Cross sits down with veteran educator and former Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) Middle School Science Teacher of the Year, Marilyn Dieppa. During the show, Marilyn shares tips for new teachers, ways to inspire students, and how she utilizes her journalism background to develop literacy skills within her science classroom. She also shares her experiences developing a robotics academy, and the VEX IQ World’s Competition. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

Download Transcript

Marilyn Dieppa (00:01):
I think my favorite thing is their success. Whether it’s robotics, whether it’s in the classroom, that they pass a test for the first time, those are my moments of success. And that’s what makes me happy.

Eric Cross (00:15):
Marilyn Dieppa is a veteran middle-school science educator at Miami-Dade County public schools. Dieppa launched her school’s STEM Academy in 2016 and developed professional development through the STEM Transformation Institute of Florida International University. Dieppa’s coached numerous new teachers and was the 2018 Miami-Dade County public schools’ middle-school Science Teacher of the Year. In this episode, we discussed her transition from a career in journalism to the science classroom and the value of personal and professional support systems for teacher longevity. And now, please enjoy my conversation with Marilyn Dieppa.

Marilyn Dieppa (00:52):
Nice to meet you, Eric.

Eric Cross (00:53):
Nice to meet you too. Thank you for being willing to come on the podcast.

Marilyn Dieppa (00:58):
Not a problem.

Eric Cross (00:59):
So you’re out in, you’re out in Florida. In Dade County. I’m out here in San Diego. So I’m like literally on the other side of the country. Have you—were you born and raised in Florida?

Marilyn Dieppa (01:09):
I’ve been here for 40 years, so I’ve been here most of my life. Yeah. I’m Puerto Rican, but I was, you know, my young childhood, I was in New Jersey. And then when I was 15, I came down.

Eric Cross (01:23):
I looked at like your—some of your accolades, which are really impressive. The things that you’ve done for students with robotics, and all the education, or, kind of like teacher enrichment, a lot of mentoring and coaching that you do now.

Marilyn Dieppa (01:35):
I am part of leadership team for the district. I do a lot of training. I work on curriculum. I help with pacing guides to make sure that everything is based on what the state wants, what the district wants. I have done a lot for the district in the last, probably 20 years.

Eric Cross (01:52):
What got you into teaching initially? What was your…like, why middle school science? We’re like a unique group.

Marilyn Dieppa (01:57):
This is the second career choice for me. So I’ve only been doing this for 24 years. I was a journalism major and then I got married and then I had my child and I wanted to do something. My thing was that I wanted to go to Iraq. I wanted to cover the news. I have a minor in Middle Eastern culture. so there was a lot of things that were in my mind when I was young, pre-married. and after, you know, you have children, priorities kind of change. So I totally changed, pretty much had to start from scratch, with my degree, because nothing kind of transferred over from journalism to teaching. So before I actually did that, I started subbing just to see if I liked it. And I fell in love with teaching right away. And that’s how I got into it. So my degree is really in elementary.

Eric Cross (02:45):
Now, when you were subbing, you were doing elementary school.

Marilyn Dieppa (02:47):
Yes. Pretty much elementary.

Eric Cross (02:48):
How did you go from there to like, middle-school science?

Marilyn Dieppa (02:50):
My thing was writing, not necessarily math and science. But I ended up with my cooperating teacher, my CT, she was a math and science teacher. So I was put with her, and who knew that I liked science and I liked math? So I ended up with that and I infused a lot of labs. So in elementary you tend to—I think teachers are a little bit afraid of the labs, so I infused a lot of literature with my labs. I infused all my—I did it like a whole-group type thing, everything I did with my labs, I incorporated the math. I incorporated the science. I incorporated, you know, the reading with it. And from there, I just—you know, they ended up putting me in a lot of leadership roles with science. And then my principal was opening up the school where I’m at now, my former principal. And she, you know, she took me with her. And so her dissertation was in looping, on how following your students, did that really make a difference in test scores? So I was part of her like test study, and I had students that I followed for two years in a row. And she would look at data and that was part of her dissertation. So that really made a difference. So I ended up moving with my students and my first group of middle-school students, I had them for four years.

Eric Cross (04:10):
Oh, wow.

Marilyn Dieppa (04:10):
And that was—those were my children. I, like, boohooed when they left. And I ended up, you know, literally following them from fourth grade all the way to more than four years. Because it was all the way until they left eighth grade.

Eric Cross (04:21):
What did you think of that model of looping with students?

Marilyn Dieppa (04:24):
I think it’s a great model, depending on the kids that you have. I love, you know, the school that I’m at. I’m very blessed, because it’s a great school. It’s really a wonderful school. I’ve had really good relationships with students. They always come back, and they always come back when they wanna tell me that they’re in something in science, right? They’re an engineer or they’re a nurse, or they’re, you know, doctors at this point. So I’ve seen a little bit of everything with my students. And it’s very rewarding.

Eric Cross (04:52):
That’s super-exciting, right? When they come back and they’re either telling you about their college major or what career they’re in. And I like to recruit them at that point and ask them to come talk to my students. Because Google photos gives you unlimited storage, if you have a teacher account, I actually have photos of students from like 10 years ago.

Marilyn Dieppa (05:09):
Oh, wow.

Eric Cross (05:10):
And I’ll put their middle school picture next to their—and then their current picture.

Marilyn Dieppa (05:14):
Oh, that’s awesome. I’ve never done that.

Eric Cross (05:17):
Yeah. You could see, like, they could see the younger version of them.

Marilyn Dieppa (05:19):
And it’s funny because even with the STEM Academy, which I have now, I have the same group of kids for three years. So I’ve had already few groups that have gone by, and those kids come back to me, they come back to our competitions, they help out, you know, they’re very integrated with the robotics. So I’m getting those students back as well. So I’ve maintained that relationship with them as well.

Eric Cross (05:46):
How do you develop your own classroom management style? How did you figure out where your—where you fit and what works for you? What was your process like for that?

Marilyn Dieppa (05:55):
You know what I think, just by teaching, teaching them to respect. And one thing that I’ve developed that—I don’t scream in my classroom; I just talk to the kids. I have very good one-on-one communication with them. I show them respect. I treat them as an equal.

Eric Cross (06:12):
And what grade are you teaching currently?

Marilyn Dieppa (06:14):
Eighth grade. So I do science. I teach high school science. I teach comprehensive, which is like our regular students. I have kids who are inclusion. I have kids that are ESL. So I teach all, you know, dynamics of students. And then I have the academy, which is something separate. But I infuse a lot of physics and of course that they need in order for them to be competitive.

Eric Cross (06:38):
So tell me about that. What is the STEM Academy?

Marilyn Dieppa (06:40):
It is an enrichment program. So it is an advanced enrichment program, because they do follow like the math enrichment. so they have to be really good at math in order for them to be accepted into the program. So, one day we got like a grant, and we got a little robot, the VEX. I don’t know if you’re familiar with VEX. I know it’s big in California. So I was told, “Here, this is for you. See what you can do with it.” So I started with an after-school club, the following year. It kind of hit off. We went to our first little competition. The kids did really well. And then the following year, they told me, “Hey, we need an academy, make it happen.” So it’s not like I had a curriculum. I kind of do my own thing. But we do a lot of different types of things. Our big portion is the VEX, but I also do sec me, we do Future City. We do a whole bunch of competitions within the district. You know, Math Bowl. So I get my kids prepared for anything that really has to do competitive-based. I do that with those students.

Eric Cross (07:38):
What age range or which grade range?

Marilyn Dieppa (07:40):
Sixth to eighth. We have kids who stay the three years and then we have kids that after, you know, sometimes it’s more the parents that want them to be part of the engineering. but sometimes we lose kids after the first year and you know, that’s fine because we wanna really have kids who really wanna be there and are, you know, committed to it. Because there’s a lot of commitments to that program.

Eric Cross (08:01):
Those types of programs, there’s so many like outside-of-the-classroom things that you need to take care of. If you’re going to competitions, and weekends, and all those types of things. Is there a team of teachers that are doing this or is it just you?

Marilyn Dieppa (08:10):
Team of one! .

Eric Cross (08:11):
A team of one! Right? Like, yeah. And how long have you been running this yourself?

Marilyn Dieppa (08:16):
This is probably like my sixth year.

Eric Cross (08:19):
OK.

Marilyn Dieppa (08:20):
So we’ve been very successful. That program is totally inquiry. It’s totally on them. I don’t know how to use a little, you know, remote control. I don’t know how to do anything. I’m there for troubleshoot and to make sure that they’re on task, but they have been very successful because I do put everything on them. And I go, “It’s not my robot. This is your robot.” So they build everything

Eric Cross (08:40):
And that seems to be the theme, especially with, a lot of times, with science teachers. And encouraging them to say, “You don’t have to be the expert in everything.” Teachers tend to be more like risk-taking and innovative when they’re willing to like, not have to be—I don’t have to know everything in order to do something.

Marilyn Dieppa (08:54):
Exactly. So we’ve been very successful. Very proud of my students because you know, we’ve, gone to Worlds twice. We’ve qualified three times in the six years. Actually, I had two teams that went last year.

Eric Cross (09:07):
What is, what is Worlds? That sounds like a big deal.

Marilyn Dieppa (09:10):
It’s a huge thing. And it’s teams from all over the world. You can actually look it up online. It’s—from this year, there were teams, although they said China was not gonna be in there, there were actually some teams from China. There were teams from New Zealand. There were teams from South Africa, the UK, a lot of teams from, from Europe. And then there are teams from here. We are the host country. We’ve been the host country for a while. But it’s amazing. The first time we went, the first team that we were paired up with was a Russian team. So, you know, there was Google Translate and the kids—and it’s, they didn’t need to know the same language because they communicated with the robots. So it was really amazing. They work collaboratively. So it’s not like a battle box. So they work two teams together and whatever, they both get together, they both earn the same points. So it teaches leadership, and there’s so much more to it than just a robot. They have to know how to communicate, because they do get interviewed. They do online challenges. It’s so many things. It’s just—I think it’s one of the best things that our district has really invested in, because these kids are so into it, and they love it so much. For the last year and this year I have the same kids that are in the robotics. I’m also gonna be teaching them physical science. So I have to teach them that separation between what we’re doing in our science classes versus what they’re doing in the class. So there has to be a separation. So they see one side of me in this class where it’s very laid back. It’s very chill. No, no, you, you guys do it. There’s no sitting down. It’s like organized chaos, I call it all the time. But then in the classroom, it has to be a little bit more organized.

Eric Cross (10:53):
Is that something that, as far as getting the parts—like people do, like, GoFundMes and donations and Donors Choose. Can you—

Marilyn Dieppa (11:00):
We get grant money, grant money from the town of Miami Lakes, the town that I work in. So the town actually sponsors us. Without them, we could not do that. It is a very expensive activity to do. If you go online and you look up the prices, you’ll be, “Oh my gosh, goodness, it’s very expensive.” You know? But the smiles on their faces when they come back and they have those little certificates, it means nothing, you know, it’s a little piece of paper. But that, to me, to them, it means the world.

Eric Cross (11:27):
Well, teachers, if you’re looking for ways to get that stuff funded, be fearless on behalf of asking for free things for your kids. Find a local business that somewhat connects to even robotics and say, “Hey, look, I’ve got 50 kids that really want to get after it. And we need X amount of dollars so we can buy those robotics kits. We’ll put your banner up somewhere. We’ll do all these other things. But come support our students. Come to the competition. Donate whatever you can for our students.” And many organizations will say, will say yes. Many just aren’t asked.

Marilyn Dieppa (11:57):
Right. And a lot of towns do have, like, education advisory boards. You wanna reach out to those people. ‘Cause those are the communities where they have money set aside in order to assist things like this.

Eric Cross (12:09):
Do you notice any carryover between the students that do get involved with these extracurriculars into the regular science classroom?

Marilyn Dieppa (12:16):
For sure. They’re more, they’re more disciplined. They tend to care more about the sciences because they see that link in the science. I mean, my kids are talking about gear ratios. They’re talking about, you know, mass accelerations. They had—they infuse all these things. And when they see it in the science class, they’re making that connection, which is really wonderful.

Eric Cross (12:41):
It seems like there’s a high level of engagement because this is an authentic thing. It’s almost, this should be science.

Marilyn Dieppa (12:46):
Yes. And not only that, the writing skills that have to be interpreted because part of the program is that they, they don’t necessarily have to have it, but in order for them to go far and make it to Worlds, they have to have an engineering notebook. So our strength sometimes is not the robot, but the engineering notebook.

Eric Cross (13:02):
his is where the journalism major shines.

Marilyn Dieppa (13:05):
Yes. And I go, “Guys, this is your Ikea manual. You have to explain what you’re doing, what pieces you’re using, what’s going right.” You know, and then they have to interpret and see what didn’t work. How can they fix it? So there’s so much problem-solving. It’s real life, it’s what they’re doing there. More so than sitting and learning rote, you know, vocabulary or whatever the case might be, ’cause they’re actually applying what they’re learning.

Eric Cross (13:31):
Yeah. And that’s, that’s so critical, the communication piece. Because seems like now in society, more than ever, even just being able to communicate something with bad science is convincing to people. Versus if you have great science, but you can’t communicate it, you’re not gonna be able to get it out into the public. It’s so great to see a program that exactly brings together this literacy aspect, in addition to kind of this content and skills aspect of doing the science.

Marilyn Dieppa (13:57):
And that’s what really, you know, since I started, that’s pretty much what I’ve done. My strength, believe it or not, when I was growing up, was not the science. I think I didn’t really have a really good science background. But I remember reflecting and saying, “I don’t want my students to feel like I felt when I was a child.” I wanna make sure that I give them everything, you know, give them the hands-on experience. I think I had one teacher when I was growing up and I still remember him. He was my second-grade teacher and he was just so amazing with the science. And it was just like the only really good experience I had. And I think that always stayed in the back of my mind. And when I started teaching and I go, “I wanna give these kids these experiences.” You know, sometimes I see kids in eighth grade and I go, how sad! They see water boiling and they’re just, like, in a lab room. And they’re just like, in awe, because there’s water boiling. And I go, “You guys haven’t seen water boil before?” And he goes, “No, no, no, not like this!” And I go, oh wow.

Eric Cross (14:58):
Even if it’s simple, everyday phenomena, everyday things that people deal with in a science classroom, or when you’re a teacher in that setting, it’s just—it just hits different, right? Like you, you know, you drop dye into water and watch it diffuse. And it’s like, whoa! Because they’re looking at it through that different lens. And that’s why one of the reasons why—I’m super-biased, but as science teachers, we get to do the coolest stuff.

Marilyn Dieppa (15:21):
Yeah, we do.

Eric Cross (15:22):
We just do. It’s so much fun. And basically anything that happens, that’s cool, like in, innovation and things like that, we can figure out ways to incorporate into our classroom. Now, as a coach and as a mentor, you’ve had multiple student teachers in your classroom. And we have, you know, huge need for new teachers. I teach teachers who are getting their CR, getting their credential. And the landscape of education is, is constantly shifting. You’ve watched it shift over the years. What are your biggest tips that you give to new teachers?

Marilyn Dieppa (15:49):
Well, I just had an intern last semester. I’ve had a few interns where, you know, not only are they doing this, but they’re also learning robotics too. So they’re really getting aspect in how to incorporate that. You don’t have to have everything separate. You can include everything together. But I think, I think it just comes from the foundation where they’re not exposed. Even me, when I went to college, I don’t remember doing so many labs as I should have. And I think it’s just a fear of them trying new things and failing. And I go, you know what? I, sometimes my first class is my guinea pig class, because I always change my labs. I don’t like to do the same thing over and over again. If I see something online, I go, “Oh wow. You know what, I’m gonna try it.” And I go, “Hey guys, this is the first time; we’re gonna do this together.” And it’s really—it’s just for them not to be fearful. And I think especially for science teachers or like even elementary, to give the kids the foundation that they need, they’re afraid. They’re afraid of failing and not trying something new, and say, “Hey, it’s OK. There’s other ways of doing this.” You know? So I always say, “My first class is always my guinea pig class, ’cause that’s the class I’m gonna try this on.” And then, you know, when you have to tweak, reflect, then we do that.

Eric Cross (17:06):
What are some of the things that you’ve seen or encouragements that you give to teachers who are teaching, kind of, in this kind of newer landscape, where as teachers, you become more than just a science teacher. I mean, you’re a mentor. You’re an encourager. Sometimes you’re a counselor for students. And then there, there are things that happen externally that impact teachers as well. It’s a tough job.

Marilyn Dieppa (17:24):
So I always say, you know, when you have a child, we have to be very aware of what’s happening with our children. Especially after these two years of the pandemic. That was kind of crazy. Last year was a really tough year, I think, for most educators that were back in the classroom. But I always tell ’em, you have to be really aware of what’s going on with these kids outside. When you see somebody who’s not doing anything and then you have the parents are there supporting. There’s something going—I mean, there has to be something going on. Kids are not just going to be so, so defiant. You’re gonna have very few that will be like that. But most of them it’s just gotta see and read those kids and see what’s going on, and don’t be afraid to—and I always say, I’m not there to really be your friend, but I’m there to help you. And you gotta tell ’em, you know, if you need to talk, come talk to me. Have an open-door policy with those kids.

Eric Cross (18:16):
What’s been your favorite part of the job? Something you really enjoy about the job? Especially having been teaching for as long as you have.

Marilyn Dieppa (18:23):
I think my favorite thing is their success. Whether they have struggled all the year and they’ve had that one piece of success or they don’t realize what they got out of middle school until they get to high school and they come back to you and they tell you it’s, you know, seeing my kids, whether it’s robotics, whether it’s in the classroom, that they pass a test for the first time, those are my moments of success. And that’s what makes me happy.

Eric Cross (18:52):
So you get those ahas, you get those wins, those turnarounds. And it’s like, “Ah, this keeps me going. This is so good!” But there’s something that I say to myself when I do get challenges in the classroom is teaching seventh grade, I say, “They’re 12. They’re 13. They’ve been on earth for 13 years. And for the first five or six, like, you know, they’re just kind of coming online at that point. And they’re going through all these changes.” And it grounds me in the fact that ’cause sometimes the things that you experience can be really, really challenging kind of interpersonally. And I remind myself, “Well, it’s like—you’re not 28 years old. Like, you’re, 12 and 13, and you need me to not be Mr. Cross, the science teacher. You need me to be, you know, Mr. Cross, the mentor, or Mr. Cross, the coach.” Like you were saying, open door. Keeping that open door, keeping that relationship. Because so much of what we’re doing is like life coaching in addition—and that connects to their success in the classroom. There’s a direct relationship.

Marilyn Dieppa (19:45):
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

Eric Cross (19:46):
Now what gets you back each fall? Because at the end, you know, every school year it’s like, “That was a tough one!” Especially with the last couple years. Right? So what’s been something, what gets you back in the classroom every fall, so that you’re ready for your students?

Marilyn Dieppa (20:02):
I think the support I get at home. I have a husband who is the most supportive person ever. He always tells me, “Your kids are grown up.” You know, my kids are adults now. “Enjoy these kids, what they’re doing. You don’t know how much they need you.” So he does tell me that. He goes, “And don’t complain! You love it!” And also my administration, they back me up. And that’s what I think what keeps you coming back. I love my administration. Whatever I ask for, they don’t tell me no. They tell me I’m crazy, but they don’t tell me no. You know, we have these huge competitions once a year at our school, administration has to be involved ’cause they have to be there, and they go, “We do this because we love you! But you know, you’re crazy!”

Eric Cross (20:48):
It’s interesting, ’cause both of these things, they involve human connection. And one is your support system at home, which is incredibly valuable. Shout out to your husband; I don’t know if he’s around. And then the culture, like, feeling supported. Teachers, you know—and it’s not just in education, but people, I’ve experienced—will work harder, longer, be more committed, when they have that intangible. When they feel like they’re connected to something bigger than them. Or on a team, not in a silo. And one person can really create or break whether that happens. And just like us in the classroom as a teacher, right? Like, “What makes you like this teacher’s class?” “Well, I feel connected. I feel safe. I feel it’s fun. It’s the culture!” I like to end with asking this question and you kind of alluded to an answer earlier, but who is one, or it could be multiple teachers, that you’ve had in your own life as a kid growing up or young person in kindergarten through 12th grade, could even be college, that has inspired you? Or made a difference in your life one way or another? Like, who pops out? I feel like we all have somebody.

Marilyn Dieppa (21:58):
One was my second grade teacher, as I mentioned before. Mr. Fernandez, never forget him. And my other teacher was my high school teacher, Mr. Velazquez. It was in New Jersey as well. And he was the one that really got me into the love of writing. He was my Spanish teacher, actually. He wasn’t even, you know—he was like an elective teacher. But he just made me believe like, “Wow, you’re like a really good writer!” To me, those two gentlemen really stood out. Very fond memories of being in school and really enjoying what I was doing.

Eric Cross (22:33):
There are so many teachers that we all have been impacted by. And many of us now who are teachers, we sit in that same seat. We fill those same shoes. And going back to what you had said earlier, one of the most rewarding things is when those kids come back to you. And I’m thinking about all the work that you’ve done, all the students you’ve poured into, all the competitions you’ve done. The ones that have come back to you are a small fragment of the ones that you’ve impacted.

Marilyn Dieppa (22:59):
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Eric Cross (23:00):
‘Cause we think about our own story, right? Like you’ve gone on and paid dividends for that one teacher in second grade. You know, Mr. Fernandez or Mr. Velasquez like, they went and they just gave you exposure to something or helped you fall in love with something. And you went on this trajectory. And if we could see the timeline of, like, this teacher created Marilyn, and Marilyn went and did this, and then what do all those students do? And that, I don’t know, there’s so many jobs that are gonna be hard work and that are gonna be challenging and stressful. But that is the thing that I think fills me when I listen to your story. I just think about like all the students throughout Florida that you have—you probably will never hear from, but have gone on to do amazing things or become great people who would go back and talk about you and say you were an inspiration for them. Marilyn, thank you for taking the time out to be on the podcast and for not only teaching students, but inspiring and coaching younger teachers and new teachers. It’s so critical. And for being willing to spend so much of your time beyond the classroom to create these opportunities for students to do this awesome, fun, engaging science, and go to Worlds. I wish you a great school year.

Marilyn Dieppa (24:11):
Thank you. You too.

Eric Cross (24:12):
We hope you make it to Worlds again and crush, in a competitive, collaborative type of environment. We’ll be checking out—I’m sure other teachers will check out Vex Robotics. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Marilyn Dieppa (24:23):
Thank you. You too, Eric.

Eric Cross (24:26):
Thanks so much for listening. Now we want to hear more about you. Do you have any 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 amplifycom.wpengine.com. Make 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 Marilyn Dieppa says about science

“I think as science teachers, we’re afraid of failing and not trying something new, and I say, ‘Hey, it’s okay!’ You have to tweak, reflect.”

– Marilyn Dieppa

STEM Academy Coach/Teacher, 2018 Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) Middle School Science Teacher of the Year

Meet the guest

Marilyn Dieppa is a long-time educator and STEM Academy coach at Miami Dade County Public Schools. Currently in her 24th year, Marilyn teaches 8th grade science and coaches the STEM Academy at Bob Graham Education Center. She launched the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Academy during the 2016-2017 school year, and the teams compete in VEX IQ World’s Competition representing both the district and the state. She has been the middle school department chairperson since 2003, attends the district department meetings and Instructional Capacity-building Academy (ICAD), and trains her science department.

Dieppa holds a bachelor of science in Elementary Education and a master of science in reading education. She is also a Nationally Board-Certified Teacher in Science.

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About Science Connections

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

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Winter Wrap-Up 01: Problem-solving and facilitating classroom discussions

Promotional graphic for Math Teacher Lounge podcast, episode 1, featuring Fawn Nguyen, Christy Thompson, and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind discussing classroom problem-solving and discussions.

As we prep for an exciting new season of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are looking back at the amazing speakers and conversations from past episodes and sharing some of their favorites!

First up: A season 2 double feature of the power of problem-solving with Fawn Nguyen and Facilitating Classroom Discussions with authors Christy Hermann Thompson and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind.

Fawn is a specialist on Amplify’s advanced math team and a former math teacher and math coach—so she knows her stuff! You’ll hear about her five criteria for good problem-solving problems, and the power and importance of exposing all students to problem-solving.

Then, we’ll move into Bethany and Dan’s conversation with Christy and Kassia to learn how hands-down conversations allow students to become better listeners and the steps you can take to implement hands-down conversations in your classroom.

Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page.

Download Transcript

Dan Meyer: (00:01)

Hey folks. Welcome back to Math Teacher Lounge. My name is Dan Meyer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (00:03)

And I’m Bethany Lockhart Johnson. Hello! Happy New Year! Hello, Dan Meyer.

Dan Meyer: (00:09)

HNY, Bethany. HNY to you and to all of the listeners out there in Math Teacher Lounge. HNY is the abbreviation that I use sometimes.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (00:18)

Oh, is that what that is? Is that—I wasn’t sure what that was. If on my birthday you send me HBD…no.

Dan Meyer: (00:25)

Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (00:25)

No. Unacceptable.

Dan Meyer: (00:27)

I will. No, you want the full thing. To demonstrate my care for your birthday, I gotta spell the whole thing out. I’m just trying to stay relevant. You know, I’m just trying to stay relevant and youthful. So I’m using The Abreevs.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (00:38)

The Brevvies.

Dan Meyer: (00:40)

To the extent of even abbreviating the word “abbreviation.” . So, any New Year’s resolutions you wanna share with the listeners, Bethany? While you think, I’ll just share mine real quick here. This is the year of the perfect Wordle streak for yours truly, Dan Meyer. I’m going the full 365. Watch. Watch me do it, folks. I’m naming it here. Live on air. recorded on air. Perfect Wordle year. What you got for the listeners, Bethany?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (01:10)

Let’s see. It’s raining very hard here in Southern California, and my newest resolution is to embrace nature. My child wants nothing more than to go and splash in all the puddles.

Dan Meyer: (01:22)

Nice.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (01:23)

And be amongst the mud. And what I’m gonna keep telling myself—and so far, so far, I’ve been doing pretty good with this—thrive, child. Splash. Squish. We can dry you off. You will not melt. So I want to keep finding opportunities. Like, for instance, my response is, “It’s pouring rain. Let’s stay under covers and let’s read this book together!” And his response is like, banging on the windows, like, “Please let me go outside.” So I myself have some rain boots. I’m going to go forth and splash with my child. So hopefully you’ll see me doing that a bit more.

Dan Meyer: (02:08)

Love that.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (02:09)

Ask me what I’m doing. I’m outside, splashing in nature.

Dan Meyer: (02:12)

I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but I have felt a bit like parenting is a means for rounding out aspects of my own personality that I have felt are—or habits or hobbies that are lacking. Like, I’ve never been real outdoorsy or into camping, but I don’t want that to limit my own kids’ aspirations or interests. So let’s do the thing that’s not super natural for me, for their own sake. Which is kind of what I’m hearing a little bit from you, which—that sounds exciting.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (02:35)

Do you wanna go camping together? Like, our families?

Dan Meyer: (02:38)

Uhhh. Let’s take this one off the air. I also love something that’s more relevant to a teachers audience that you said, that I think is super interesting, is how there’s ways that we can make the jobs harder for ourselves, that are optional. And what I hear from you is like, “I’m just not gonna freak out. We’re getting wet. We’re getting soggy. And I’m just not gonna freak out.” And I just think that that’s interesting to think about, the things that we take on, you know, that’s optional. Freaking out is optional, sometimes. And there’s other areas, I think, for parenting or for teaching, where it’s like, “Oh, do I really need to choose this particular battle?” And to reconsider that.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (03:19)

And in that spirit, our whole Wordle episode that we talked about? Do you remember you talked about how beautiful Wordle mistakes are, and how you keep learning from mistakes? I mean, you obviously want the final correct answer, but just, you know, when you get on a losing streak, Dan, I hope you’ll continue to pat yourself on the back.

Dan Meyer: (03:38)

Well, I will not be taking on a losing streak, or even lose one day. This is what’s gonna happen here. I’m just speaking that and putting it out in the universe.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (03:49)

Speak it!

Dan Meyer: (03:50)

But if it happens, I will be taking a long break from all human interaction. And lamenting, as I do.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (03:59)

Camping. Dan’s off in the woods, weeping.

Dan Meyer: (04:01)

That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Well, we wanna share with you folks—an exciting programming note is that we are currently working very hard on producing a special fifth season of this podcast. You thought the other seasons were special? Let me tell you, this fifth season gives new meaning to the word “special.” And we can’t wait to tell you more about that. But in the meantime, Bethany, you wanna tell ’em what we’re up to in the meantime?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (04:26)

Well, Dan and I went back and we were having a conversation about some of our most favorite conversations, or the conversations that people bring up to us. Like, when we were at the CMC conference, or NCTM, folks, when we talk about the podcast, they’re like, “Oh, I loved this one.” “Oh, I love this one.” And that, to me, I don’t know, that is exciting. And so, while we’re putting together this new season over these next few weeks, we’re gonna feature a few of our favorite conversations from our first four seasons. Dan, four seasons!

Dan Meyer: (04:59)

We’ve been at this for four seasons! And I do want to just emphasize something you said, Bethany: that all of our conversations are our favorite conversations. They’re all our special children. What we just felt like you, the listeners, did not quite learn enough from some of these, and so we really needed you to hear them again to make sure you got everything that you should get out of them. So, let’s tell ’em who’s up first. And who’s up first is a conversation we had about problem-solving with Fawn Nguyen, who’s an advanced math team specialist here at Amplify. Been a former math coach, math teacher. Just really done the work, is what I’d say about Fawn.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (05:38)

If you have been listening to this podcast, you’re like, “Whoa, whoa. Wait, I have not missed an episode. I didn’t hear Fawn’s interview.” That is because we used to be video only, not podcasts. So this conversation with Fawn was from, what, our second season?

Dan Meyer: (05:55)

Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (05:56)

And we were on video. And another thing about it is it was, this is a conversation that, when folks talk about problem-solving, a lot of the responses we’ve gotten are like, “Wait, I’ve never thought of problem-solving this way.” In fact, you’ll hear us say that exact thing . So we really appreciated the time with Fawn. And yeah.

Dan Meyer: (06:17)

Enjoy it, folks. Especially enjoy Fawn’s—I think a four-part?—definition of problem-solving, a word that’s often kind of mushily defined. And Fawn really goes into, I think, precision and depth on it. So hope you folks enjoy it.

Dan Meyer: (06:35)

Give a wave, Fawn, to the camera. Would you? Cool. Fawn has been a teacher for a very long time. She is someone who could have left the classroom at any point and taken any number of jobs in the math-teaching universe. But I’ve always admired that Fawn has taught kids for a very long time, and that has given her, in my view, just a lot of clarity on what is important to her about students. I’ve seen her not get upset or obsessed with certain kinds of small niche issues that a lot of us, like, they get a lot of us down in the classroom, sometimes. And she’s maintained a laser focus on among many other things, problem-solving as a virtue in mathematics classrooms. So, please welcome Fawn to our show. Fawn, thanks so much for being here.

Fawn Nguyen: (07:18)

Hey, thank you so much. Thank you. I am so excited and honored that you guys invited me for this, Bethany and Dan.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (07:24)

Thank you for being here.

Fawn Nguyen: (07:26)

I love you, Bethany. Dan, I can tolerate, but I love you.

Dan Meyer: (07:30)

I really worked myself up there on that complimentary opening for you, and that’s how you get me back, here? OK. Problem-solving is fully on the consciousness of math teachers. Every math teacher knows that they need to say, like, “Yeah, oh, problem-solving. Yes. Love it. Do it. I dig it.” But even so, I feel like it’s become kind of a buzzword. Like, it’s not always obvious what that means…or am I doing problem-solving, really? So we’re curious: As someone who is a problem-solving expert, who is asked all over the world to talk about problem-solving: How do I know if I’m doing problem-solving in my classroom?

Fawn Nguyen: (08:12)

This is not my definition of it, but—nor am I an expert, by the way, Dan, thank you! but I try really, really hard and work on it!—my definition—or it’s not my definition, but I like it because it’s short and honest—is “problem-solving is what we do when we don’t know what to do.” And so—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (08:32)

Ooh!

Fawn Nguyen: (08:32)

—with that mind-frame, I’m hoping teachers think more about what they task. Because I think it gets mislabeled a lot, as to what is problem-solving. If the kids already know what to do, there’s a solution path. Then it’s not problem-solving.

Dan Meyer: (08:48)

Yeah. So what are examples then? An example of, like, I might call something problem-solving, but it it fails that particular definition that you just proposed there. Very short, very honest definition.

Fawn Nguyen: (08:59)

Just, it needs to have constraint and contradiction to what the kids think naturally. It should come as a surprise. There’s an element of surprise in it. There’s tension.

Dan Meyer: (09:11)

Maybe if there’s harder numbers or, you know, decimals or fractions in the same kind of procedure…I can feel myself thinking, “Yeah, this is hard. This is problem-solving. Problem-solving equals hard. But we already know what to do.”

Fawn Nguyen: (09:27)

Or just word problems. That’s the most common thing. As soon as it just has words attached to the math, it becomes problem-solving. But that’s just coding it to me. That’s just coding it with words, wrapping it around. It doesn’t mean anything until we read through and see if there’s true problem-solving in it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (09:45)

Like, what’s the moment that it becomes problem-solving? In the way that you envision it?

Fawn Nguyen: (09:53)

Well, I think there’s the bigger problem-solving of really bringing a task…I wanna call it left field. It just—we rarely ever, if ever, see it in the regular coursework, but it can also be problem-solving if we just take what we expect the children to do at the end of the unit, how about we front-load that? To me, that’s also problem-solving. And I’m trying to encourage teachers to do that last problem first. The task writers put more thought—not that they don’t do the rest of it!—but you know, this is a special one, because they label it “challenge,” or “enrichment,” or “are you ready for more?” I’ve seen those. And so it is this really special problem. And I would love for us to think about “do that first.” Because my biggest fear is that because it comes at the end, that not all the children are involved. And so that to me is the saddest part. Because we might not get to it, right? In mathematics, we always think, “OK, well, let’s do these problems and then we don’t have time for the rest.” But I think that’s your richest task right there, is at the very end. So why don’t we front-load it, start it, and it’s OK—of course it’s OK!—that we don’t all get it. But the exposure to all students is so important. Talk about, you know, equity. Talk about that, everybody gets the same thing. If everyone dug into that first one with everybody’s collaboration, and we get to share that, and then we leave it, because “Yeah, OK, now we learn more of the other stuff, right? That hopefully support. And then we can go back. And now everybody had a chance to go get into it, and then we can come back to it as, as many problems, we need to go back to it.”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (11:37)

And that feels so powerful. Because it feels like—as a teacher, I’m thinking it would also inform my work, how I approach the unit, and how I approach the next steps. Right? Like, what kind of work would we be doing if I let it, if I allow it, to change the way that I approach the unit.

Dan Meyer: (11:58)

Yeah. What you’re describing is so powerful, and really asks a lot of the task designers as well, I think. There are problem-solving tasks that really require, like, abstract knowledge of the way formulas and variables fit together. And what I love about what Amplify is doing with their problem-solving, what you’re helping them do, is that they start with a true low floor that can draw in every student. And they might get stuck at different places; that’s fine. But everyone has a way in. That’s exciting.

Fawn Nguyen: (12:24)

It’s a big deal for me to have this opportunity and this trust, to integrate problem-solving into the curriculum, make it intentional. It’s difficult to implement. It is, to be honest. Because for me, what is a good task? This makes one of my four criteria: One is, it is non-routine. It is simply stated. Simply stated—that’s like your low floor. And then has multiple solutions. And the fourth: This makes it. Because that the teacher enjoys solving it. And so you have to enjoy solving it to bring it. Because so that way I can say to my kids, “This is my gift.” It really is, Because, you know, it has so much fun and joy. And I appreciate the struggle. And I wanna illustrate an example. For example, let’s say Dan and I are classmates. And I know that Dan gets A’s on his tests and the lowest score he ever got was an 89%. I, on the other hand, just sitting right next to him, I average D. I have a D average on everything. While Bethany, our amazing and wonderful teacher, brings in a problem. And when she brings it in, she says, “I worked on this problem. I found this problem; I worked on it; and I struggled with it. And it was amazing. I enjoyed it so much, I’m sharing it with you.” And all of a sudden it’s like, “OK!” And I”m sitting there, right? My teacher loves this problem so much; she’s bringing it in to share with us. And now, all of a sudden, it’s not, you know…and I know she only gives us non-routine. When she talks about problem-solving, it’s non-routine. So it’s not directly tied to the textbook that I’ve been struggling with. So it gives me a chance, it gives me a chance to contribute. To think differently. And now, suddenly I look forward to working with Dan, because in this space, in this problem-solving space, Dan is no longer Mr. Know-It-All. And so that’s what I mean by—I am saying this a hundred times, and I will not stop saying it—problem-solving levels the playing field. Our world is filled with unsolved problems. Are you kidding me? Right? We look around us, we have so many things that are not solvable, or people are working on it, and yet in mathematics, what happens? The bell rings; we start; and we solve everything during that time, and we leave. And that’s…yeah. No! No! We need to wrestle with problems.

Dan Meyer: (15:04)

And that was our conversation with Fawn Nguyen, which we first released way back in November, 2021. You folks can follow Fawn on Twitter at Fawn P Nguyen. Um, that’s @ F A W N P N G U Y E N.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (15:18)

So our episode today is a double feature. We are featuring another conversation that we loved from Season Two. This is a conversation with Christy Hermann Thompson and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind. They’re authors of the book, “Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math.” And I don’t know if you remember, but not only did we have a conversation with them, but we did a whole book study on Facebook, a Facebook Live book study, over the course of several months. And it was one of my most favorite things. And then they did a webinar at the end. So our conversation with them on the podcast for me felt like such a beautiful dive into their book. And you know, I’ve said it before, you think you have something down in the classroom, you’re like, “Oh, hand-raising, I’ve got that down.” You think you have it down, but then somebody says, “OK, but have you ever considered thiiiis?” You know, and it just—

Dan Meyer: (16:17)

NOT that??

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (16:18)

, Not that? Something totally different? And I loved talking with them. They’re a lot of fun. And I loved the book.

Dan Meyer: (16:23)

Wonderful conversation, great book. Very provocative ideas. Yeah. As someone who’s like, “OK, classroom management, I gotta get the hand-raising going…”. In the classroom before we talked, they offered a really potent challenge to some really standard classroom management ideas. Yeah. Loved it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (16:40)

And this conversation also offers some really practical tips for facilitating student conversations. So we think you’ll enjoy it. Here’s our conversation with Christy and Kassia.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (16:53)

So today we are talking about “Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math, K—5.” And we have the authors here, Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and Christy Hermann Thompson. Before we begin, let’s define what a hands-down conversation is. A hands-down conversation is just another way to structure discourse in your classroom. So in a typical classroom, you might see students raising their hand and waiting on a teacher to call on them before they share their ideas or engage in discussion. But in a hands-down conversation, it’s students’ ideas and voices that are taking the lead, and teachers are stepping back and focusing on listening and facilitating. Hello! Welcome to the Lounge.

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind: (17:44)

Thank you. We’re excited to be here. We’re fans of Season One. So we’re ready to go.

Dan Meyer: (17:50)

I was a secondary teacher but I still found so much to love about the book. I think facilitating conversations is just generally challenging, and perhaps even more so in math, where answers feel so tightly dialed-in, in lots of ways. But I loved it. I would love for you to just explain to our audience, what is a hands-down conversation and how does that contrast with what might be standard practice for some people? For some classes?

Christy Hermann Thompson: (18:13)

We just started using the term hands-down conversation because we wanted to differentiate the fact that there are different times to have different types of dialogue in the math classroom, in the literacy classroom. And we use this as one of our tools. Right? It’s not that every day, all day long, we’re very against hand-raising and should never see that again. We find that having this as one of our tools will be where we make really clear to the students that this is a moment where we’re turning it over to you to negotiate the space and make the decisions about when your voice comes in and who speaks next. You know, carry on kind of like that dinner table or that playground or, you know, whatever is your natural habitat for talk. And bringing that into the classroom and then hoping that it also someday transfers back out of the classroom back into the real world.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (19:09)

For the teachers who feel like that’s terrifying to have students just start speaking, and speaking without any sort of control or my little equity sticks, my little popsicle sticks, or my popcorn, or whatever other thing they’re using, what would you say is the first step?

Christy Hermann Thompson: (19:25)

So I think recognizing and naming that fear is part of it. And then saying to yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen here?” You know, I think the worst that could happen is that nobody talks and it’s totally silent. Or on the other hand, everybody talks at the same time. And both of those things will happen! And so what? It’s gonna be messy. And if you just acknowledge that it’s gonna look messy, and that’s part of growing; that every child as they learn—and every adult—is messy as they grow.

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind: (19:59)

And we have to see what kinds of things will happen in a hands-down conversation. Like there’s no prerequisite. You just start and then you see what happens. And those are the signs that tell you, “What can help this community grow as talkers and listeners? If everyone’s talking at the same time, and they’re kind of pushing each other over with their words by saying, “I have something to add!” “I have something to add!” or something like that, that’s a common thing that sometimes happens at the beginning. Then you know that the next step is to do some work about how to hold your thoughts back, how to add, wait for a space in the conversation to talk. And those are all things we need people to know out in the world.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (20:41)

So can you give an example of a micro-lesson that…well, first, what do you define as a micro-lesson? And then, what’s an example of one that maybe somebody who wants to dip their toe into the world of hands-down conversations that they could try?

Christy Hermann Thompson: (20:56)

The reason we call them micro-lessons is because we wanted to differentiate from the term mini lesson, which is out there and tends to describe about 10 or 15 minutes that might take place at the beginning of a work period of time. And this is much smaller than that. We usually follow a pretty predictable structure of naming. Here’s this thing that’s so helpful when we’re having conversations, and we love to especially be able to name something that a student had done: “Kaylee did this yesterday and it really helped us.” So what we might call that is, “And then here’s how Kaylee and other people might do that. They might do something like this.” And, you know, having a little anchor chart, so there’s a visual reminder of that skill. “So when we’re having a conversation today, you could try…”. And that’s basically a micro-lesson, just in a nutshell.

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind: (21:51)

When I was doing these hands-down conversations and I had more space for myself to listen as a teacher, I’m like, “Well, look at those kids, like, slumped onto the ground, like, pulling the carpet apart, but they’re having this amazing conversation!” And so I learned that listening is a lot broader. So in this lesson that I’m thinking about, we just talk with kids about what are lots of different ways that listening can look like. Sometimes with younger kids, I’ll take pictures of them listening in different ways and we’ll notice things about them together. And then we invite them to talk with their Turn and Talk partner about like, “How do you like to be listened to?” Or “Tell me about how you listen.” And just kind of broaden that. And really, I like to think that like the micro-lessons are for the kids, but also I’m saying those things to say them for myself. Like, “Remember, you don’t have to insist that kids are staring each other down in the eyes all the time. Like, “It’s OK when they’re doing other things. There’s other ways of listening.” So I think I’ve learned as much from the micro-lessons each time I do them as the kids that I’m trying to help grow as listeners and talkers, as well.

Dan Meyer: (23:00)

You folks have a lot of really eloquent ideals you express, around democratic classrooms and engagement. But you also have just some very tangible, practical…even down to, like, how a teacher positions their body in space and the way they use their eyes to connect. I think it would be really helpful for teachers to hear that it’s not just they’re signing on to a manifesto of sorts, but there’s ways they can act their way into the beliefs that you both expressed here.

Christy Hermann Thompson: (23:26)

When I’m starting hands-down conversation work, if I put myself a little bit outside of the circle and look down, and give myself a clipboard, it, it helps me bite my tongue and it helps me give better wait time and see what the kids are doing before I have that tendency to jump in and teach and do lots of teacher-y things.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (23:48)

Kassia and Christy, thank you so much for joining us. We are so excited to have this conversation and to share your work. This is exciting. And I feel like this conversation is just the beginning of a deeper dive into this book.

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind: (24:01)

Thanks for having us.

Christy Hermann Thompson: (24:02)

Thank you.

Dan Meyer: (24:03)

Thank you both.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (24:06)

Thanks so much for listening to our conversations with Fawn Nguyen and Christy Hermann Thompson and Kassia Omohundro Wedekind, both of which were released in 2021, part of our second season. And, you know, we hoped you enjoyed listening to it for a first, second, maybe third, fourth time.

Dan Meyer: (24:24)

Let’s be real. There’s some real fans out there.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (24:26)

We loved it then. We love it now!

Dan Meyer: (24:28)

Yep, yep, yep. Please keep in touch with the show by following us on Twitter at MTL Show, and join our Facebook group, the Math Teacher Lounge community. We’d love to hear from you there. And please stay tuned for more info on what we’re cooking up here in the Math Teacher Lounge. Thank you folks for listening. Take care, Bethany.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson: (24:47)

Bye now.

Stay connected!

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What Fawn Nguyen says about math teaching

“It’s a big deal for me to have the opportunity and this trust to integrate problem-solving into the curriculum.”

– Fawn Nguyen

Specialist, Math Advance Team, Amplify Desmos Math

Meet the guests

Fawn Nguyen

Fawn began her work with Amplify in 2022 as a Math Advance Team Specialist. She was a math coach for a K-8 school district for three years, and a middle school teacher for 30 years before that. Fawn has also received a number of accolades as an educator.

Christy Thompson

Christy Thompson is a Literacy Coach in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. She has spent her teaching and coaching career particularly focused on listening to and learning from the talk of our youngest students.

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind spent many wonderful years as a classroom teacher and math coach in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia and now splits her time between being an independent math coach and an editor at Stenhouse Publishers. Her favorite days are spent in classrooms learning from the many ways children talk, listen and negotiate meaning together.

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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!

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Welcome, Louisiana reviewers

mCLASS Intervention is an evidence-based program for helping struggling K-6 readers catch up to grade level. Importantly, it:

  1. Uses data from the Louisiana state-approved early literacy screening assessment, DIBELS 8th Edition, when collected on the mCLASS platform.
  2. Aligns with CKLA, a Tier 1 K–5 Core Curriculum reviewed by the Louisiana Department of Education that uses similar approaches to teach reading skills.
  3. Gives teachers time back in the day by doing the heavy lifting of data analysis and lesson sequencing, helping make effective staff-led intervention a reality.

A collaboration between Amplify, classroom practitioners, and leading researchers including Dr. Catherine Snow, mCLASS Intervention offers Louisiana schools a standards-aligned program grounded in the science of reading. As a trusted partner across the state, we look forward to working with you to ensure teachers and students have access to high-quality instructional materials.

Program overview

mCLASS Intervention is a staff-led, supplemental Tier 2/3 intervention program that covers the five big ideas of reading, using the continuum illustrated below. Each hexagon represents a skill taught in mCLASS Intervention. Skills to the left are generally precursors to skills on the right.

The strength of mCLASS Intervention comes from its technology-powered algorithm. Using sophisticated software algorithms, mCLASS Intervention automatically:

  • Analyzes DIBELS 8th Edition and diagnostic measure results collected via the mCLASS platform.
  • Determines which skills each student already knows and which they are ready to learn next.
  • Puts students into small homogeneous groups of 4–6.
  • Compiles detailed lessons that target the specific needs of each group.

Here is a brief example of how mCLASS Intervention identifies the right target for each student.  The image below shows the MOY Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) results for two first-grade students—Student A and Student B.

They both scored 29, which is Well Below Benchmark for this time of year. In spite of the students having the same score, mCLASS Intervention employs automatic analysis of item-level responses to detect that they are actually at different points in the continuum. For Student A, mCLASS Intervention recommends a focus on letter-sound knowledge, and sounding out and blending. For Student B,  mCLASS Intervention recommends a focus on Regular & Irregular Word recognition. (mCLASS Intervention spirals instruction by having students work in two strands at the same time.) Without mCLASS Intervention, this type of analysis would take educators hours to complete and, as a result, could only be completed sporadically. The automatic nature of mCLASS Intervention’s data analysis algorithm makes it possible for busy educators to complete this analysis regularly, which in turn enables them to continually target intervention instruction at students’ evolving needs, day after day. 

The mCLASS Intervention algorithm not only determines the ideal instructional focus for each student, but also automatically forms small groups of 4–6 students who share the same instructional focus and builds a 10-day plan with detailed lessons that target the specific needs of each group.

Each 10-day plan systematically builds skills. For example, in the 10-day plan below, mCLASS Intervention has a particular group of students work on phonological awareness and letter sound knowledge. And within phonological awareness, mCLASS Intervention first introduces the group to phoneme segmentation; moves students through phoneme identification and substitution in subsequent days; then finishes with first, last, and middle sound segmentation.

This systematic move from less advanced to more advanced skills allows for spaced practice over time, which research has shown to have significant impact on student literacy growth. 

In a Tier 2 intensity, mCLASS Intervention lessons last 30 minutes per day and are delivered daily in groups of 4–6 students. Each session has five activities and each activity is 5–8 minutes long. In a Tier 3 intensity, mCLASS Intervention lessons can be 30 or 60 minutes per day and are delivered daily in groups of 3–4 students. 

Below is an example of a middle sound segmentation activity.

We want to highlight two things from this example: 1) The instructional approach is explicit, and 2) the guidance provided is very detailed.

Explicit instructional approach: All mCLASS Intervention activities begin with a Model (“I Do”) followed by a Practice (“You Do”). During the Model section, the instructor demonstrates how to do the activity. During the Practice section, the instructor has students practice. mCLASS Intervention uses subtle but impactful moves to maximize students’ independent thinking during the Practice portion of an activity. For example, in this activity, mCLASS Intervention has the instructor call on a student only after posing the question to all students in the group and giving the group 3–5 seconds of “think time.” This approach helps instructors keep all students mentally engaged because, should they take the opposite approach of calling on one student and then asking the question, the students who were not called on would tune out and inadvertently rob themselves of crucial practice opportunities they need to catch up to their grade-level peers.  

Detailed guidance: Because mCLASS Intervention activities are detailed, both certified educators and paraprofessionals with little or no training in early elementary reading can deliver mCLASS Intervention with impact. This detailed guidance gives schools a range of options when it comes to staffing intervention, and that added flexibility is vital—especially for moderate and high need schools, which often struggle to provide intervention to all students in need.

Keep in mind that an activity such as the one above represents just 1/5th of a lesson. The additional four activities that round out a 30-minute intervention lesson are short (5–8 minutes each) and varied. Some cover one skill of focus, while others cover the other skill of focus. mCLASS Intervention also regularly incorporates game-based, kinesthetic, peer-to-peer approaches to further increase student engagement and, as a result, educators often report that mCLASS Intervention is their students’ favorite part of the day.  We think this is because students get more attention in a small group; the instruction is targeted to their needs so they are neither bored nor overly frustrated; and the 30 minutes are filled with short, varying, fast-paced, high-energy activities.

The swift pace of mCLASS Intervention is present in the activities that older students work on as well. These students often work on fluency and comprehension at the same time. In the 10-day plan below, you can see how their lessons include the same structure of short and varying activities.

Program components

Site License

Each school needs a site license to the mCLASS Intervention software.  This provides access to the tools interventionists use throughout the year, such as:

  • An assessment app for conducting progress monitoring.
  • A grouping tool that forms small groups of 4–6 students with similar skill profiles.
  • A lesson builder that delivers customized 10-day lesson plans for groups.

See sample 10-day lesson plans

Phonological Awareness and Letter Sounds Fluency and Comprehension Skills (4th Grade)
  • Analytical reports for reviewing progress.
  • A practice app for K–2 students to use outside of intervention time.

mCLASS Intervention Kit

mCLASS Intervention kits are recommended, but optional. These kits include the following materials that interventionists bring to lessons:

  • Picture cards
  • Letter cards
  • Regular word cards
  • Irregular word cards
  • Letter combination cards
  • Vocabulary cards
  • Fluency cards
  • Puppet 
  • Resealable bags
  • Magnifying glass
  • Portable whiteboard
  • Dry-erase markers
  • Counting chips
  • Decoding assessment book
  • Vocabulary assessment books
  • Comprehension assessment book

We recommend one mCLASS Intervention kit per interventionist serving K–3 and one mCLASS Intervention kit per interventionist serving 4–6. 

If a school is not able to purchase one kit per interventionist, educators can assemble the materials themselves using our directions here.

DIBELS 8th Edition Kit

Educators administer DIBELS 8th Edition and proprietary diagnostic probes to place intervention students into the program.

Schools can purchase DIBELS 8th Edition kits through Amplify or download forms from the University of Oregon’s site here. 

For the proprietary diagnostic probes, educators can find the assessment forms in the mCLASS Intervention kit or download them from our teacher portal here. 

Getting mCLASS Intervention up and running

We have step-by-step guides with training videos and detailed FAQs to help educators get mCLASS Intervention running smoothly in their schools.

  • Schools that screen with DIBELS via mCLASS follow these steps to get Intervention up and running.
  • Schools that screen with another reading assessment (e.g., paper/pencil DIBELS, iReady, NWEA MAP) follow these steps to get Intervention up and running.

Take a tour

Find step-by-step instructions for reviewing lessons and placement materials in our navigation guide. 

This short video below shows you what those steps look like.

Professional development

For more than a decade, Amplify has provided high-quality customized professional development to meet the specific needs of educators at all levels and improve student outcomes across multiple schools, districts, and states. Our professional development opportunities extend beyond initial product trainings and are proven to leverage data to support effective implementation, consistent administration, focused progress monitoring, skill-focused data analysis, and instructional planning.

There are two distinct roles in mCLASS Intervention critical to ensuring its success at a school site. Professional development is designed to target these different roles:

  • Intervention Coordinator:
    Oversees the mCLASS Intervention program, groups students, determines group assignments, adjusts schedules, and works closely with Interventionists. 
  • Interventionists:
    Instructors who deliver the daily mCLASS Intervention program to small groups of students and monitor students’ progress every two weeks. 

We deliver professional development sessions through multiple formats, including:

  • Onsite:
    Sessions are delivered in person (30 participants).
  • Virtual:
    Sessions are delivered remotely through webinars (15 participants).
  • On demand:
    Resources are posted on the training platform and can be accessed anytime (Individually).

We offer two types of training to support implementation of mCLASS Intervention: Initial Training Sessions and Coaching Sessions.

TRAINING TYPEPURPOSEDATE
Initial Training SessionsIntroduce all stakeholders to mCLASS Intervention and the responsibilities of their individual roles.Beginning of year
Coaching SessionsSupport Intervention Coordinators with data management and fidelity, and support teachers with lesson delivery, progress monitoring, and data analysis.As identified by school

Initial Training Sessions

Training title

Modality

Objectives

Comprehensive Initial Training

1.5 days

Hybrid model*
  • ½-day remote webinar for Intervention Coordinators
  • 1-day onsite training for Interventionists

Interventionist coordinator objectives:

  • Understand how mCLASS Intervention works and what is required to maximize student progress.
  • Learn how to optimize groups and staff schedules to serve all students in need of intervention.
  • Develop the implementation work plan for the school.

Interventionist objectives:

  • Learn how mCLASS Intervention works.
  • Deliver lessons that maximize student progress.
  • Improve lesson delivery, with feedback from certified trainer.
  • Monitor progress with Intervention measures.
  • Increase accuracy of administration of measures.

Comprehensive Initial Training

1.5 days

Remote model*
  • ½-day remote webinar for Intervention Coordinators
  • 1-day remote training for Interventionists
 

*Depending on your needs, Amplify can also deliver these sessions in a Training of Trainers (TOT) model, where sessions are delivered to select leaders from each school, and participants will turn-key training content to their colleagues.

Our Coaching Sessions are also offered in multiple formats, to include full- and half-day in-person sessions, and hourly remote sessions.

Coaching Sessions

Training title

Modality

Objectives
One-day Coaching 1-day onsite

Objectives for these sessions will depend on the content needs determined by the school. Topics can include but are not limited to:

  • Observing Intervention lessons and providing feedback.
  • Analyzing mCLASS Intervention data.
  • Reviewing student progress, and planning next steps.
  • Refining groups and schedules.
  • Co-planning and modeling Intervention lessons.
Half-day Coaching ½-day onsite
Hourly Coaching 1-hour remote

FAQ’s

Do schools need to screen with mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition to use mCLASS Intervention?

No. Amplify has an mCLASS Intervention offering designed for schools that use their own reading screener. These schools use the results from their own reading assessment to determine who’s at risk. Then they administer DIBELS 8th Edition and Amplify’s proprietary diagnostic measure via mCLASS to the students who will receive mCLASS Intervention. Of course, we highly recommend using mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition for screening the entire class, as it would efficiently serve as both a screener and placement tool into mCLASS Intervention.

How does placement into mCLASS Intervention work?

You can learn on our teacher portal site. Here are the placement procedures for schools that:

Screen with mCLASS DIBELS 8

Screen with their own reading assessment

Does mCLASS Intervention teach skills that are taught in previous grades?

Yes, mCLASS Intervention was designed to detect students’ earliest skill gaps and provide teachers with high-quality resources for addressing them. 

How do teachers set goals?

mCLASS Intervention comes with a goal-setting tool that helps educators choose goals for students. It does this by providing score ranges that represent average, above average, and well above average growth in the skills being worked on.

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Plan your professional development

We’re excited to partner with you on your Amplify journey. Flexible professional development pathways have been designed to meet your needs.

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Recommended Professional Development Plan

Our team has curated a recommended professional learning path from initial launch to continuous support. Use the Professional Development Planning Guide below to discuss the plan that best meets your school or district needs with your Account Executive.

View the Professional Development Planning Guide

Sessions overview

Recommended sessions are highlighted below.
AudienceTitleDurationModality
mCLASS Texas Edition Launch
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersInitial training2 half days or self-pacedRemote/Online course
New mCLASS Texas Edition customersInitial training1 dayOnsite
Initial training: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
New mCLASS Texas Edition customers with limited time for PDmCLASS program overview, English measures onlyHalf dayOnsite/Remote
mCLASS program overview, Spanish measures onlyHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Experienced mCLASS Texas Edition customersRefresher trainingHalf dayOnsite/Remote
mCLASS Texas Edition and Amplify Reading Launch
New mCLASS Texas Edition and Amplify Reading customersInitial training with Amplify Reading overview1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial training with Amplify Reading overview: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
mCLASS Texas Edition and TRC Launch
New mCLASS Texas Edition and TRC customersInitial training with TRC overview1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Initial training with TRC overview: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Experienced mCLASS Texas Edition customersTRC initial trainingHalf dayOnsite/Remote
TRC initial training: Train the TrainerHalf dayOnsite/Remote
mCLASS Express Launch
New mCLASS Express customersInitial trainingHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Initial trainingSelf-pacedOnline course
mCLASS Texas Edition Strengthen
All mCLASS Texas Edition customers with limited time for PDUnderstanding your classroom dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersClassroom data analysis and instructional planning1 day Onsite
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersClassroom data analysis and instructional planning 2 half daysRemote
Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Classroom data analysis and instructional planningSelf-pacedOnline
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersData-driven leadership practices1 day onsiteOnsite
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersData-driven leadership practices 2 half daysRemote
Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer1 day onsite or 2 half days remoteOnsite/Remote
Data-driven leadership practicesSelf-pacedOnline
Understanding your school or district dataHalf dayOnsite/Remote
Strengthening consultation session1-hour sessionRemote
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersStrengthening consultation session package3 1-hour sessionsRemote
mCLASS Texas Edition Coach
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersCoaching session1 dayOnsite
All mCLASS Texas Edition customersCoaching sessionHalf dayOnsite/Remote

Launch

mCLASS Texas Edition

Initial training

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS to drive differentiated instruction. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS program overview, English measures only

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the English measures of the mCLASS Texas assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines. Only English measures are covered in this half-day training.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS program overview, Spanish measures only

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to implement the Spanish measures of the mCLASS Texas assessment and collect reliable data using standardized guidelines. Only Spanish measures are covered in this half-day training.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Refresher training

Half day (3 hours)

The half-day refresher training is designed for teachers and instructional leaders who are experienced with any version of DIBELS® and/or Acadience Reading and are invested in successfully implementing mCLASS Texas Edition. This session will help educators focus on what’s new to the assessment and understand mCLASS Texas Edition’s potential to impact all students through improved measures, stronger insight into students’ instructional needs, and bolstered skills-focused lessons to support instructional planning. Upon completion of this session, participants will be prepared to implement the new assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, and use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS Texas Edition to drive differentiated instruction as part of their regular classroom practice.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Texas Edition and Amplify Reading

Initial training with Amplify Reading overview

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Texas Edition and Amplify Reading! The initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Texas Edition assesses the basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, gain hands-on experience administering and scoring the assessment using standardized guidelines, and access the Instruction page in order to find skills-focused lessons that will support instructional planning. A high-level overview of how to get started with Amplify Reading will also be provided at the end of the training along with supplementary, on-demand resources. Upon completion of this session, participants will be prepared to implement the new assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS Texas Edition to drive differentiated instruction as part of their regular classroom practice, and understand key Amplify Reading features.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training with Amplify Reading overview: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Texas Edition and Amplify Reading! The initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Texas Edition assesses the basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, gain hands-on experience administering and scoring the assessment using standardized guidelines, and access the Instruction page in order to find skills-focused lessons that will support instructional planning. A high-level overview of how to get started with Amplify Reading will also be provided at the end of the training along with supplementary, on-demand resources. Upon completion of this session, participants will be prepared to implement the new assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS Texas Edition to drive differentiated instruction as part of their regular classroom practice, and understand key Amplify Reading features. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

mCLASS Texas Edition and TRC

Initial training with TRC overview

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Texas Edition and Amplify Reading! The initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Texas Edition assesses the basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, gain hands-on experience administering and scoring the assessment using standardized guidelines, and access the Instruction page in order to find skills-focused lessons that will support instructional planning. A high-level overview of how to get started with Amplify Reading will also be provided at the end of the training along with supplementary, on-demand resources. Upon completion of this session, participants will be prepared to implement the new assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS Texas Edition to drive differentiated instruction as part of their regular classroom practice, and understand key Amplify Reading features.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Initial training with TRC overview: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Texas Edition and TRC! The initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Texas Edition assesses the basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, gain hands-on experience administering and scoring the assessment using standardized guidelines, and access the Instruction page in order to find skills-focused lessons that will support instructional planning. A high-level overview of how to get started with TRC will also be provided at the end of the training along with supplementary, on-demand resources. Upon completion of this session, participants will be prepared to implement the new assessment, collect reliable data using standardized guidelines, use the targeted lessons available on mCLASS Texas Edition to drive differentiated instruction as part of their regular classroom practice, and understand key TRC features. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

TRC initial training

Half day (3 hours)

Take the first step in launching TRC! The half-day initial training will help educators understand how TRC assesses the basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, gain hands-on experience administering and scoring the assessment using standardized guidelines, and access the Instruction page in order to find skills-focused lessons that will support instructional planning.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

TRC initial training: Train the Trainer

Half day (3 hours)

Take the first step in launching TRC! The half-day initial training will help educators understand how TRC assesses the basic early literacy skills that are crucial for reading development, gain hands-on experience administering and scoring the assessment using standardized guidelines, and access the Instruction page in order to find skills-focused lessons that will support instructional planning. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

mCLASS Express

Initial training

Half day (3 hours)

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Express! The half-day initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Express’ voice-recognition scoring generates immediate instructional recommendations for students reading below grade level. Educators will also learn how to utilize the teacher portal to assign assessments, review and correct scoring, track student growth over time, and leverage the program’s activities to create an action plan for a single classroom or across classes/grades.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Initial training

Self-paced

Take the first step in launching mCLASS Express! The two-hour initial training will help educators understand how mCLASS Express’ voice-recognition scoring generates immediate instructional recommendations for students reading below grade level. Educators will also learn how to utilize the teacher portal to assign assessments, review and correct scoring, track student growth over time, and leverage the program’s activities to create an action plan for a single classroom or across classes/grades. As this is a self-paced, on-demand online course, participants will be able to access the course anytime, move as quickly or as slowly as needed through different sections, and revisit the course for up to one year as a refresher in the future.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Remote

Strengthen

Understanding your classroom data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to understand their students’ data by utilizing the reports available on mCLASS. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome), maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

*This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Classroom data analysis and instructional planning

Self-paced

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to deeply understand their students’ data and create actionable instructional plans by utilizing the reports and skills-focused lesson plans available on mCLASS. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher. Note: The online course focuses on the English measures only.

Audience: Teachers (administrators welcome)
Modality: Online

Understanding your school or district data

Half day (3 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data-driven leadership practices: Train the Trainer

1 day onsite (6 hours) or 2 half days remote (6 hours)

This PD prepares participants to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. This session should be scheduled after the most recent benchmark window has closed so that participants can work with their own data. Participants receive annotated session materials to turnkey the session to colleagues.

Audience: Administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Data driven leadership practices

Self-paced

This PD is an individual seat to our self-paced, on-demand online course that contains approximately 6 hours of training. Participants will learn how to use their data in making schoolwide decisions and build a schoolwide culture of data-driven instruction. Participants will access and revisit the course anytime for up to one year as a refresher. Note: The online course focuses on the English measures only.

Audience: Administrators
Modality: Online

Strengthening consultation session

60 minutes

This 60-minute session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of mCLASS and equip them in driving towards stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topic from a menu of options that will best meet educators’ unique needs. Topics include progress monitoring, zones of growth, and a data walkthrough for leaders.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Strengthening consultation session package

3 hours

This package consists of three 60-minute sessions that can be delivered on the same day or on different days. Each session will focus on a specific topic that will deepen educators’ understanding of mCLASS and equip them in driving towards stronger student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will align with the school or district’s leadership team in advance on the topics that will best meet educators’ unique needs. Topics include progress monitoring, zones of growth, and a data walkthrough for leaders.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Coach

Coaching session

1 day onsite (6 hours)

This PD will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit one or two school sites for one day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Onsite/Remote

Coaching session

Half day (3 hours)

This PD is up to 3 hours of training and will deepen educators’ understanding of how to utilize mCLASS in order to accelerate data-driven student outcomes. An Amplify facilitator will visit one school site for a half-day and work with teachers and/or leaders. Prior to the visit, the Amplify facilitator will align with each school’s leadership team on their needs and customize the visit schedule accordingly.

Audience: Teachers and/or administrators, maximum 30 participants
Modality: Remote

Pricing

We offer the following pricing for training sessions and packages:

Session typePricing
1-day onsite session$3,200
1-day onsite session: Train the Trainer$3,500
2 half-day remote sessions$1,500
2 half-day remote sessions: Train the Trainer$2,000
Half-day onsite session$2,500
Half-day remote session$750
2-hour self-paced online course$20 per individual seat
6-hour self-paced online course$49 per individual seat

Please note that the prices are general ranges and may be subject to change.

Contact

Amplify welcomes the opportunity to partner with schools and districts to design professional development plans and answer your questions.

If you would like to order any of our professional development services, please contact your local Amplify sales representative or call (800) 823-1969.

High-impact literacy tutoring for K–6 built on the Science of Reading-NEW | Amplify

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Summer ’24 Interlude, Episode 1

Summer ’24 Interlude: How effective coaching transformed Mississippi, with Kelly Butler and Margaret Goldberg

In this episode, Susan Lambert talks with Kelly Butler and Margaret Goldberg about their experiences and insights into improving reading instruction, particularly in Mississippi and California. Kelly discusses her work with the Barksdale Reading Institute, its impact on reading education, and the importance of coaching and structured literacy. Margaret shares her experiences as a coach in California, the challenges of teacher training, and the importance of having a clear and effective literacy plan that includes acquiring high-quality data and using it to inform all your strategies. Both guests emphasize the need for systemic change and the role of community involvement in educational success.

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

Guests on Science of Reading podcast Interim Episode 1 with Kelly Butler and Margaret Goldberg
Apple Podcasts badge with the purple Apple Podcasts logo and the text "Listen on Apple Podcasts" on a white background. A white rectangular button with a green Spotify logo on the left and the text "Listen on Spotify" in black font to the right.

Transcripts and additional resources:

Follow: Kelly Butler’s Linkedin
Follow: Kelly Butler’s Twitter/X: @KellyButler8
Follow: Margaret Goldberg’s Twitter/X and Facebook: @right2readproj
Follow: Margaret Goldberg’s LinkedIn
Listen: S2 E5: The Right to Read Project on nurturing automatic readers, with Margaret Goldberg and Alanna Mednick
Listen: S6 E1: The other side of Scarborough’s Rope, with Margaret Goldberg
Listen: Emily Hanford “Sold a Story” series
Look: Textbook spreadsheet from the Center for Reading Science at Mount Saint Joseph University
Watch: Reading Universe: How Children Learn to Read, with Margaret Goldberg
Transcript

Meet Our Guest(s):

Kelly Butler

Kelly Butler

Kelly Butler is Senior Advisor to Reading Universe.org, a large-scale legacy project of Mississippi’s Barksdale Reading Institute (BRI), where she served as Chief Executive Officer. BRI contributed significantly to Mississippi’s rise in reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. During her tenure there, Kelly initiated the Reading Universe concept to provide high-quality professional development to educators in schools and educator preparation programs. She authored three statewide studies on Teacher Preparation for Early Literacy Instruction which propelled The Path Forward, a multi-state initiative focused on preparation and licensure. She’s an advisor to the Mississippi Reading Panel, the Mississippi Reading Clinic, The Path Forward, the Southeast Region’s Education Laboratory, and the Education Advocacy  Center, and she’s a board member for Springboard to Opportunities and Deans for Impact. She holds a master’s degree in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University.

Margaret Goldberg

Margaret Goldberg

Margaret Goldberg is a literacy coach at Nystrom Elementary, a California school awarded a state Early Literacy Support Block grant. With that grant, she supported a network of literacy coaches striving to improve early literacy achievement in California’s lowest performing schools. She’s held a variety of other roles, including district Early Literacy Lead, reading interventionist, and classroom teacher. Everywhere she’s worked, she’s endeavored to help schools and districts align instruction with reading research. 

Margaret is the co-founder of The Right to Read Project. Her writing has been published on The Right to Read Project blog and on Reading Rockets. She holds a master’s degree in elementary education and teaching from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Meet our host, Susan Lambert

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

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

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

Quotes

“How did you get the buy-in from the teachers? We didn't wait for buy-in. We said, ‘We've got a law sitting here and we've got coaches that know what to do.’ … Once they tried to do it, it worked. And then there came buy-in.”

—Kelly Butler

“The laws are telling us that time's up. We need to get this job done. The good news is we know how to do it. We just need to get it done everywhere.”

—Kelly Butler

“My greatest frustration with colleges of education is that we have for centuries been colleges of philosophy, not of science. And I think we are beginning to see a shift in the profession based on science, not just on what we think or believe in.”

—Kelly Butler

“I think I used to think that it was going to be possible for a teacher to figure it out on her own. Or I thought that it would be possible for a school to figure it out on their own, or a district, or even a state. And the more that I realize… like, it's very rare that people are getting the outcomes that they actually want.”

—Margaret Goldberg

“I think we have strayed away from the idea of there being a social contract between the community and schools. And if we could get back to the point where we had an agreement about what the obligations of schools actually are, then we'd do everything differently.”

—Margaret Goldberg

Invest in high-quality professional development

Amplify’s professional development provides a variety of learning experiences over multiple years to incrementally develop and apply the knowledge and skills needed for effective and self-sustaining implementation.

Gain insights into effective instructional techniques, and develop a deeper understanding of your Amplify program(s) by investing in professional development.

Contact Us
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The foundation for long-lasting and sustainable change

Partner with members of our professional learning team to plan long-lasting and sustainable change for your school or district. Change is more likely to stick and get results with deliberate planning. We can support your through this journey to drive your professional improvement, enrich your instructional practice, and increase student impact.

Professional learning journey

Every school and district is unique. That’s why we offer flexible delivery options to best meet your specific needs and objectives.

Our professional development programs come in packages or individual sessions, available both on-site and virtually, to help you get the most out of your Amplify program(s).

You can also customize your learning experience by adding extra sessions, such as Science of Reading, supporting multiliterate learners, and a problem-based approach to math, to build on your base package.

Screenshot of Amplify’s PD Library interface with a search bar, colorful resource cards, and highlighted sections: Amplify Caminos, Boost Biliteracy, and Amplify ELA.
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Prepare
Begin
Practice
Advance
Prepare learning experiences will help shift literacy and math instruction and deepen understanding of research-based practices to support new program implementation. Program-aligned packages will support those who are new to Amplify’s programs. You’ll build the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to begin teaching with your Amplify program(s).

Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify’s programs. You’ll refine instructional skills, expand knowledge of your Amplify program(s), and explore more advanced instructional strategies.

Program-aligned offerings will support advanced implementation to deepen understanding of content and pedagogy and build-in house capacity to support a robust, sustainable implementation.

Multi-program, suite packages

Core program packages

Literacy

  • Amplify CKLA
  • Amplify Caminos
  • Amplify ELA

STEM

  • Amplify Math
  • Amplify Desmos Math (K–12)
  • Amplify Science

 

 
 

Intervention program sessions

  • Boost Reading
  • Boost Lectura
  • Boost Close Reading
  • Boost Math

Assessment program packages

  • mCLASS with DIBELS® 8th Edition
  • mCLASS Lectura
  • mCLASS Math

mCLASS Intervention K–6 program sessions

 

 

Empower teachers to continuously improve

Professional development helps teachers stay motivated and inspired to grow professionally. Demonstrate your commitment to your staff by empowering them with professional development packages that include on-site or virtual Launch, Strengthen, or Coach sessions, all of which will orient you and your team to the full features of Amplify programs.

You can also personalize your learning experience by adding enhancement sessions to base packages.

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Launch

On-site and virtual Launch sessions introduce Amplify programs and support strong implementation. Self-paced, online courses are also available for select Amplify programs and include an on-demand subscription for 12-months.

After learning about the program’s foundational principles and key features, you’ll practice administering it within a collaborative environment.

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Strengthen

On-site and virtual Strengthen sessions deepen understanding of the program. Session offerings are targeted and meant to take your practice—and your students’ learning—to the next level.

Offered as part of core packages, as well as enhancements, Strengthen sessions are intended to effectively address your students’ needs. Examples include:

  • A focus on data analysis.
  • Examining student writing.
  • Targeted intervention instruction.
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Coach

On-site and virtual Coach sessions are tailored to elevate instructional practices and meet the unique needs of teachers and/or leaders.

Partner with an Amplify coach who will support you in planning customized sessions leveraging our menu of supports, which can include:

  • Lesson modeling by an Amplify facilitator.
  • Classroom observations and debriefs.
  • Grade-level planning.

Commit to sustainable change for long-term impact

Learning may ebb and flow between phases depending on your teachers’ and leaders’ needs, experiences, and professional goals. Amplify professional development aims to continually grow, develop, and refine instructional practices to support student learning and achievement.

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Frequently asked questions

We value your partnership and aim to provide you with the highest quality learning experiences. Check out our frequently asked PD questions below, along with responses.

View the PD FAQs

Additional learning

Once you become an Amplify customer, you’ll have access to many opportunities to continue learning how to get the most out of your Amplify program(s).

To get a sense of our support, check out some of our free resources:

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Biliteracy supports

Facilitated in both English and Spanish, specialized biliteracy sessions should be scheduled for teachers using both curricula and/or assessments. Sessions are available to support the use of both Amplify CKLA and Amplify Caminos core programs or mCLASSⓇ DIBELSⓇ 8th Edition and Lectura assessment programs. Substitute a biliteracy session for the 6-hour initial training in your package, or add these sessions on to your package for your biliteracy teachers.

Speak to our team to learn more!

Order and payment support

If you’re ready to submit your price quote, purchase order, or payment, visit our Ordering Support site for more information.

Submit an order or make a payment
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Community of collaboration

Connect with fellow Science of Reading or science advocates in one of our public Facebook groups. Join a community or tune into one of our podcasts today:

Amplify customers can join our exclusive, program-specific Facebook communities to ask pedagogical questions, share Amplify teaching hacks, and more!

Get in touch with a PD expert

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

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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

ANet logo with a large yellow "A" emitting rays, followed by the word "Net" in gray text on a white background—symbolizing student support services that enhance the learning experience.

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

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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

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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

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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

Advice for next year—for teachers, from teachers

It’s that time of the year again—when the trees are blooming, summer is coming, and already teachers are peeking ahead to next fall!

It’s also a strategic time for educational leaders, who are already beginning to set professional development goals for teachers for the coming school year.

There are lots of excellent educational resources for teachers and leaders to access at this time—including, of course, other teachers and leaders!

That’s why we took this moment to ask Amplify Ambassadors: What advice would you offer to educators just starting their journey with Amplify?

Here’s what they had to say, both about Amplify products and about teaching in general.

Teacher-to-teacher advice about Amplify products

—Darcey Linton, Teacher, Student Support, Wissahickon School District, Pennsylvania

“Approach Amplify with the same wonder and enthusiasm as the children in your classroom! Take advantage of the fact that everything is new to all of you, and explore and adventure through each lesson together. One of our best resources is a working document we share that is filled with ‘notes for next year,’ something that we add ideas, links, and lab ideas to each year to make them easier to retrieve and implement the next time through.”
—Kim Eich, 6th-Grade Teacher, Anoka Hennepin ISD #11, Minnesota

Amplify ELA: “Don’t skip the Quests! Especially in 7th grade, I love doing the Poe Quest and Perception Academy in [the] Brain Science [unit].”
—Christine Wallace, Teacher/Reading Specialist, North Lakeland School District, Wisconsin

“Gather read-alouds about the CKLA knowledge domain topic. The recommended trade books listed on the Family Take Home page are a great way to start. I’ve borrowed them from our school library, and asked for donations. I display the books for students to see. Students are able to grab them and read them throughout the day. Having themed, content-rich books readily available to students allows them to build on their knowledge in a meaningful way.”
—Alyssa Villalobos, 2nd-Grade Teacher, Riverside Unified School District, California

“I encouraged teachers to walk through both levels of the demo account offered in order to preview the student experience in Boost. This allowed them to see the progression of skills and expectations to know the base of what is being developed, and what they are working toward in the more advanced components.”
—Elizabeth Sillies, District Literacy Coach and Title I Supervisor, Three Rivers Local School District, Ohio

Try it with fidelity first to see what works best for your teaching style and student needs. Once you have a grasp of the curriculum, then you can better supplement or modify it for you and your students’ needs.

—Ashley Carter, Science Teacher, Indian River School District, Delaware

Amplify CKLA: “When pre-teaching vocabulary words before the Read-Aloud, come up with a simple hand motion or facial expression for each word, [for example] hugging your body for the word ‘embrace.’ Have the kids do the motions along with you and then listen for the words as you read. When they hear one of the vocabulary words, they should do the motion with you. The physical response helps cement language acquisition, especially for the majority of my students who are learning English, and listening for the words and motions keeps all students engaged. Plus, it adds a micro-movement break.”
—Kathe McCormick-Evans, 1st-Grade Teacher, Arlington Public Schools, Virginia

“For Amplify CKLA, read the Intro section of each unit!! These are so full of professional development for the teachers. It will help you understand the why behind each theme and also explain some of the phonics rules you will be teaching to the students.”
—Allie Appeal, Instructional Coach, School District of Arcadia, Wisconsin

“Don’t rush through the program to get it done. You won’t love it and your kids won’t love it. Take your time and enjoy the journey! The kids and you will appreciate [it] so much more!”
—Stephanie Schuettpelz, Teacher, Marion School District, Wisconsin

mCLASS® DIBELS® 8th Edition: “Try to progress monitor as often as possible. Weekly or every two weeks would be a great time frame based on the needs of the students.”
—Shennoy Barnett-Bell, Teacher, Johnston County Public Schools, North Carolina

Teacher-to-teacher advice about teaching (and more)

—Melba Jordan, Teacher, Richmond County School System, Georgia

“Trust the process, especially in the upper grades when you cannot yet see the end result.”
—Maria Fadden, PreK–8 Literacy Coach, Belle Plaine Public Schools, Minnesota

“Set a timer every time you allow students to work independently or in groups. This allows them to start to use and understand time management. It makes everyone work with purpose and work quietly. I also play relaxing music as a white noise in the background.”
—Kerri Lintl, Teacher, Merrimac Community School, Wisconsin

Make it fun! Your interest gets the students more involved than any fun activity you plan.

—Jadyn Kramp, 4th-Grade Teacher, Wayne County School District, Kentucky


Amplify CKLA: “Don’t be afraid to read word by word. You don’t have to memorize the script.”
—Denise Sandoval, Literacy Coach, Catch Up & Read partnered with Dallas ISD, Texas

“Enthusiasm and positivity are contagious!”
—Stacey Smart, Reading Specialist, Romeo Community Schools, Michigan

Amplify Typography

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Ultimately, kids can thrive and grow in conditions that you may not ever have imagined. I want our school to prove nature’s law is wrong.

—Ray James

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Lists

  • K
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • detailed lesson plans.
  • unit and chapter overview documentation.
    • differentiation strategies.
    • standards alignments.
  • in-context professional development.
  • Illuminate
  • SchoolCity
  • Otus
    • detailed lesson plans.
    • unit and chapter overview documentation.
    • differentiation strategies.
  • Course 1: Foundations to the Science of Reading
  • Course 2: Advanced Topics in the Science of Reading: Assessment and Reading Difficulties
  • Course 3: Applied Structured Literacy

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  • Data you can trust, with teacher-administered assessments
  • Skill-level data aligned with the Science of Reading
  • Data-driven instructional recommendations to support intervention, remediation, and enrichment
  1. detailed lesson plans.
  2. unit and chapter overview documentation.
  3. differentiation strategies.
    • standards alignments.
    • in-context professional development.
  • CKLA Program Guide
  • Text complexity in CKLA
  • Trade books in CKLA
  • Assessments in CKLA
  • Remote and hybrid learning with CKLA
  • CKLA Scopes and Sequences
    • Grade K Skills and Knowledge
    • Grade 1 Skills and Knowledge
    • Grade 2 Skills and Knowledge
    • Grade 3 Integrated
    • Grade 4 Integrated
    • Grade 5 Integrated
  • Click the CKLA Student Hub button below.
  • Select Log in with Amplify.
  • Enter the student username and password found on the login flyer PDF provided to you.
    • Click the CKLA Student Hub icon.
    • Select a grade level.
  • Illuminate
  • SchoolCity
  • Otus
    • detailed lesson plans.
    • unit and chapter overview documentation.
    • differentiation strategies.

Tables

Which services are right for me?

1. Materials and implementation support

2. Full-service

3. Consultancies

Professional development Coaching and training

Tutoring materials High-quality instructional materials and nationally normed reading assessments

 
  

Program management

 
  

Amplify tutors

 
  
 
  

Option two

Title Duration Modality Available
Launch
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Comprehensive initial training for teachers 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for teachers 1 day Onsite Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for teachers 2 half days Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Initial training for instructional leaders Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Getting started package Sess 1: 90 min.
Sess 2: 60 min.
Sess 3: 60 min.		 Remote Yes
Strengthen
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Enhancing observations for leaders
 Half day Onsite/Remote 09/01/22
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Enhancing planning and practice Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Analytic reading Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Supporting all learners Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Data-informed instruction Half day Onsite/Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Strengthening consultation package 3 1-hour sessions Remote Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Strengthening consultation session 1 hour Remote Yes
Coach
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching sessions 2 days consecutive Onsite Yes
Amplify ELAR Texas 6–8 Coaching sessions
 1 day Onsite/Remote Yes
Half day Onsite/Remote Yes

Option three


Prepare
Begin
Practice
Advance


Program-agnostic sessions will set up educators for success 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’s programs.


Program-aligned packages will support those who have experience using Amplify’s programs.


Offerings will support advanced implementation, build capacity for instructional leaders, certify in-house trainers to deliver Launch sessions, and more.

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By Amplify Staff | August 21, 2024

Meet Amplify Desmos Math

Read post
By Amplify Staff | August 6, 2024

5 strategies to transform your math classroom

Read post
By Amplify Staff | January 15, 2024

Top 5 back-to-school tips for math teachers

Read post

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Amplify Caminos

Amplify Caminos is a K–5 Spanish language arts program and curriculum designed to accelerate bilingual reading comprehension. Contact us today to learn more!

Amplify CKLA

The leading K–5 Science of Reading literacy program that integrates foundational skills, knowledge building, and daily writing.

Amplify CKLA Skills

Amplify CKLA Skills is an explicit supplemental literacy skills program that helps students develop solid reading foundations.

Amplify Desmos Math

Amplify Desmos Math: Bringing you free math resources and core curriculum lessons for K–12 math educators. Contact us to learn more!

Amplify Science

Amplify Science is a K–8 science curriculum that blends hands-on investigations, literacy-rich activities, and interactive digital tools to

Amplify Tutoring

Amplify Tutoring provides ESSA-aligned, high-impact tutoring programs to complement the efforts of K–6 students, educators, and families in building reading proficiency and confidence.

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S3 – 04. Ideas to build math fluency with Valerie Henry, Graham Fletcher, and Tracy Zager

Promotional image for "Math Teacher Lounge" Season 3, Episode 4 titled "Ideas to Build Math Fluency," featuring Valerie Henry, Tracy J. Zager, and Graham Fletcher.

Fluency in math can oftentimes be associated with negative experiences with its development— timed worksheets, for example. Bethany and Dan are joined by three guests to better understand fluency and how to make its approach fun. Dr. Val Henry shares her three-part definition of fluency and her five principles for developing it. Additionally, Tracy Zager and Graham Fletcher join Bethany and Dan to better understand fluency through a lens of equity and using multimedia as a tool.

Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page. 

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Dan Meyer (00:03)

Hey folks. Welcome back. This is Math Teacher Lounge, and I am one of your hosts, Dan Meyer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:07):

And I’m your other host, Bethany Lockhart Johnson. Hi, Dan.

Dan Meyer (00:11):

Hey, great to see you. We have a big one this week to chat about and some fantastic guests. We are chatting about fluency, which is the sort of word and concept that I feel like people have very, very non-neutral associations with it. A lot of them are very negative, for a lot of people.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:26):

I saw you frown a little. What’s up with that, Dan? You kind of, like, shrank.

Dan Meyer (00:30):

I have strong feelings about it. You know, there’s lots of ways that people go about helping people become fluent in mathematics. And a lot of them are harmful for students, and ineffective. And it got me thinking about fluency as it exists outside of the world of mathematics, where we have a lot of very clear images of it. We’re getting fluent in things all the time. Like, as humans. Human development is the story of fluency. And I just was wondering….Bethany, would you describe yourself as fluent at something outside of the world of mathematics? What is that? How’d you get fluent at it? What was the process?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:05):

Hmm, I think I’m a pretty fluent reader. I read all the time. I’m a happier person if I’ve read that day. I once saw this poster in a classroom; it said “10 Ways to Become a Better Reader: Read, Read, Read, Read, Read…you know, 10 times. Get it? Reading? You get better at reading by reading! So I would say reading. And it’s been kind of cool—I have a one-year-old who, it’s been really exciting slash overwhelmingly anxiety-producing to see him get very fluent with walking slash running, ’cause he’s getting faster every day. And it’s kind of fun. When I think of what’s something somebody’s trying to get fluent with…walking! He’s trying to be more fluid. He’s practicing transitions. He doesn’t wanna hold my hand while he traverses rocky terrain. He’s getting better at it. He’s practicing. What about you? What’s something…?

Dan Meyer (02:08):

I think about driving a lot. I’m a very fluent driver and I think a lot about when I was first a driver, you know? And how l have my hands on 10 and 2, vice grip, and do not talk to me; do not ask me anything; don’t ask me my NAME. I need to focus so hard. And then a year later, you know, I’m driving with one hand, smash the turn signal, take a sip off of whatever, change the CD. And then it’s no big deal.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:38):

Wait, did you pass the first time? Your test?

Dan Meyer (02:40):

Yeah, I don’t like to brag about it. <laugh> But I do all the time. <laugh> But I got a hundred on my driving test. I don’t care who knows it. And I hope it’s everybody. But I guess all of this is just to say there are areas of life where fluency feels natural, with the case of walking. There’s areas of life where fluency feels motivating, with like driving—I wanna be able to switch the CD out or whatever. And there’s areas where fluency feels terrifying and hard to come by, like mathematics, sometimes. So we have a set of guests here. Our first guest will help us figure out what do we mean by fluency? And what’s the research say about what fluency is and how students develop it in mathematics? And then our other guests will help us think about what it looks like in practice in the classroom. What are some novel, new ways to work on fluency? So first up we have Val Henry, Dr. Val Henry.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:32):

So we knew we needed help with the fluency definition, because when we think about it, it’s kind of big, right? And we wanted to look at what research about fluency really says. So we called on Valerie Henry. Val is a nationally board-certified teacher, taught middle school for 17 years, and since 2002 has worked with undergraduates graduates, credential candidates as a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, one of my alma maters. So after doing her dissertation on addition and subtraction fluency in first grade, Val created a project to study ways to build addition and subtraction and multiplication and division fluency while also developing number sense in algebraic thinking. And the pilot grew and grew over the last 18 years into a powerful daily mini-lesson approach to facts fluency called FactsWise. And when we thought of fluency, the first person I thought of was Val. Welcome, Val Henry, to the Lounge! I’m so excited to have you here. Welcome.

Valerie Henry (04:36):

Thanks, Bethany. And thanks to you, Dan. It’s great to be here today.

Dan Meyer (04:41):

Great to have you; help yourself to whatever you find in the fridge. The names that people write down on those things in the bags are just recommendations. It’s potluck-style here. I’m curious, Val, if you’re, like, on an airplane, someone asks you what you do, and you say you study fluency…what is the layperson’s definition of what does it mean to be fluent in mathematics? And if you can give a brief tour through what the research says about what works and what doesn’t that would really help us orient our conversation here.

Valerie Henry (05:12):

The first thing I have to do when I talk to somebody on a plane is define the idea of fluency. And I often use an example of tying your shoelaces. Because that works with first graders as well as adults. This idea that when we first start trying to put our shoes on and get those shoelaces tied, somebody tries to, first of all, just do it for us. But then of course maybe tries to teach us the bunny-ears approach. And we struggle and struggle as little kids and eventually either the bunny-ears approach or something else starts to work for us. But we still have to pay attention to it. We have to think hard and it’s not easy. And then over time we get to the point where we basically don’t even think about it. When I tie my shoes in the morning. I’m not thinking about right-over-left and left-over-right and all of those things. I just do it. And so that’s a good, easy example of becoming fluent with something. I think what we’re talking about today though, is the basics, the adding and subtracting that we hope kids are going to have mastered maybe by second grade, and the multiplication and division facts that we wanna maybe have mastered by third, maybe fourth grade. So now what does that mean to become fluent with those basics? I have a three-part definition that seems to match up really nicely with the common core approach to fluency. Which is, first of all, we want the answers to be correct. And then second, we want the answers to be easy to know. And so what does that mean? Well, to me, it means without needing to count,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:12):

You mean without having to kind of muscle through it? Or say more about you mean.

Valerie Henry (07:16):

Well, I guess what I mean is that when you watch a young child try and solve something even as simple as two plus three, they might put up two fingers and then go 3, 4, 5 with three more fingers winding up on their hand, one or the other of their hands. While they’re doing that, they don’t really have a sense of whether even their answer is right or not, quite often. Especially when you get to the larger adding and subtracting problems, you can see a lot of errors happening as they’re trying to count. And it’s taking up cognitive energy to do that counting process, especially as you get to the larger quantities. So my definition of fluency now is “getting it right without needing to do that hard work like counting.” Now, some people might say, well, we just want them to have ’em memorized. But in my research, I’ve learned that a lot of very fluid adults don’t always have every fact memorized. In fact, if you ask a room full of adults, what’s seven plus nine, you might learn that they can all get it correct quickly, quickly…but they don’t all have it memorized. And so when you ask them, “How did you get that?” Many of them will say, “Well, I just gave one from the 7 to the 9 and I know that 10 plus 6 is 16.”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:53):

That’s such an important distinction. My brain literally just did that actually!

Valerie Henry (08:58):

<laugh> Right? <laugh> But you’re fluid with it, because it doesn’t take you much cognitive energy at all.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (09:05):

Right.

Valerie Henry (09:07):

So now we have “correct without needing to put that cognitive energy,” which usually means that you’re counting. And then the third thing is “relatively quickly,” so that you’re not spending 15 seconds trying to figure it out. Even that part-whole strategy approach can be done really quickly, almost instantaneously. Or it can take a long time. So if a student can get the answer correct within, you know, three or four seconds— is I’m pretty generous—I figure that they’re pretty darn fluent with that fact. So that’s my three-part definition of these basics, fluency.

Dan Meyer (09:55):

I love the distinction between getting it correct and getting it quick. It’s possible to be quick with wrong answers. It’s possible to be like, “Those are separate components there.” And I echo Bethany’s appreciation for this third option in between knowing it instantaneously through memorization and muscling through it. But there’s like a continuum there of how much energy it took you to come up with it that all feels extremely helpful.

Valerie Henry (10:21):

And you know, one of the things that I’ve noticed is that when kids are pressured to come up with those instantaneous answers, they often default to guessing and get it wrong.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:30):

Mm, yeah.

Valerie Henry (10:30):

So that’s one of the things that I’ve learned is that as we’re trying to help students develop fluency, it’s important to start with building their conceptual understanding of what it means to do, you know, 3 times 9 and what the correct answer is, maybe using manipulatives or representations of some sort. Not skip-counting! I really have found that skip-counting just perpetuates itself in many students’ minds and that they never stop skip-counting, which means they’re putting in not very much mental energy if it’s 2 times 3 but a ton of mental energy if it’s 7 times 8. Because frankly, it’s really hard to skip count by sevens. And by eights.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (11:18):

I can get to 14 and then I’m like, wait, wait, what was next? Right? No, no, no…21! What do you feel are some misconceptions that maybe teachers, maybe parents have about fluency in math?

Valerie Henry (11:30):

I think maybe one of the first ones is that if students count or skip-count, their answers repetitively over and over and over and over, that they’re bound to memorize them. And the study that I did back in 2004, I actually had a school that had decided that they were going to do time tests with their students every day, all year. And that undoubtedly by the end of the year, those students would be fluent.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:06):

And to clarify by time test, you mean like, sit down, pencil, paper, ready, go, worksheet kind of thing.

Valerie Henry (12:15):

Yes.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:16):

Some of us might remember quite vividly.

Valerie Henry (12:18):

<laugh> Very vividly. And you know, you have to get it done within a certain amount of time. So they made it fun for the students. Apparently the students enjoyed it. I was a little leery about that, but in the end, when I went and checked on the students and I did one-on-one assessments with half of the students in every class that were randomly selected so that I could get a sense of where they were with their fluency—and these were first graders—they basically had nothing memorized. They were simply counting as fast as they possibly could. And, you know, mostly getting the right answers. But they had not memorized. So that’s one of the myths, I think, is that repetitive practice of counting gets you to memorization.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (13:10):

If I put it in front of you enough times, you’ll become fluent.

Valerie Henry (13:14):

Right, right. Now these students didn’t really get any instruction, any help learning these. They just simply tested over and over and over. So that’s another thing that I think is a misconception. It’s that if we test students, but don’t really teach them fluency, then they’re going to become fluent. If we just test them every Friday or that kind of thing. And that they’ll learn them at home. But really what that means is a few lucky kids who have parents who have the time and the energy and the background to know how to help will take that job on at home. Not that many students are really that fortunate.

Dan Meyer (14:01):

It’s almost like the traditional approach, or the approach you’re describing, confuses process and product. It says, “Well, the product is that eventually fluent students will be able to do something like this, see these problems and answer them, answer them quickly,” and says, “Well, that must be the process then as well; let’s give them that products a whole lot.” But as I hear you describe fluency with bunny ears on shoelaces, there’s these images and approaches and techniques that require a very active teacher presence to support the development of it. That’s just kind of interesting to me.

Valerie Henry (14:35):

My initial project, the pilot project that I tried, was to simply ask teachers to follow five key principles. And the first one was to do something in the classroom every day for—I told them, even if you’ve only got five or 10 minutes, work on fluency for five or 10 minutes a day, and let’s see what happens. So that was one key element was just to teach it and to give students opportunities to get what the research calls for when you’re trying to memorize, which is actually immediate feedback. When I talk about immediate feedback with my student teachers, I say, “I’m talking about within one or two seconds of trying a problem, and then sort of immediately knowing, getting feedback of whether you got the answer right or not so that your brain can kind of gain that confidence. ‘Oh, not only did I come up with an answer, but somebody’s telling me it’s the correct answer.’”

Dan Meyer (15:38):

There’s a lot of apps now in the digital world that offer students questions about arithmetic or other kinds of mathematical concepts and give immediate feedback of a sort: the feedback of “You’re right; you’re wrong” sort. Is that effective fluency development, in your view?

Valerie Henry (15:57):

I haven’t heard and I haven’t seen them being super-effective. The ways I think about this are “Immediate feedback isn’t the only thing we need.” Probably one of the biggest things that we need is for students to develop strategies. And this is one of the other things I’ve learned from international research, from countries that do have students who become very fluent very early, is that they don’t shoot straight for memorization, but they go through this process of taking students from doing some counting and then quickly moving them to trying to use logic. So, “Hey, you really are confident that 2 + 2 is 4; so now let’s use that to think about 2 + 3.” Actually, as an algebra teacher, I would much rather have students that have a combination of memorization and these strategies, than students who’ve only memorized. Isn’t that interesting that my most successful algebra students were good strategy thinkers. Not just good memorizers.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (17:09):

So you mentioned there were five that kind of helped root this idea in like, “What can teachers do? What is the best thing that teachers can do to support with fact fluency?” So, everyday was key.

Valerie Henry (17:22):

Then the next principle that I really focus on is switching immediately to the connected subtractions so that students—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (17:33):

Not waiting until you’ve gotten all the way through addition. But making “Ooh!”

Valerie Henry (17:38):

Totally. And I didn’t do that the first year. And when we looked at the results of the assessments at the end of the year, we realized that our students were so much weaker in subtraction than addition. So the following pilot year, we tried this other approach of doing subtraction right after the students had developed some fluency with that small chunk of addition. And we got such better subtraction results.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (18:11):

What are the other principles?

Valerie Henry (18:13):

The biggest one is to use these strategies. So the strategies makes the third. And then the fourth I would say is to go from concrete to representational to abstract.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (18:27):

Don’t put away those manipulatives. Don’t put away those tools.

Valerie Henry (18:31):

Oh, so important to come back to them for multiplication and division. And my fifth principle is to wait on assessment. To use it as true assessment, but not race to start testing before students have had a chance to go through this three-phase process. Which is conceptual understanding with manipulatives; building strategies, usually with representations; and then working on building some speed until it’s just that natural fluency.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:07):

I wanna say thank you so much for offering your really learned perspective, because you have not only done the research, but seen it in action and seen how shifting our notions of fluency and what fluency can be and what a powerful foundation it can be for all mathematicians. Really, that shift is so powerful. And I appreciate you sharing it with our listeners and with us. So we’re so excited that we got to talk with you today, Val—

Dan Meyer (19:35):

Thank you, Dr. Henry.

Valerie Henry (19:37):

You’re welcome!

Dan Meyer (19:41):

With us now we have Graham Fletcher and Tracy Zager, a couple of people who understand fluency at a very deep and classroom level. I wanna introduce them and get their perspective on what we’re trying to solve here with fluency. So Graham Fletcher has served in education in a lot of different roles: as a classroom teacher, math coach, math specialist, and he’s continually seeking new and innovative ways to support students and teachers in their development of conceptual understanding in elementary math. He’s the author, along with Tracy, of Building Fact Fluency, a fluency kit we’ll talk about, and openly shares so much of his wisdom and resources at gfletchy.com. Tracy Johnson Zager is a district math coach who loves to get teachers hooked on listening to kids’ mathematical ideas. She is a co-author of this toolkit, Building Fact Fluency, and the author of Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms. Tracy also edits professional books for teachers at Stenhouse Publishers, including, yours truly. Thank you for all that insight, Tracy, and support on the book.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (20:49):

Dan and I were talking at the beginning of the episode about things we feel like, “Hey, I’m fluent in that. I’m fluent in that.”

Dan Meyer (20:55):

Just very curious: What’s something you would like to get fluent in outside of the world of mathematics, let’s say?

Tracy Zager (21:00):

I’ll say understanding the teenage brain, as the parent of a 13-year-old and 15-year-old. That’s the main thing I’m working on becoming fluent in!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:10):

Ooh!

Dan Meyer (21:13):

A language fluency, perhaps. All right, Graham. How about you?

Graham Fletcher (21:16):

For me typing, it’s always been an Achilles heel of mine. So voice-to-text has been my friend. But it’s also been my nemesis in much of my texting here and working virtually over the last couple years. So yeah, typing.

Dan Meyer (21:33):

Do you folks have some way of helping us understand the difference in how fluency is handled by instructors and by learners?

Tracy Zager (21:40):

I would say that the lay meaning of fluency is definitely a little different than what we mean in the math education realm. When we’re talking about math fact fluency, which is just one type of fluency. So you gotta think about procedural fluency and computational fluency; there are lots of types of fluency in math. And Graham and I had the luxury of really focusing in specifically on math fact fluency. We’re looking at kind of a subset of the procedural fluency. So the words you hear in all the citations are accurate, efficient, and flexible. There’s this combination of kids get the right answer in a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of work and they can match their strategy or their approach to the situation. That’s where that flexibility comes in. And there’s like lots more I wanna say about that about sort of…I think one issue that comes up around fluency is that people are in a little bit of a rush. So they tend to think of the fluency as this automaticity or recall of known facts without having to think about it. And that is part of the end goal, but that’s not the journey to fluency. So this is one of the things that Graham and I thought about a lot was the path to fluency. The goal here it’s that student in middle school who’s learning something new doesn’t have to expend any effort to gather that fact. And they might do it because they’ve done it so many different ways that they’ve got it, and now they just know it, or they might be like my friend who’s a mathematician who still, if you say, “Six times 8,” she thinks in her head, “Twelve, 24, 48…” and she does this double-double-double associative property strategy. And it’s so efficient, you would never know. And that’s totally great. That’s fine. That’s not slowing her down. That’s not providing a drag in the middle of a more complex problem or new learning. So we’re really focused on having elementary school students be able to enter the middle and high school standards without having that pull out of the new thinking.

Graham Fletcher (23:53):

And as I think about that, I think about how so many students will memorize their facts, but then they haven’t memorized them with understanding. So that when they move into middle school and they move into high school, it’s almost like new knowledge and new understanding that’s applied from a stand-alone skill.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:10):

So something that felt really unique to me, Graham, as I was diving into the toolkit, is your use of images, Tracy, Graham, is the way that you use images to help students notice and wonder to start making sense of these quantities and the decomposition of numbers using images. Can you talk a little bit about how images played a part in the way that you think about this building a fact fluency?

Graham Fletcher (24:41):

What I realized is so many times when we approach math with just naked numbers with so many of our elementary students, the numbers aren’t visible. The quantities. They can’t see them; they can’t move them. They’re just those squiggly figures that we were talking about earlier on. So how is it that we make the quantities visible, to where students feel as if they can grab an apple and move it around? Because a lot of times we start with the naked numbers and then if kids don’t get the naked numbers, then we kind of backfill it. But what would happen if we start with the images? And then from there, these rich, flourishing mathematical conversations develop from the images. And I think that was the premise and the goal of the toolkit.

Tracy Zager (25:22):

When you look at how fact fluency has traditionally been taught, it’s all naked numbers. And sometimes we wrote ’em sideways. Like, that’s it. That was our variety of task type. Right? Sometimes it’s vertical; sometimes it’s horizontal. And that was it. And I’ve just known way too many kids who couldn’t find a hook to hang their hat on with that. It didn’t connect to anything. And so part of why I knew Graham was the perfect person for this project was his strength in multimedia photography, art, video. And so we started from this idea of contexts that for each lesson string in the toolkit, there’s some kind of context. An everyday object, arranged in some kind of a way that reveals mathematical structure and invites students to notice the properties. So we start with images of everyday objects: tennis balls, paint pots…um, help me out; here are a million of them. Crayons—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (26:18):

Crayons, markers.

Tracy Zager (26:18):

Shoes, right? Sushi, origami paper, all kinds of things in the different toolkits. So there’s a series of images or a three-act task or both around those everyday objects, and then story problems grounded in that context. And then there are images with mathematical tools that bring out different ideas, but relate in some way to the image talks. And we do all of that before we get to the naked number talk. Which we do, and by the time you get to the number talk, it’s pretty quick, ’cause they’ve been reasoning about cups of lemonade. And now when you give them the actual numerals, they’re all over it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:03):

I have to say too, as somebody who—particularly in middle school—navigated math anxiety, we recently talked with Allison Hintz and Anthony Smith about their amazing book Mathematizing Children’s Literature.

Tracy Zager (27:14):

Yay!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:14):

And I was explaining, like, if I sat down at the beginning of a math class and my teacher opened a picture book and said, “We’re gonna start here,” I felt my whole body relax. And if we start with this image, if we start with just looking at an image and making sense of an image, I feel like that could be such a powerful touchstone for all the work you do from there.

Tracy Zager (27:41):

That’s core. That’s a core design principle, is that invitational access. There are no barriers to entry. There’s nothing to decode. There’s nothing formal. We’ve been learning from Dan for years about this, right? Of starting with the informal and then eventually layering in the formal. I was in a class in Maine where they were doing an image talk and it’s these boxes of pencils. It’s a stack of boxes of pencils and they’re open and you can see there are 10 pencils in each box. And so there are five boxes of pencils each with 10 pencils in it. And then the next image is 10 boxes of pencils and each box is half full. So now it’s 10 boxes each with five. And the kids are talking and talking and then the third image, I think there are seven boxes each with 10 pencils in it. And she said, “What do you think the next picture’s gonna be?” And this girl said, “You just never know with these people!” <laugh> I dunno!”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:37):

That’s kinda true. Knowing you both, it’s kinda true.

Tracy Zager (28:42):

Like if it’s seven boxes with 10 in it, one kid said, I think it’s gonna be 14 boxes of five. And other kids are like, I think it’s gonna be 10 boxes with seven. And they start talking about which of those there are and the relationships between—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:58):

But they’re making sense of numbers!

Tracy Zager (28:59):

Totally. So all the kids felt invited. They can offer something up. They’re noticing and wondering about that image. They’re talking about it in whatever informal language or home language that they speak. And that was core to us. That was a huge priority, because honestly, one of the motivations to talk about fluency is that it’s always been this gatekeeper. It has served to keep kids out of meaningful math. Particularly kids from marginalized or historically excluded communities. So they’re back at the round table, doing Mad Minutes, while the more advantaged kids are getting to do rich problem solving. And so, we thought, what if we could teach fact fluency through rich problem solving that everybody could access? That was like square one for us.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:45):

That’s huge.

Dan Meyer (29:46):

That’s great to hear. What’s been helpful for me is to understand that students who are automatic, that’s just kind of what’s on the surface of things. And that below that might be some really robust kind of foundation or scaffolding that bleeds to a larger building being built, or it might be just really rickety and not offer a sturdy place to build farther up. It’s been really exciting to hear that. I wonder if you’d comment for a moment about, in the digital age and—I’m at Desmos and our sponsors are Amplify and we all work in the digital world quite a bit. There are a lot of what report to be solutions to the fluency issue, to developing fluency in the digital world. Just lots and lots of them. Some that are quite well used, others that are just like X, Y, or Z app on the market. You can find something. Do you have perspectives on these kinds of digital fluency building apps? Like, what about them works or doesn’t work? Let us know. Graham, how about you? And then Tracy, I’d love to hear your thoughts too.

Graham Fletcher (30:47):

Yeah, I think that’s a great question, ’cause there’s a lot of shiny bells and whistles out there right now that can really excite a lot of teachers. But I always come back to what works for me as a classroom teacher is probably gonna work in a digital world as well. So what are the things that I love and honor most about being in front of students, and how can I capture that in that virtual world? I think one of the things that really helps students make connections is coherence. I think coherence, especially when you leave students for—you don’t get to talk with them after the lesson is done—so I think about how we can purposefully sequence things through a day-to-day basis. I think coherence is something that gets really lost when we talk about fluency, especially with whether it be digital or whether it be print, because what ends up happening is we say, “OK, we have all these strategies we need to teach,” and it becomes a checklist. So how is it that we can just provide students the opportunity to play around in a space, whether it be digital or in person, but in a meaningful way that allows them the time and the space and that area to breathe and think, but be coherent. And connecting those lessons along the way. And I think coherence is one thing that a lot of the times it’s harder to—when we’re in the weeds, it’s so hard and difficult to zoom back out and say, “Do all these lessons connect? How do they intentionally connect? And how do they purposefully connect?” And without coherence, everything’s kind of broken down into that granular level. So when looking at—I think about Desmos and I think about the Toolkit and I think about how Tracy and I talked a lot about, “Well, this, does it connect with the context problem, does it connect with the image talk, or the lessons? Like, how does it all connect and how are we providing students an opportunity to make connections between the day-to-day instruction and lessons that we tackle?”

Tracy Zager (32:44):

I’m reminded of a conversation that Dan, you and I had a long time ago, in Portland, Maine, in a bar. I’ll just be honest. <laugh> And we were talking about how, in the earlier days of Desmos, you were stressed out by what you saw, which was kids one-on-one, on a device, in a silent room. And you were like, no, this is not it. This is not what technology is here to serve. We can do so many things better using technology appropriately, but we can’t lose talk and we can’t lose relationships and we can’t lose formative assessment and teachers listening to kids and kids listening to each other and helping each other understand their thinking. Right? So when I think about the tech that’s out there for fact fluency, most of it is gonna violate all rules I have around time testing. So that a whole bunch of it, I would just toss on that premise. They’re really no different than flashcards. It’s just flashcards set in junkyard heaps. Or, you know, underground caverns. Or with a volcano or whatever. It’s the same thing. There are some lovely visuals—I’m thinking of Berkeley Everett’s Math Flips. Those are really pretty. Mathigon has some really nice stuff that’s digital. And I think that those resources invite you to kind of ponder and notice things and talk about them. All the tools that we design in the toolkit are designed to get people talking to each other, and give teachers opportunities to pull alongside kids and listen in and understand where they are. For example, our games, we didn’t design the games to be played digitally, even though you could, and people did during COVID, because we want kids on the rug, next to each other, on their knees; I’ve seen kids like across tables. I was in a school recently where a kid was like, “I hope you believe in God, ’cause you’re going…!” You know what I mean? <laugh>. Like they’re all pumped up.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (34:41):

They’re invested!

Tracy Zager (34:45):

They’re psyching each other up and down and they’re interacting and it’s social and the teacher’s walking around and she’s listening to the games. And they don’t actually need any bells and whistles. They need dice and they need counters and they need this game that is actually a game. In all of our conversations, games have to actually be games. Games cannot be “roll and record.” Games have to involve strategy. They have to be fun. So in designing those games, we didn’t feel like it brought any advantage to make that a digital platform. But things that did bring advantages digitally, like the ability to project these beautiful images or to use short video in the classroom, that really was a value-add that enabled us to do something different in math class than we had done before, and to get kids talking in a different way than they ever had before. When I think about fluency, historically, if you say like, “OK, it’s time to practice our math facts,” you hear a lot of groans. And when I see a Building Fact Fluency classroom and I say, “OK, it’s BFF time!” There’s like a “YEAAAAHHH!” You know? And so that’s what we’re after.

Graham Fletcher (35:47):

It’s all about kids, really, for us. And I think at the heart of it, we made all the decisions with teachers and kids at the forefront of it.

Tracy Zager (35:55):

I know of high schoolers who are newcomers, who have experienced very little formal education, and speak in other languages, are using it as high schoolers, because it involves language and math and all the deep work in the properties and it’s accessible, but it’s also not at all condescending or patronizing. Like we designed it to be appropriate for older kids. So that’s just something that I think we’re both really proud of. One thing we thought a lot about, especially in the multiplication-division kit is how a classroom teacher could use it and a coordinating educator in EL, Title, special education, intervention could also use it because there’s so much in it, that students could get to be experts, if they got extra time in it, using something that’s related and would give them additional practice. So they could play a game a little bit earlier than the rest of the classes. And they could come in already knowing about that game, or they could do a related task. We have all these optional tasks that no classroom teacher would ever have time to teach it all. So the special educator could use it and have kids doing a Same and Different or a True/False, or some of the optional games. And then the work in both special education and general education could connect.

Dan Meyer (37:20):

I just wanna say that this is an area that for so many students, as you’ve said, Tracy, it presents a barrier for their inclusion in mathematics. It’s a very emotionally fraught area of mathematics. And we really appreciate the wisdom you brought here. And just the care you’ve brought to the product itself. Your knowledge of teaching, knowledge of math, and yeah, especially a love for students feels like it’s really infused throughout Building Fact Fluency. If our listeners want to know more outside of this podcast, outside of the product itself, where can they find your words, your voice? Where you folks at these days? Tell ’em, Graham would you?

Graham Fletcher (37:57):

You can find us at Stenhouse, Building Fact Fluency. And then Tracy and I, currently playing around, sharing ideas a lot on Twitter, under the hashtag #BuildingFactFluency. That’s kind of where we can all come together and share ideas. And then also on the Facebook community, where there’s lots of teachers sharing ideas.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (38:19):

If you were to ask our listeners like, “Hey, if you wanna keep thinking about this, here’s something you could try or here’s something you could go do,” what could be a challenge that we could share that could help us continue this conversation?

Graham Fletcher (38:35):

Online you can actually download a full lesson string. And a lesson string is a series of activities and resources that are purposefully connected. You can pick one or two of those from the Stenhouse web site, Building Fact Fluency. You can try the game. You can try one of those strategy-based games. You can try an image talk and just see how it goes. And just share and reflect back, whether on Twitter or on Facebook. But it’s kind of there, if you wanna give it a whirl. And as Tracy was sharing, even if you’re a middle-school teacher or a high-school teacher, we really tried to think about those middle-school and high-school students keeping it grade level-agnostic. Just so every student has those opportunities for those mathematical conversations. So download a lesson string and give it a whirl, and we’d love to hear how it goes.

Dan Meyer (39:25):

Bethany and I will be working the same challenge with people in our life.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:29):

Yes.

Dan Meyer (39:29):

Enjoying some fact fluency with people in our homes, perhaps. We’ll see. And we’ll be sharing the results in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group. Graham and Tracy, thanks so much for being here. It was such a treat to chat with you both.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:42):

I love learning with you and just helping to shift this idea of fluency into something that can be accessible and powerful and positive.

Stay connected!

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

What Valerie Henry says about math

“A lot of very fluent adults don’t always have every fact memorized. ”

– Val Henry

Meet the guests

Valerie Henry has been a math educator since 1986. She taught middle school math for 17 years and has worked as a lecturer at University of California Irvine since 2002. After doing her 2004 dissertation research on addition/subtraction fluency in first grade, Valerie created FactsWise, a daily mini-lesson approach that simultaneously develops  fluency,  number sense, and algebraic thinking. Additionally, she has provided curriculum and math professional development for K-12 teachers throughout her career, working with individual schools, districts, county offices of education, Illustrative Mathematics, the SBAC Digital Library, and the UCI Math Project.

Graham Fletcher has served in education as a classroom teacher, a math coach, and currently as a math specialist. He is continually seeking new and innovative ways to support students and teachers in their development of conceptual understanding in elementary mathematics. He is the author of Building Fact Fluency and openly shares many of his resources at gfletchy.com. Follow him on Twitter.

Tracy Johnston Zager is a district math coach who loves to get teachers hooked on listening to kids’ mathematical ideas. She is a co-author of the Building Fact Fluency toolkits and the author of Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms. Tracy also edits professional books by teachers, for teachers at Stenhouse Publishers. Follow her on Facebook.

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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!

You might also like:

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Math games and manipulatives for online and remote learning.

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Desmos Classroom Grades 3–12

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Create transformation that lasts.

Embarking on educational change takes heart, intention, and determination. It also requires proven strategies and practical tools. With data, resources, and countless stories of successful implementations to guide us, we can take the first step toward true transformation together.

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Principles for Educational Change Management

Whether you’re looking for transformative change in math, literacy, or science instruction, some essential principles apply across the board. As a teacher, administrator, or community leader, you’ll find these guiding principles can help you manage your new curriculum implementation and help each student reach their potential.

Download the principles
Corey Beil, Instructional Interventionist
“This goes out to the interventionists, coaches, and administrators … support your staff. Lead staff trainings, provide push-in support, model and co-teach so that the staff will see that this is not ‘just another initiative.’ Remember, this is the start of a long, powerful journey. Take small steps, do them well, then use data to move on to the next small step.”

— Corey Beil, Instructional Interventionist

Quakertown Community School District, PA

Leading instructional shifts across all disciplines

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Make the shift to the Science of Reading.

Learn the key steps that will drive the success you need.

learn more

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Change in math is different.

Managing change in math doesn’t have to mean starting over. It starts with a few simple shifts.

learn more

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Be a science inspiration.

Intentional shifts help transform students into concerned global citizens ready to take on the world. Find out how.

learn more

Let data guide your transformation.

The right data at the right time is crucial in planning lasting instructional change. With specific metrics to guide your implementation, you’ll know exactly how to monitor your progress. Download our literacy assessment infographic as a model for the key data questions to ask at critical points in the school year.

Start your data journey
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Achieve implementation success.

Ready to navigate educational implementation with confidence? The following resources will help you discover practical strategies for decision-making, managing change, and engaging stakeholders.

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Discover five steps to successful implementation.

Balancing decision-making, data collection, and transparent communication doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Discover the five essential steps to making implementation manageable.

learn more

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Think like a leader.

Strategic leadership requires more than sharp management skills. Find out how the leadership brain model can help you, as a district leader, connect initiatives with your broader vision.

learn more

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Turn plans into results.

Educational change requires intentional effort. Key leadership imperatives can provide the framework you need for effective implementation.

learn more

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What district leaders are saying

“In the past we’ve adopted a resource and we’ve left it to the teachers and the buildings to use and to put into practice. I was determined that we needed to do more than just that for both our teachers and our students. That is really where…the leadership brain concept has come into play. [It] provided the framework and key questions that I needed so that I could reflect, process, and determine what was next throughout the first year of implementation.”

—Lori Riehle, Assistant Director of Curriculum, Northwest Local School District, OH

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What district leaders are saying

“Through the guidance and collaboration of the Amplify Team, our stakeholders participated in thoughtful conversations, relevant hands-on learning, and the development of clear guidelines for moving forward [with Amplify CKLA]. This process led to the creation of our district commitments, which, together with the six leadership imperatives, remain central to the progress we continue to make today.”

—Kristina Tucker, Coordinator of English Language Arts and Social Studies, Richland School District, WA

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What district leaders are saying

“[My advice to other leaders is to] stop trying to fix everything at once. Dig deep with systematic analysis to find your one high leverage problem; then build your entire system around solving it. You can have all the coaching and support in the world, but if you’re not focused on the right problem, those systems won’t translate to classroom impact.”

—Susan Rawlings, Assistant Principal, Charleston County School District, SC

Educational leaders share their success.

Find out how educational leaders have transformed their districts through successful implementation, revealing the commitment and strategic approach that led to real academic improvements.

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Change needs commitment.

Change is achievable when everyone commits to the process. See how one district turned collaboration into a successful implementation of Amplify CKLA.

learn more

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Existing strengths need focused direction.

Strong district foundations require intentional focus. Learn how systematic analysis helped one district turn comprehensive resources into meaningful impact for teachers.

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Shared responsibility transforms implementation.

Managing implementation alone limits success. Discover how one district leader used stakeholder mapping to create shared leadership and building-level ownership.

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See implementation in action.

Learn how one district achieved positive test results across grades 1–5 within their first year of adopting Amplify CKLA.

learn more

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Strategic change delivers results.

Results happen when change is managed strategically. Check out how one district turned thoughtful planning into successful Amplify CKLA adoption.

learn more

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Curriculum evaluation leads to confident decisions.

Explore how one district implemented Amplify CKLA (after piloting seven different programs!) and achieved powerful kindergarten reading gains.

learn more

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Regular communication fosters growth.

Structured coaching support transforms implementation outcomes. Find out how regular communication helped one district achieve consistency and sustained student growth with Amplify CKLA.

learn more

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Preparation creates lasting results.

Comprehensive training creates the foundation for sustained success. Read about how strategic summer preparation and ongoing professional learning helped one county achieve significant academic improvements.

learn more

High-impact, evidence-based programs that help students make gap-closing gains in reading and math

Amplify Tutoring engages students and drives measurable academic gains. We partner with districts to ensure that children become confident, proficient readers and mathematical thinkers.

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About Amplify Tutoring

Grounded in evidence-based practices and taught by caring, consistent tutors, our high-impact tutoring programs use high-quality instructional materials and data-driven mCLASS® products to support and engage students.

  • Personalized, data-driven instruction
  • Research-backed solutions tailored to support your Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework
  • Customizable—before, during, or after school; year-long, semester-long, and summer programming
  • Comprehensive, hands-on program management and staffing support

Amplify Literacy Tutoring supports K–6 readers through engaging, systematic instruction aligned to the Science of Reading and driven by mCLASS DIBELS® data.

Learn more about literacy tutoring

Amplify Math Tutoring accelerates student achievement in grades 3–5 and builds students’ confidence in speaking, writing, and thinking mathematically.

Learn more about math tutoring

More than a program: a true partner

Hear directly from district leaders and educators who’ve experienced the Amplify Tutoring difference. In these candid conversations, they share how we partner to deliver solutions for schools, gains for students, and support for teachers.

What district leaders and teachers are saying

“Students’ enthusiasm for Amplify Tutoring is evident! From the moment they sit down for their session, you can see how motivated and engaged they are while working with their tutor and peers. … It is very helpful that the tutors provide real-time feedback to students, and it has allowed them to be more confident and committed to their own learning paths.”

—Jennifer Quartano, Teacher, NYC Public Schools

What district leaders and teachers are saying

“There has been an increase in many students’ scores. The students are always excited to participate and the small group instruction truly is making a difference … I am passionate about reaching students who require support. This initiative was very much needed in our school. Thank you, Amplify Tutoring!”

—Denise Bishop, Assistant Principal, Prince George’s County Public Schools

What district leaders and teachers are saying

“I appreciate the support and quick response we have received from Amplify Tutoring this year. We have seen lots of growth with our fourth graders with phonics, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension that we likely would not have seen without the program!”

—Heather Wasburn, Instructional Coach, Springfield City Schools

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Our impact

Amplify Tutoring accelerates learning for students who need it most. Students in Amplify Tutoring are more likely to achieve outsized academic gains than similarly at-risk peers in the same schools who are not enrolled in the program.

Learn more about our impact
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Amplify Tutoring has been awarded the National Student Support Accelerator (NSSA) Tutoring Program Design Badge by Stanford University!

Learn more

Reliable, easy-to-read data

With valid and reliable mCLASS assessments and real-time reporting always within reach, everyone involved in a child’s learning journey—from teachers and tutors to school leaders and families—can support student growth.

  • Teachers have visibility into students’ data and all tutoring lesson content.
  • School and district administrators receive regular tutoring attendance and progress-monitoring reports.
  • Caregivers receive Home Connect letters and activities to help their child practice foundational skills at home.
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High-quality instructional materials that power Amplify Literacy Tutoring

Amplify Literacy Tutoring includes high-quality resources to support students’ growth.

Targeted lessons generated by precise data

mCLASS Intervention is a research-backed, ESSA rated program that targets instruction based on students’ mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition assessment results. With engaging lessons aligned to the Science of Reading that adapt based on students’ progress monitoring results, mCLASS Intervention streamlines time-consuming data analysis for teachers and makes sure that tutoring focuses on the literacy skills students need.

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A screenshot of the mCLASS Reading assessment dashboard showing student scores, benchmarks, and assessment categories for Bolton Grade 1.

Transparency into student performance

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition is our nationally normed benchmarking and progress monitoring assessment tool to measure students’ foundational literacy skills. Students take the benchmark assessment three times a year and progress monitoring occurs every 7–10 lessons in between.

Proven impact for students who need it most

Boost Reading delivers targeted, adaptive practice that meets students where they are, while teachers get simple and meaningful insights into student progress. The program consistently moves students toward grade-level proficiency with just 30 minutes of use per week. Students can continue learning through Boost Reading between tutoring sessions or at home.

High-quality instructional materials that power Amplify Math Tutoring

Amplify Math Tutoring includes high-quality resources to support students’ growth.

Intervention Mini-Lessons aligned to core instruction

Amplify Desmos Math Mini-Lessons provide targeted intervention for students who require additional support or need more time. These lessons are aligned to the most critical topics throughout a unit; they enhance conceptual understanding while improving procedural fluency and application.

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Valuable insights into student mathematical thinking

mCLASS Math is our benchmarking and progress monitoring assessment tool. Students take the benchmark assessment three times a year; progress monitoring occurs every 7–10 lessons in between.

Personalized practice—anytime and at home

Fact fluency practice provides students with regular practice beyond rote memorization. The program is used during tutoring sessions and is available on non-tutoring days. Students also have access to Boost Math’s independent learning activities, to continue practicing between tutoring sessions or at home.

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Consultation and collaboration

Amplify Tutoring tailors our support for educators, schools, districts, caregivers, and state-level leaders, helping to realize the promise of high-impact tutoring programs. Through collaborative partnerships at every level, Amplify Tutoring engages communities in driving academic improvement and boosting attendance.

Our services can include:

Program design consultation: Amplify Tutoring offers expert program design consultation services to help schools and districts create effective and scalable high-impact tutoring programs.

Tailored onboarding: We provide customized training sessions for school, district, and state leaders, ensuring that Amplify Tutoring services are integrated smoothly into existing systems.

Ongoing professional development and coaching: Our program management includes continuous training, coaching support, and office hours with pedagogical experts to fortify the program’s success and adaptability.

Caregiver engagement: We offer resources and support for families and caregivers, including tips for at-home support, helping them stay informed and involved in their child’s progress.

Seamless communication and support: We provide transparent communication and engage all stakeholders—district and school leaders, teachers, caregivers, and students—to keep everyone aligned and informed.

Data reporting: We provide detailed reports and analytics to district and school leaders, giving them the power to monitor progress, make data-driven decisions, and celebrate successes.

Amplify Tutoring is part of a connected early literacy and math suite.

Our literacy and math suite programs are designed to support and complement each other in a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). Learn more about our related programs.

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mCLASS

Amplify’s mCLASS is the gold-standard universal and dyslexia screener grounded…

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Amplify CKLA

The leading K–5 Science of Reading literacy program that integrates foundational…

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Amplify Desmos Math

Amplify Desmos Math: Bringing you free tools and core curriculum lessons for K–12 math…

See All Programs
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Join us!

Amplify Science: Wisconsin professional learning workshop

Join UC Berkeley’s Lawerence Hall of Science for a day of professional learning to support your implementation of Amplify Science. Workshop sessions and breakouts will benefit both those just starting in Amplify Science and those already well along their implementation journey. Teams are encouraged to attend!

When: April 29, 2020

8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.

Where: Pyle Center

Rooms 325/326

702 Langdon Street

Madison, WI 53706

Register now!

About the event

Overview of the day:

  • Welcome and introductions
  • Unpacking storylines
  • Morning breakouts: Coherence in Amplify Science
  • Lunch provided
  • Afternoon breakouts: Planning for strategic implementation of the Amplify Science Assessment system
  • Reflections and closing
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Submit this form to register for the event!

What my wedding taught me about choosing curriculum

A teacher leans over a group of elementary students who are working together at a classroom table under a "CKLA Skills" sign, guiding them through successful CKLA implementation.

Before my wedding over 20 years ago, my mom offered me a bit of advice: Choose a wedding photographer that you like. She didn’t mean one who’d win a Pulitzer for her work covering our special day. What she did mean was this: Make sure you like their personality, because you will spend a lot of time with them on your wedding day—maybe even more time than you’ll spend with your future spouse.

Why am I talking about my wedding in a blog about education?

Because choosing a curriculum company is like choosing a wedding photographer. You are not just purchasing a stack of books—you are starting a relationship with a company that will extend far beyond the initial purchase.

Here’s why I think the Amplify team are the education equivalent of ideal wedding photographers.

When our team decided to pilot Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) 3rd Edition as our reading and writing curriculum, I soon began working with the Amplify CKLA pilot team because I knew our classroom teachers needed to be trained quickly. I created a timeline, outlined action steps, and noted questions about the process. I was confident in the product and had a sense of what needed to happen, but it felt like a lot.

At our first meeting, the pilot team presented a detailed brochure. What a comfort it was to read, “Your district’s Amplify CKLA pilot specialist will guide you through every step of the pilot support process.”

Sure enough, Amplify’s live in-person CKLA training was invaluable. The teachers got so excited about the new product that they literally cheered.

Because of our complex pilot schedule, I wanted to make sure our primary students weren’t leaving the year with gaps in their learning. The CKLA pilot team worked closely with me to create a unique unit that would leave no holes in student learning.

After six weeks of piloting the product, a team of experienced CKLA pilot team coaches visited all our pilot classrooms. They affirmed the teachers in their work toward CKLA implementation. They highlighted strengths in classrooms and celebrated the use of the product in our district. The meeting after school was joyful.

The CKLA pilot team also gave our teachers a crucial tip: Because you can’t memorize the lesson, it’s ok to teach with the manual in your hand. Teachers still do this, and we continue to compliment them if we see it during walk-throughs.

The online pilot tool kit provided all of the other resources we might need. This included a Q&A section in which teachers could enter questions as they came up, and receive a response from the support team quickly. I breathed easier during our pilot knowing that CKLA was caring for us.

After our school board officially adopted CKLA 3rd Edition, we transitioned from the CKLA pilot team to the Onboarding Support and Customer Success team. Leaving the pilot team felt like losing a friend, but I trusted Amplify and knew the new team would be just as strong.

The brochure for the development plan confirmed that we would remain in good hands. It read: “This custom professional development package is designed to support teachers, schools, and district leaders in helping teachers feel confident using CKLA in their classrooms. Our professional development opportunities go far beyond initial product training and take participants through different stages of learning.”

At our Launch training in August, teachers learned the core features, rationale, and Science of Reading research, and had time to dive into the CKLA materials. At the Strengthen trainings in October and March, teachers learned about additional tools to deepen their knowledge, planning, and use of the materials. At the Coach sessions, an Amplify coach visited every school, which included meeting with teachers during planning time, visiting classrooms and offering supportive feedback, and modeling lessons.

After each training session, a CKLA team met with me to discuss the success of the training and talk about the feedback from teachers and my next steps to support them in their implementation. Throughout the process, my goal was to help teachers feel successful and confident using this new tool, and Amplify supported me every step of the way.

In addition to the responsive customer service, Amplify also offers plenty of online tools. The PD Library is continually adding resources, while Amplify podcasts highlight the latest research and insights on language comprehension, reading comprehension, and so much more. Amplify also just added a series of instructional routine modeling videos that quickly demonstrate the best practices found in CKLA. The support systems are varied and always developing, yet never overwhelming.

If you’re in the market for a new reading curriculum, take my mom’s advice: Pick the one you love spending time with. Trust me—Amplify is the curriculum you’ll want by your side all day, every day.

Amplify is proud to be an approved provider for LASO Cycle 4!

Amplify is the original HQIM leader in change management as the original program that initiated this transformation movement. Now it continues with YOU – our district partners.

Learn more and request a meeting HERE!

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Why choose Amplify?

For many years, districts across Texas have relied on Amplify as a trusted partner for their curriculum, instruction, and professional development needs. Backed by a strong regional team with deep Texas experience, our services have been thoroughly vetted for quality and expertise across the state supporting urban, suburban, and rural districts. Our partners can continue to count on the Amplify team for comprehensive support that is tailored to their unique district and campus needs. Amplify looks forward to walking alongside your district and school leaders as well as your teachers with coaching that ultimately drives the work forward to positively impact teaching and learning.

LIFT logo with three upward arrows and text reading “Leadership and Instructional Foundations for Texas.”.

What LIFT supports:

Curriculum adoption support
Conduct needs assessments and prepare for SBOE-approved HQIM or Bluebonnet adoption.

Professional learning and skill-building
Build instructional capacity through research-based training and coaching for leaders and teachers.

Observation and feedback systems
Design and refine feedback cycles that elevate classroom practice and instructional leadership.

Implementation training and PLCs
Establish sustainable systems for lesson internalization, data-driven collaboration, and student-focused improvement.

Learn more on TEA’s LIFT website.

Additional LASO Cycle 4 Support

In addition to LIFT, Amplify is an approved provider for the following LASO Cycle 4 Grants:

  • LIFT Add-On: School Improvement PLC Support (LIFT SI PLC)
  • School Improvement Curriculum and Instruction Support Grant (SI CISG)
  • Blended Learning Grant (BLG) (LIFT-BLG Supplemental Application submitted with updates to SAPL by 11/10)
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What district leaders and teachers are saying

“Our support with Amplify was outstanding! The coach was knowledgeable, engaging, and provided us with answers to all of our questions. We left ready to go back to our buildings even more prepared and with a clear plan!”

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.

Meet Reena Mathew, a changemaker supporting early literacy with the Science of Reading.

Two women standing side by side and smiling at a conference booth, featuring early literacy promotional materials and a display screen in the background.

For years, Reena Mathew taught reading the way many educators were trained to—using traditional practices that were familiar and common, but not grounded in up-to-date research.

That changed when she began studying how children actually learn to read. What she discovered reshaped not only her instruction, but her approach to supporting teachers.

Today, Mathew is the K–2 literacy coach helping Suffern Central School District in New York State make a major shift toward research-based early literacy instruction.

Her leadership, dedication, and hands-on support—as well as the key role she plays in creating measurable student success—have earned her a 2025 Amplify Science of Reading Star Award, which specifically recognizes her as Changemaker of the year. These awards honor outstanding educators, schools, and districts who are transforming classrooms and students with literacy practices grounded in the Science of Reading.

“Once I dug into the science,” Mathew says, “I realized that explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and knowledge building isn’t just beneficial, it’s essential.”

Helping teachers shift to research-based instruction

Suffern Central serves nearly 4,000 students in grades K–12, and Mathew has been a leading force in strengthening early literacy development across the district’s youngest grades.

“I shifted my focus to supporting both foundational skills and language comprehension,” she says. “Students need both pieces, phonics and content-rich instruction, to truly become strong, confident readers.” Mathew also dedicated herself to targeted professional development, helping teachers implement the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) Foundations and the Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) Knowledge strand.

To lead that shift for teachers, Mathew approached change collaboratively, not prescriptively. She modeled lessons, coached side-by-side, and broke big shifts into manageable steps.

It didn’t take long. “Within weeks, teachers saw students who had struggled with decoding and spelling [already] reading and spelling words with more accuracy and fluency,” she says.

From early literacy skills to independence and confidence for all

What’s more, students figured out that they could use those same strategies elsewhere.

“[Teachers] saw kids using the strategies they were taught not just during the phonics lessons,” Mathew says, “but in their independent reading and writing as well.”

Incorporating Amplify CKLA’s Knowledge strand helped deepen student learning, as well as teachers’ confidence in the approach.

“Teachers shared stories of students using academic vocabulary in ways they never had before and making connections between read-alouds and real-world discussions,” Mathew says. “When a classroom teacher sees a student who is struggling suddenly apply a decoding strategy or use academic vocabulary in conversation, they realize their instruction is working.”

According to Mathew, her greatest achievement has been helping teachers see the impact of using research-based instruction in real time.

A commitment beyond instruction

Mathew is driven not just by the science, but by what she believes every child deserves. Students arrive at school with different levels of language exposure and background knowledge, and research-based instruction provides the explicit foundational skills and systematic knowledge-building all students need to read.

“We can’t control our students’ home lives, what experiences they come in with, and what support they have outside of school, but we can control what happens in our classrooms. We can make sure they get explicit instruction in foundational skills, build the vocabulary and knowledge they need to comprehend complex texts, and leave our schools as confident readers,” Mathew says. “Educators should make the shift to the Science of Reading because good instruction levels the playing field and gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed.”

More to explore

Season 5, Episode 4

Coaching tips for managing math anxiety in teachers

So far this season, we’ve investigated math anxiety in students and its causes with passionate researchers and curriculum experts, including one from Sesame Workshop! Now we hear from Dr. Heidi Sabnani, consultant, coach, and co-host of Math 4 All, as she gives us research-based tips for teachers who are facing math anxiety themselves! Listen as we discuss Heidi’s own math anxiety and journey through math, the effects teacher math anxiety can have on instruction, and practices educators can implement right away for overcoming math anxiety.

Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode!

A smiling woman with long dark hair, wearing a grey scarf, centered within a circular frame surrounded by a pattern of black cats and math anxiety symbols.

Meet Our Guest(s):

A woman with long dark hair and a gray sweater smiles at the camera, with a blurred brown background behind her, her expression calm despite facing math anxiety. A graphic of a shirt and accent lines frame the circular image.

Heidi Sabnani

Heidi Sabnani is always surprised that she works in math education. She developed math anxiety as a young student and spent much of her school life and early career avoiding math. After teaching English in the United States and Guatemala, and earning her MA in World Literature, she found herself in the uncomfortable position of working in math classrooms as a school improvement consultant. Once she realized that her life was going to involve math, Heidi decided to relearn math in the ways she wished she had learned the first time around. 18 years later she is still learning with and from the students and teachers she has the privilege to serve.

Heidi’s doctoral research at Northeastern University focused on interventions for math anxiety in elementary teachers. She currently works as a consultant, speaker, and author.

Meet our hosts: Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer

Bethany Lockhart Johnson is an elementary school educator and author. Prior to serving as a multiple-subject teacher, she taught theater and dance, and now loves incorporating movement and creative play into her classroom. Bethany is committed to helping students find joy in discovering their identities as mathematicians. In addition to her role as a full-time classroom teacher, Bethany is a Student Achievement Partners California Core Advocate and is active in national and local mathematics organizations. Bethany is a member of the Illustrative Mathematics Elementary Curriculum Steering Committee and serves as a consultant, creating materials to support families during distance learning.

Dan Meyer taught high school math to students who didn’t like high school math. He has advocated for better math instruction on CNN, Good Morning America, Everyday With Rachel Ray, and TED.com. He earned his doctorate from Stanford University in math education and is currently the Dean of Research at Desmos, where he explores the future of math, technology, and learning. Dan has worked with teachers internationally and in all 50 United States and was named one of Tech & Learning’s 30 Leaders of the Future.

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Transcripts and additional resources:

Get your free MTL study guide for this episode
Create an account with Amplify Classroom, a highly interactive teaching and learning platform with hundreds of free K–12 lessons, virtual manipulatives, and teaching tools.
Transcript

Quotes

Much like the people in my research, many of us can tie the beginnings or the ‘evil villain origin story’ of our own math anxiety to an event or series of events.

—Heidi Sabnani

Stay connected!

Winter Wrap-Up 03: Ideas to build math fluency

Promotional graphic for "Math Teacher Lounge" episode featuring Valerie Henry, Ed.D., on ideas to build math fluency, with a photo of Valerie Henry in the bottom right corner.

Join us for the third episode in our Winter Wrap-Up! In this episode from season 3 of Math Teacher Lounge: The Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Valerie Henry to talk about math fluency and what that means for students. Listen as we dig into the research, hear Val’s three-part definition of fluency, and explore her five principles for developing it.

Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page. 

Download Transcript

Dan Meyer (00:03)

Hey folks. Welcome back. This is Math Teacher Lounge, and I am one of your hosts, Dan Meyer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:07):

And I’m your other host, Bethany Lockhart Johnson. Hi, Dan.

Dan Meyer (00:11):

Hey, great to see you. We have a big one this week to chat about and some fantastic guests. We are chatting about fluency, which is the sort of word and concept that I feel like people have very, very non-neutral associations with it. A lot of them are very negative, for a lot of people.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:26):

I saw you frown a little. What’s up with that, Dan? You kind of, like, shrank.

Dan Meyer (00:30):

I have strong feelings about it. You know, there’s lots of ways that people go about helping people become fluent in mathematics. And a lot of them are harmful for students, and ineffective. And it got me thinking about fluency as it exists outside of the world of mathematics, where we have a lot of very clear images of it. We’re getting fluent in things all the time. Like, as humans. Human development is the story of fluency. And I just was wondering….Bethany, would you describe yourself as fluent at something outside of the world of mathematics? What is that? How’d you get fluent at it? What was the process?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:05):

Hmm, I think I’m a pretty fluent reader. I read all the time. I’m a happier person if I’ve read that day. I once saw this poster in a classroom; it said “10 Ways to Become a Better Reader: Read, Read, Read, Read, Read…you know, 10 times. Get it? Reading? You get better at reading by reading! So I would say reading. And it’s been kind of cool—I have a one-year-old who, it’s been really exciting slash overwhelmingly anxiety-producing to see him get very fluent with walking slash running, ’cause he’s getting faster every day. And it’s kind of fun. When I think of what’s something somebody’s trying to get fluent with…walking! He’s trying to be more fluid. He’s practicing transitions. He doesn’t wanna hold my hand while he traverses rocky terrain. He’s getting better at it. He’s practicing. What about you? What’s something…?

Dan Meyer (02:08):

I think about driving a lot. I’m a very fluent driver and I think a lot about when I was first a driver, you know? And how l have my hands on 10 and 2, vice grip, and do not talk to me; do not ask me anything; don’t ask me my NAME. I need to focus so hard. And then a year later, you know, I’m driving with one hand, smash the turn signal, take a sip off of whatever, change the CD. And then it’s no big deal.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:38):

Wait, did you pass the first time? Your test?

Dan Meyer (02:40):

Yeah, I don’t like to brag about it. <laugh> But I do all the time. <laugh> But I got a hundred on my driving test. I don’t care who knows it. And I hope it’s everybody. But I guess all of this is just to say there are areas of life where fluency feels natural, with the case of walking. There’s areas of life where fluency feels motivating, with like driving—I wanna be able to switch the CD out or whatever. And there’s areas where fluency feels terrifying and hard to come by, like mathematics, sometimes. So we have a set of guests here. Our first guest will help us figure out what do we mean by fluency? And what’s the research say about what fluency is and how students develop it in mathematics? And then our other guests will help us think about what it looks like in practice in the classroom. What are some novel, new ways to work on fluency? So first up we have Val Henry, Dr. Val Henry.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:32):

So we knew we needed help with the fluency definition, because when we think about it, it’s kind of big, right? And we wanted to look at what research about fluency really says. So we called on Valerie Henry. Val is a nationally board-certified teacher, taught middle school for 17 years, and since 2002 has worked with undergraduates graduates, credential candidates as a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, one of my alma maters. So after doing her dissertation on addition and subtraction fluency in first grade, Val created a project to study ways to build addition and subtraction and multiplication and division fluency while also developing number sense in algebraic thinking. And the pilot grew and grew over the last 18 years into a powerful daily mini-lesson approach to facts fluency called FactsWise. And when we thought of fluency, the first person I thought of was Val. Welcome, Val Henry, to the Lounge! I’m so excited to have you here. Welcome.

Valerie Henry (04:36):

Thanks, Bethany. And thanks to you, Dan. It’s great to be here today.

Dan Meyer (04:41):

Great to have you; help yourself to whatever you find in the fridge. The names that people write down on those things in the bags are just recommendations. It’s potluck-style here. I’m curious, Val, if you’re, like, on an airplane, someone asks you what you do, and you say you study fluency…what is the layperson’s definition of what does it mean to be fluent in mathematics? And if you can give a brief tour through what the research says about what works and what doesn’t that would really help us orient our conversation here.

Valerie Henry (05:12):

The first thing I have to do when I talk to somebody on a plane is define the idea of fluency. And I often use an example of tying your shoelaces. Because that works with first graders as well as adults. This idea that when we first start trying to put our shoes on and get those shoelaces tied, somebody tries to, first of all, just do it for us. But then of course maybe tries to teach us the bunny-ears approach. And we struggle and struggle as little kids and eventually either the bunny-ears approach or something else starts to work for us. But we still have to pay attention to it. We have to think hard and it’s not easy. And then over time we get to the point where we basically don’t even think about it. When I tie my shoes in the morning. I’m not thinking about right-over-left and left-over-right and all of those things. I just do it. And so that’s a good, easy example of becoming fluent with something. I think what we’re talking about today though, is the basics, the adding and subtracting that we hope kids are going to have mastered maybe by second grade, and the multiplication and division facts that we wanna maybe have mastered by third, maybe fourth grade. So now what does that mean to become fluent with those basics? I have a three-part definition that seems to match up really nicely with the common core approach to fluency. Which is, first of all, we want the answers to be correct. And then second, we want the answers to be easy to know. And so what does that mean? Well, to me, it means without needing to count,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:12):

You mean without having to kind of muscle through it? Or say more about you mean.

Valerie Henry (07:16):

Well, I guess what I mean is that when you watch a young child try and solve something even as simple as two plus three, they might put up two fingers and then go 3, 4, 5 with three more fingers winding up on their hand, one or the other of their hands. While they’re doing that, they don’t really have a sense of whether even their answer is right or not, quite often. Especially when you get to the larger adding and subtracting problems, you can see a lot of errors happening as they’re trying to count. And it’s taking up cognitive energy to do that counting process, especially as you get to the larger quantities. So my definition of fluency now is “getting it right without needing to do that hard work like counting.” Now, some people might say, well, we just want them to have ’em memorized. But in my research, I’ve learned that a lot of very fluid adults don’t always have every fact memorized. In fact, if you ask a room full of adults, what’s seven plus nine, you might learn that they can all get it correct quickly, quickly…but they don’t all have it memorized. And so when you ask them, “How did you get that?” Many of them will say, “Well, I just gave one from the 7 to the 9 and I know that 10 plus 6 is 16.”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:53):

That’s such an important distinction. My brain literally just did that actually!

Valerie Henry (08:58):

<laugh> Right? <laugh> But you’re fluid with it, because it doesn’t take you much cognitive energy at all.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (09:05):

Right.

Valerie Henry (09:07):

So now we have “correct without needing to put that cognitive energy,” which usually means that you’re counting. And then the third thing is “relatively quickly,” so that you’re not spending 15 seconds trying to figure it out. Even that part-whole strategy approach can be done really quickly, almost instantaneously. Or it can take a long time. So if a student can get the answer correct within, you know, three or four seconds— is I’m pretty generous—I figure that they’re pretty darn fluent with that fact. So that’s my three-part definition of these basics, fluency.

Dan Meyer (09:55):

I love the distinction between getting it correct and getting it quick. It’s possible to be quick with wrong answers. It’s possible to be like, “Those are separate components there.” And I echo Bethany’s appreciation for this third option in between knowing it instantaneously through memorization and muscling through it. But there’s like a continuum there of how much energy it took you to come up with it that all feels extremely helpful.

Valerie Henry (10:21):

And you know, one of the things that I’ve noticed is that when kids are pressured to come up with those instantaneous answers, they often default to guessing and get it wrong.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:30):

Mm, yeah.

Valerie Henry (10:30):

So that’s one of the things that I’ve learned is that as we’re trying to help students develop fluency, it’s important to start with building their conceptual understanding of what it means to do, you know, 3 times 9 and what the correct answer is, maybe using manipulatives or representations of some sort. Not skip-counting! I really have found that skip-counting just perpetuates itself in many students’ minds and that they never stop skip-counting, which means they’re putting in not very much mental energy if it’s 2 times 3 but a ton of mental energy if it’s 7 times 8. Because frankly, it’s really hard to skip count by sevens. And by eights.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (11:18):

I can get to 14 and then I’m like, wait, wait, what was next? Right? No, no, no…21! What do you feel are some misconceptions that maybe teachers, maybe parents have about fluency in math?

Valerie Henry (11:30):

I think maybe one of the first ones is that if students count or skip-count, their answers repetitively over and over and over and over, that they’re bound to memorize them. And the study that I did back in 2004, I actually had a school that had decided that they were going to do time tests with their students every day, all year. And that undoubtedly by the end of the year, those students would be fluent.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:06):

And to clarify by time test, you mean like, sit down, pencil, paper, ready, go, worksheet kind of thing.

Valerie Henry (12:15):

Yes.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:16):

Some of us might remember quite vividly.

Valerie Henry (12:18):

<laugh> Very vividly. And you know, you have to get it done within a certain amount of time. So they made it fun for the students. Apparently the students enjoyed it. I was a little leery about that, but in the end, when I went and checked on the students and I did one-on-one assessments with half of the students in every class that were randomly selected so that I could get a sense of where they were with their fluency—and these were first graders—they basically had nothing memorized. They were simply counting as fast as they possibly could. And, you know, mostly getting the right answers. But they had not memorized. So that’s one of the myths, I think, is that repetitive practice of counting gets you to memorization.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (13:10):

If I put it in front of you enough times, you’ll become fluent.

Valerie Henry (13:14):

Right, right. Now these students didn’t really get any instruction, any help learning these. They just simply tested over and over and over. So that’s another thing that I think is a misconception. It’s that if we test students, but don’t really teach them fluency, then they’re going to become fluent. If we just test them every Friday or that kind of thing. And that they’ll learn them at home. But really what that means is a few lucky kids who have parents who have the time and the energy and the background to know how to help will take that job on at home. Not that many students are really that fortunate.

Dan Meyer (14:01):

It’s almost like the traditional approach, or the approach you’re describing, confuses process and product. It says, “Well, the product is that eventually fluent students will be able to do something like this, see these problems and answer them, answer them quickly,” and says, “Well, that must be the process then as well; let’s give them that products a whole lot.” But as I hear you describe fluency with bunny ears on shoelaces, there’s these images and approaches and techniques that require a very active teacher presence to support the development of it. That’s just kind of interesting to me.

Valerie Henry (14:35):

My initial project, the pilot project that I tried, was to simply ask teachers to follow five key principles. And the first one was to do something in the classroom every day for—I told them, even if you’ve only got five or 10 minutes, work on fluency for five or 10 minutes a day, and let’s see what happens. So that was one key element was just to teach it and to give students opportunities to get what the research calls for when you’re trying to memorize, which is actually immediate feedback. When I talk about immediate feedback with my student teachers, I say, “I’m talking about within one or two seconds of trying a problem, and then sort of immediately knowing, getting feedback of whether you got the answer right or not so that your brain can kind of gain that confidence. ‘Oh, not only did I come up with an answer, but somebody’s telling me it’s the correct answer.’”

Dan Meyer (15:38):

There’s a lot of apps now in the digital world that offer students questions about arithmetic or other kinds of mathematical concepts and give immediate feedback of a sort: the feedback of “You’re right; you’re wrong” sort. Is that effective fluency development, in your view?

Valerie Henry (15:57):

I haven’t heard and I haven’t seen them being super-effective. The ways I think about this are “Immediate feedback isn’t the only thing we need.” Probably one of the biggest things that we need is for students to develop strategies. And this is one of the other things I’ve learned from international research, from countries that do have students who become very fluent very early, is that they don’t shoot straight for memorization, but they go through this process of taking students from doing some counting and then quickly moving them to trying to use logic. So, “Hey, you really are confident that 2 + 2 is 4; so now let’s use that to think about 2 + 3.” Actually, as an algebra teacher, I would much rather have students that have a combination of memorization and these strategies, than students who’ve only memorized. Isn’t that interesting that my most successful algebra students were good strategy thinkers. Not just good memorizers.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (17:09):

So you mentioned there were five that kind of helped root this idea in like, “What can teachers do? What is the best thing that teachers can do to support with fact fluency?” So, everyday was key.

Valerie Henry (17:22):

Then the next principle that I really focus on is switching immediately to the connected subtractions so that students—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (17:33):

Not waiting until you’ve gotten all the way through addition. But making “Ooh!”

Valerie Henry (17:38):

Totally. And I didn’t do that the first year. And when we looked at the results of the assessments at the end of the year, we realized that our students were so much weaker in subtraction than addition. So the following pilot year, we tried this other approach of doing subtraction right after the students had developed some fluency with that small chunk of addition. And we got such better subtraction results.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (18:11):

What are the other principles?

Valerie Henry (18:13):

The biggest one is to use these strategies. So the strategies makes the third. And then the fourth I would say is to go from concrete to representational to abstract.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (18:27):

Don’t put away those manipulatives. Don’t put away those tools.

Valerie Henry (18:31):

Oh, so important to come back to them for multiplication and division. And my fifth principle is to wait on assessment. To use it as true assessment, but not race to start testing before students have had a chance to go through this three-phase process. Which is conceptual understanding with manipulatives; building strategies, usually with representations; and then working on building some speed until it’s just that natural fluency.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:07):

I wanna say thank you so much for offering your really learned perspective, because you have not only done the research, but seen it in action and seen how shifting our notions of fluency and what fluency can be and what a powerful foundation it can be for all mathematicians. Really, that shift is so powerful. And I appreciate you sharing it with our listeners and with us. So we’re so excited that we got to talk with you today, Val—

Dan Meyer (19:35):

Thank you, Dr. Henry.

Valerie Henry (19:37):

You’re welcome!

Dan Meyer (19:41):

With us now we have Graham Fletcher and Tracy Zager, a couple of people who understand fluency at a very deep and classroom level. I wanna introduce them and get their perspective on what we’re trying to solve here with fluency. So Graham Fletcher has served in education in a lot of different roles: as a classroom teacher, math coach, math specialist, and he’s continually seeking new and innovative ways to support students and teachers in their development of conceptual understanding in elementary math. He’s the author, along with Tracy, of Building Fact Fluency, a fluency kit we’ll talk about, and openly shares so much of his wisdom and resources at gfletchy.com. Tracy Johnson Zager is a district math coach who loves to get teachers hooked on listening to kids’ mathematical ideas. She is a co-author of this toolkit, Building Fact Fluency, and the author of Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms. Tracy also edits professional books for teachers at Stenhouse Publishers, including, yours truly. Thank you for all that insight, Tracy, and support on the book.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (20:49):

Dan and I were talking at the beginning of the episode about things we feel like, “Hey, I’m fluent in that. I’m fluent in that.”

Dan Meyer (20:55):

Just very curious: What’s something you would like to get fluent in outside of the world of mathematics, let’s say?

Tracy Zager (21:00):

I’ll say understanding the teenage brain, as the parent of a 13-year-old and 15-year-old. That’s the main thing I’m working on becoming fluent in!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:10):

Ooh!

Dan Meyer (21:13):

A language fluency, perhaps. All right, Graham. How about you?

Graham Fletcher (21:16):

For me typing, it’s always been an Achilles heel of mine. So voice-to-text has been my friend. But it’s also been my nemesis in much of my texting here and working virtually over the last couple years. So yeah, typing.

Dan Meyer (21:33):

Do you folks have some way of helping us understand the difference in how fluency is handled by instructors and by learners?

Tracy Zager (21:40):

I would say that the lay meaning of fluency is definitely a little different than what we mean in the math education realm. When we’re talking about math fact fluency, which is just one type of fluency. So you gotta think about procedural fluency and computational fluency; there are lots of types of fluency in math. And Graham and I had the luxury of really focusing in specifically on math fact fluency. We’re looking at kind of a subset of the procedural fluency. So the words you hear in all the citations are accurate, efficient, and flexible. There’s this combination of kids get the right answer in a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of work and they can match their strategy or their approach to the situation. That’s where that flexibility comes in. And there’s like lots more I wanna say about that about sort of…I think one issue that comes up around fluency is that people are in a little bit of a rush. So they tend to think of the fluency as this automaticity or recall of known facts without having to think about it. And that is part of the end goal, but that’s not the journey to fluency. So this is one of the things that Graham and I thought about a lot was the path to fluency. The goal here it’s that student in middle school who’s learning something new doesn’t have to expend any effort to gather that fact. And they might do it because they’ve done it so many different ways that they’ve got it, and now they just know it, or they might be like my friend who’s a mathematician who still, if you say, “Six times 8,” she thinks in her head, “Twelve, 24, 48…” and she does this double-double-double associative property strategy. And it’s so efficient, you would never know. And that’s totally great. That’s fine. That’s not slowing her down. That’s not providing a drag in the middle of a more complex problem or new learning. So we’re really focused on having elementary school students be able to enter the middle and high school standards without having that pull out of the new thinking.

Graham Fletcher (23:53):

And as I think about that, I think about how so many students will memorize their facts, but then they haven’t memorized them with understanding. So that when they move into middle school and they move into high school, it’s almost like new knowledge and new understanding that’s applied from a stand-alone skill.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:10):

So something that felt really unique to me, Graham, as I was diving into the toolkit, is your use of images, Tracy, Graham, is the way that you use images to help students notice and wonder to start making sense of these quantities and the decomposition of numbers using images. Can you talk a little bit about how images played a part in the way that you think about this building a fact fluency?

Graham Fletcher (24:41):

What I realized is so many times when we approach math with just naked numbers with so many of our elementary students, the numbers aren’t visible. The quantities. They can’t see them; they can’t move them. They’re just those squiggly figures that we were talking about earlier on. So how is it that we make the quantities visible, to where students feel as if they can grab an apple and move it around? Because a lot of times we start with the naked numbers and then if kids don’t get the naked numbers, then we kind of backfill it. But what would happen if we start with the images? And then from there, these rich, flourishing mathematical conversations develop from the images. And I think that was the premise and the goal of the toolkit.

Tracy Zager (25:22):

When you look at how fact fluency has traditionally been taught, it’s all naked numbers. And sometimes we wrote ’em sideways. Like, that’s it. That was our variety of task type. Right? Sometimes it’s vertical; sometimes it’s horizontal. And that was it. And I’ve just known way too many kids who couldn’t find a hook to hang their hat on with that. It didn’t connect to anything. And so part of why I knew Graham was the perfect person for this project was his strength in multimedia photography, art, video. And so we started from this idea of contexts that for each lesson string in the toolkit, there’s some kind of context. An everyday object, arranged in some kind of a way that reveals mathematical structure and invites students to notice the properties. So we start with images of everyday objects: tennis balls, paint pots…um, help me out; here are a million of them. Crayons—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (26:18):

Crayons, markers.

Tracy Zager (26:18):

Shoes, right? Sushi, origami paper, all kinds of things in the different toolkits. So there’s a series of images or a three-act task or both around those everyday objects, and then story problems grounded in that context. And then there are images with mathematical tools that bring out different ideas, but relate in some way to the image talks. And we do all of that before we get to the naked number talk. Which we do, and by the time you get to the number talk, it’s pretty quick, ’cause they’ve been reasoning about cups of lemonade. And now when you give them the actual numerals, they’re all over it.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:03):

I have to say too, as somebody who—particularly in middle school—navigated math anxiety, we recently talked with Allison Hintz and Anthony Smith about their amazing book Mathematizing Children’s Literature.

Tracy Zager (27:14):

Yay!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:14):

And I was explaining, like, if I sat down at the beginning of a math class and my teacher opened a picture book and said, “We’re gonna start here,” I felt my whole body relax. And if we start with this image, if we start with just looking at an image and making sense of an image, I feel like that could be such a powerful touchstone for all the work you do from there.

Tracy Zager (27:41):

That’s core. That’s a core design principle, is that invitational access. There are no barriers to entry. There’s nothing to decode. There’s nothing formal. We’ve been learning from Dan for years about this, right? Of starting with the informal and then eventually layering in the formal. I was in a class in Maine where they were doing an image talk and it’s these boxes of pencils. It’s a stack of boxes of pencils and they’re open and you can see there are 10 pencils in each box. And so there are five boxes of pencils each with 10 pencils in it. And then the next image is 10 boxes of pencils and each box is half full. So now it’s 10 boxes each with five. And the kids are talking and talking and then the third image, I think there are seven boxes each with 10 pencils in it. And she said, “What do you think the next picture’s gonna be?” And this girl said, “You just never know with these people!” <laugh> I dunno!”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:37):

That’s kinda true. Knowing you both, it’s kinda true.

Tracy Zager (28:42):

Like if it’s seven boxes with 10 in it, one kid said, I think it’s gonna be 14 boxes of five. And other kids are like, I think it’s gonna be 10 boxes with seven. And they start talking about which of those there are and the relationships between—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:58):

But they’re making sense of numbers!

Tracy Zager (28:59):

Totally. So all the kids felt invited. They can offer something up. They’re noticing and wondering about that image. They’re talking about it in whatever informal language or home language that they speak. And that was core to us. That was a huge priority, because honestly, one of the motivations to talk about fluency is that it’s always been this gatekeeper. It has served to keep kids out of meaningful math. Particularly kids from marginalized or historically excluded communities. So they’re back at the round table, doing Mad Minutes, while the more advantaged kids are getting to do rich problem solving. And so, we thought, what if we could teach fact fluency through rich problem solving that everybody could access? That was like square one for us.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:45):

That’s huge.

Dan Meyer (29:46):

That’s great to hear. What’s been helpful for me is to understand that students who are automatic, that’s just kind of what’s on the surface of things. And that below that might be some really robust kind of foundation or scaffolding that bleeds to a larger building being built, or it might be just really rickety and not offer a sturdy place to build farther up. It’s been really exciting to hear that. I wonder if you’d comment for a moment about, in the digital age and—I’m at Desmos and our sponsors are Amplify and we all work in the digital world quite a bit. There are a lot of what report to be solutions to the fluency issue, to developing fluency in the digital world. Just lots and lots of them. Some that are quite well used, others that are just like X, Y, or Z app on the market. You can find something. Do you have perspectives on these kinds of digital fluency building apps? Like, what about them works or doesn’t work? Let us know. Graham, how about you? And then Tracy, I’d love to hear your thoughts too.

Graham Fletcher (30:47):

Yeah, I think that’s a great question, ’cause there’s a lot of shiny bells and whistles out there right now that can really excite a lot of teachers. But I always come back to what works for me as a classroom teacher is probably gonna work in a digital world as well. So what are the things that I love and honor most about being in front of students, and how can I capture that in that virtual world? I think one of the things that really helps students make connections is coherence. I think coherence, especially when you leave students for—you don’t get to talk with them after the lesson is done—so I think about how we can purposefully sequence things through a day-to-day basis. I think coherence is something that gets really lost when we talk about fluency, especially with whether it be digital or whether it be print, because what ends up happening is we say, “OK, we have all these strategies we need to teach,” and it becomes a checklist. So how is it that we can just provide students the opportunity to play around in a space, whether it be digital or in person, but in a meaningful way that allows them the time and the space and that area to breathe and think, but be coherent. And connecting those lessons along the way. And I think coherence is one thing that a lot of the times it’s harder to—when we’re in the weeds, it’s so hard and difficult to zoom back out and say, “Do all these lessons connect? How do they intentionally connect? And how do they purposefully connect?” And without coherence, everything’s kind of broken down into that granular level. So when looking at—I think about Desmos and I think about the Toolkit and I think about how Tracy and I talked a lot about, “Well, this, does it connect with the context problem, does it connect with the image talk, or the lessons? Like, how does it all connect and how are we providing students an opportunity to make connections between the day-to-day instruction and lessons that we tackle?”

Tracy Zager (32:44):

I’m reminded of a conversation that Dan, you and I had a long time ago, in Portland, Maine, in a bar. I’ll just be honest. <laugh> And we were talking about how, in the earlier days of Desmos, you were stressed out by what you saw, which was kids one-on-one, on a device, in a silent room. And you were like, no, this is not it. This is not what technology is here to serve. We can do so many things better using technology appropriately, but we can’t lose talk and we can’t lose relationships and we can’t lose formative assessment and teachers listening to kids and kids listening to each other and helping each other understand their thinking. Right? So when I think about the tech that’s out there for fact fluency, most of it is gonna violate all rules I have around time testing. So that a whole bunch of it, I would just toss on that premise. They’re really no different than flashcards. It’s just flashcards set in junkyard heaps. Or, you know, underground caverns. Or with a volcano or whatever. It’s the same thing. There are some lovely visuals—I’m thinking of Berkeley Everett’s Math Flips. Those are really pretty. Mathigon has some really nice stuff that’s digital. And I think that those resources invite you to kind of ponder and notice things and talk about them. All the tools that we design in the toolkit are designed to get people talking to each other, and give teachers opportunities to pull alongside kids and listen in and understand where they are. For example, our games, we didn’t design the games to be played digitally, even though you could, and people did during COVID, because we want kids on the rug, next to each other, on their knees; I’ve seen kids like across tables. I was in a school recently where a kid was like, “I hope you believe in God, ’cause you’re going…!” You know what I mean? <laugh>. Like they’re all pumped up.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (34:41):

They’re invested!

Tracy Zager (34:45):

They’re psyching each other up and down and they’re interacting and it’s social and the teacher’s walking around and she’s listening to the games. And they don’t actually need any bells and whistles. They need dice and they need counters and they need this game that is actually a game. In all of our conversations, games have to actually be games. Games cannot be “roll and record.” Games have to involve strategy. They have to be fun. So in designing those games, we didn’t feel like it brought any advantage to make that a digital platform. But things that did bring advantages digitally, like the ability to project these beautiful images or to use short video in the classroom, that really was a value-add that enabled us to do something different in math class than we had done before, and to get kids talking in a different way than they ever had before. When I think about fluency, historically, if you say like, “OK, it’s time to practice our math facts,” you hear a lot of groans. And when I see a Building Fact Fluency classroom and I say, “OK, it’s BFF time!” There’s like a “YEAAAAHHH!” You know? And so that’s what we’re after.

Graham Fletcher (35:47):

It’s all about kids, really, for us. And I think at the heart of it, we made all the decisions with teachers and kids at the forefront of it.

Tracy Zager (35:55):

I know of high schoolers who are newcomers, who have experienced very little formal education, and speak in other languages, are using it as high schoolers, because it involves language and math and all the deep work in the properties and it’s accessible, but it’s also not at all condescending or patronizing. Like we designed it to be appropriate for older kids. So that’s just something that I think we’re both really proud of. One thing we thought a lot about, especially in the multiplication-division kit is how a classroom teacher could use it and a coordinating educator in EL, Title, special education, intervention could also use it because there’s so much in it, that students could get to be experts, if they got extra time in it, using something that’s related and would give them additional practice. So they could play a game a little bit earlier than the rest of the classes. And they could come in already knowing about that game, or they could do a related task. We have all these optional tasks that no classroom teacher would ever have time to teach it all. So the special educator could use it and have kids doing a Same and Different or a True/False, or some of the optional games. And then the work in both special education and general education could connect.

Dan Meyer (37:20):

I just wanna say that this is an area that for so many students, as you’ve said, Tracy, it presents a barrier. It’s a very emotionally fraught area of mathematics. And we really appreciate the wisdom you brought here. And just the care you’ve brought to the product itself. Your knowledge of teaching, knowledge of math, and yeah, especially a love for students feels like it’s really infused throughout Building Fact Fluency. If our listeners want to know more outside of this podcast, outside of the product itself, where can they find your words, your voice? Where you folks at these days? Tell ’em, Graham would you?

Graham Fletcher (37:57):

You can find us at Stenhouse, Building Fact Fluency. And then Tracy and I, currently playing around, sharing ideas a lot on Twitter, under the hashtag #BuildingFactFluency. That’s kind of where we can all come together and share ideas. And then also on the Facebook community, where there’s lots of teachers sharing ideas.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (38:19):

If you were to ask our listeners like, “Hey, if you wanna keep thinking about this, here’s something you could try or here’s something you could go do,” what could be a challenge that we could share that could help us continue this conversation?

Graham Fletcher (38:35):

Online you can actually download a full lesson string. And a lesson string is a series of activities and resources that are purposefully connected. You can pick one or two of those from the Stenhouse web site, Building Fact Fluency. You can try the game. You can try one of those strategy-based games. You can try an image talk and just see how it goes. And just share and reflect back, whether on Twitter or on Facebook. But it’s kind of there, if you wanna give it a whirl. And as Tracy was sharing, even if you’re a middle-school teacher or a high-school teacher, we really tried to think about those middle-school and high-school students keeping it grade level-agnostic. Just so every student has those opportunities for those mathematical conversations. So download a lesson string and give it a whirl, and we’d love to hear how it goes.

Dan Meyer (39:25):

Bethany and I will be working the same challenge with people in our life.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:29):

Yes.

Dan Meyer (39:29):

Enjoying some fact fluency with people in our homes, perhaps. We’ll see. And we’ll be sharing the results in the Math Teacher Lounge Facebook group. Graham and Tracy, thanks so much for being here. It was such a treat to chat with you both.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:42):

I love learning with you and just helping to shift this idea of fluency into something that can be accessible and powerful and positive.

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What Valerie Henry says about math

“A lot of very fluent adults don’t always have every fact memorized. ”

– Val Henry

Meet the guest

Valerie Henry has been a math educator since 1986. She taught middle school math for 17 years and has worked as a lecturer at University of California Irvine since 2002. After doing her 2004 dissertation research on addition/subtraction fluency in first grade, Valerie created FactsWise, a daily mini-lesson approach that simultaneously develops  fluency,  number sense, and algebraic thinking. Additionally, she has provided curriculum and math professional development for K-12 teachers throughout her career, working with individual schools, districts, county offices of education, Illustrative Mathematics, the SBAC Digital Library, and the UCI Math Project.

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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!

You might also like:

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Free professional development cours…

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Mathigon: the mathematical playgrou…

Math games and manipulatives for online and remote learning.

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Amplify Classroom Grades 3–12

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Top professional development picks for the summer

First priority for your summer? A bit of a break, and maybe a beach read. But summer is also the perfect time to prepare for the year ahead, and to invest in your professional growth.

During summer PD, you can take your time exploring the research-backed strategies essential to effective literacy instruction. There are lots of opportunities out there to dive deeper into everything from foundational skills and evidence-based practices to instruction based on the Science of Reading. Investing this time in your professional growth will help you not only align your methods with the most current research, but also equip you with tools to meet the individual needs of your students and create supportive learning environments in the fall.

Summer school for you: Teacher professional development

That said, we know you’d probably rather spend your summer building sandcastles than digging around for the right PD. That’s why we asked Amplify Ambassadors—educators like you—to share their top teaching resources and professional development picks for the summer. Keep reading to hear their excellent recommendations!

Danielle Hawkins, former principal of Newfane Central School District in New York, shares the value of professional development opportunities offered by Amplify for educators.

“To support the teachers I coach and deepen my knowledge of the Science of Reading, I joined the beta test of Amplify’s Science of Reading: The Learning Lab courses to monopolize on the flexibility that summer provides.”
—Miracle Foster, Literacy Coach, Armada Area Schools, Michigan

“If you haven’t listened to the Sold a Story or Knowledge Matters podcasts, they are great places to start! I purchased The Knowledge Gap and The Writing Revolution books before the school year was even over! I have Shifting the Balance in my cart as well.”
—Stephanie Schuettpelz, Teacher, Marion School District, Wisconsin

If you have a chance to participate in curriculum development, it’s a wonderful way to dig deeper and get to know different features of each unit better.

—Kim Eich, Grade 6 Teacher, Anoka Hennepin ISD #11, Minnesota

“Any online PD from The Reading League or Cox Campus is good. There are a TON of great podcasts out there, including Amplify’s Science of Reading podcast, and also Shanahan on Literacy, Melissa and Lori Love Literacy, and All for Literacy. Some great books are the Shifting the Balance books, The Knowledge Gap, Speech to Print, or Structured Literacy Interventions with Spear-Swerling.”
—Lori Gray, Program Coordinator, Office of Student Learning, Yelm Community Schools, Washington

“A book study.”
—Carla Cruse, Teacher, Rock Falls Middle School, Illinois

Back to school for teachers: Webinars to get you ready

Join our Amplify experts as they walk you through all of your program essentials and share their guidance on everything from getting started in the new school year to leveling up your implementation. These series are for everyone—whether this is your first or fourth year with Amplify, you’ll walk away having learned something new. There will be a webinar for each of the following Amplify programs:

  • Amplify Science
  • mCLASS® DIBELS® 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura
  • Amplify CKLA and Caminos
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  • Boost Reading and Boost Lectura
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Amplify Ambassador Program

Educators like you do extraordinary things both in the classroom and beyond. The Amplify Ambassador Program brings together a vibrant community of changemakers shaping the future of education to elevate their voices as they advocate about their Amplify experience.

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What is the Amplify Ambassador Program?

The Amplify Ambassador Program brings together inspiring educators from across the country to share insights, build connections, and help shape the future of Amplify programs.

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Ambassadors are:

  • Experienced educators who use Amplify programs to create meaningful learning experiences.
  • Passionate collaborators who are eager to learn from and inspire colleagues.
  • Thought leaders who love to share their insights and best practices.

As an Ambassador, you’ll receive:

  • Features on our website and opportunities to contribute to Amplify’s social media communities.
  • Opportunities to advise Amplify teams and influence future programs.
  • Personalized updates, special learning opportunities, and behind-the-scenes access from our team.
  • An honorarium in recognition of your time and contributions.
  • Incentives including exclusive Amplify swag.
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Ambassadors are asked to:

  • Share feedback and innovative ideas to help improve Amplify programs.
  • Participate in virtual presentations, publications, and share experiences with other educators over the course of the school year. 
  • Connect, collaborate, and build relationships with other Ambassadors and Amplify teams.
  • Attend quarterly virtual meetings.

Ready to become an Amplify Ambassador?

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Have questions? Reach out to us at
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What our Ambassadors are saying

“The Amplify Ambassador program is a great way to connect with the company. This is one of the many ways that Amplify shows their true commitment to student learning. They are asking for and value feedback from the users.”

Allie Appel, Instructional Coach, School District of Arcadia, WI

What our Ambassadors are saying

“The Amplify Ambassador Program has provided the opportunity for me to network with like-minded and Amplify-inspired individuals! The Ambassador Program leaders make us feel involved and valued each step of the way while also encouraging us to participate in all of the possible activations!”

Maria Fadden, PreK–8 Literacy Coach, Belle Plaine Public Schools, MN

What our Ambassadors are saying

“As an Amplify Ambassador, you have a unique opportunity to connect with other educators across the nation with one similar goal. Through this passionate network of teachers and leaders, you will be introduced to individuals who wish to impact and improve the high-quality instructional materials and effective teaching practices being used in classrooms, with an emphasis on developing more independent and confident thinkers and problem-solvers!”

Katie Purse, Grade 3 Teacher, Seaford School District, DE

Amplify Desmos Math for San Diego

Hello San Diego math educators,

Welcome to Amplify Desmos Math! 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.

On this site, you’ll find a variety of resources to guide you in learning more about what Amplify Desmos Math has to offer. 

A laptop displays a math activity showing a dinosaur-shaped car on a grid and a tunnel with a height restriction sign and a tree.

Figuring out Problem-Based Learning

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.

In the short videos below, Fawn Nguyen (Amplify Math Specialist, Former Math Coach and Teacher) and John Hoogestraat (Desmos Product Specialist, Former Math Coach and Teacher) share their thoughts about the power of Amplify Desmos Math.

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Amplify Desmos Math: Supporting Math Practices

Amplify Desmos Math: Teacher Time-Saving Tools

Amplify Desmos Math: Capturing Student Thinking

Amplify Desmos Math: What a Classroom Looks and Sounds Like

About Amplify Desmos Math

Amplify Desmos Math, based on the highly-rated Illustrative Mathematics curriculum IM K–12 Math™, is designed around the idea that a core math curriculum needs to serve 100 percent of students in accessing grade-level math every day.

By joining forces with Desmos Classroom, Amplify is changing the conversation around math instruction—for both students and teachers.

  • 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.
amplify math middle schoolers in classroom

Program highlights

People in a museum observe a large stone slab with mathematical graphs; dinosaur skeletons are displayed in the background.

Taking the IM content further

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Planning for instruction

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

Onboarding videos and guides

Standards Correlation

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Lesson Sampler

Amplify Desmos Math delivers the instructional power of student-centered learning packaged in a lesson format that is 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 becomes fun and dynamic, with plenty of opportunities for students to talk through their reasoning, work with their peers, and gain new understandings.

A desktop screen displaying various educational graphs and charts, including trajectory and bar graphs, with icons and text details related to Desmos math lessons.
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Grade 6 Lesson Sampler

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Grade 7 Lesson Sampler

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Grade 8 Lesson Sampler

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 their 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 will be taught that they themselves are mathematicians, that today’s math was largely shaped by a diverse range of mathematicians who deserve to be learned about, 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 will feature a robust variety of formative and summative assessments, including: readiness checks, exit tickets, quizzes, end-of-unit tests, benchmarks, and CAASPP practice.

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Reporting

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

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Featuring Desmos Math 6–A1

Desmos Math 6–8 is based on the highly rated IM K–12™ curricula from Illustrative Mathematics. It has also earned a perfect all-green rating by EdReports.

Read the review on EdReports.

Unlike other IM-based lessons, ours require less prep and are easier to teach. Plus, our more visually rich activities and engaging on-ramps to learning make our lessons accessible to all students.

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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.

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.

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 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.


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 can’t hide. 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.

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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 also control what slides students see, giving teachers the ability to control the pace of the lesson to suite the needs of the class.

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Looking for help?

Our chat agents are standing by to assist you!
Simply log in at learning.amplify.com and click the orange button in the bottom right corner to chat live with our support team.

Important to Note
Our support hours are Monday through Friday, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT.

Don’t have a login yet?
Email us: help@amplify.com
Call us: +1 (800) 823-1969

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Become an Amplify Tutor

Be the change in a student’s learning journey.

As an Amplify Tutor, you’ll facilitate a research-based curriculum for small groups of students to ensure they close academic gaps and build confidence.

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What is Amplify Tutoring?

Amplify Tutoring is a full-service, high-impact virtual tutoring program that reaches students across the country. It ensures students receive high-quality live tutoring for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, 3 times per week.

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Why be an Amplify Tutor?

As an Amplify Tutor, you will deliver our research-backed and evidenced-based intervention programs, virtually to a small group of students in 30 minute sessions, three times per week.

Flexibility: You will choose your desired number of hours and schedule that works best with your lifestyle.  Your schedule will then be matched with available tutoring groups within your selected regions.  

Support: Amplify will provide training to support your growth and impact.  Amplify tutors report a 40 percent increase in confidence after engaging in Amplify’s tutor training course.  You will also receive personalized coaching and support. 

Student Impact: Amplify Tutoring works for students who need it most: students who scored below benchmark, and participated regularly in Amplify Tutoring, made above-average growth. Tutored students were more likely to make outsized growth compared to peers with a similar risk profile who did not receive tutoring at their school.

Compensation: Amplify pays you for the time you spend planning for your groups as well as delivering tutoring to your groups. Amplify also provides paid initial training and ongoing professional development.

What Actual Tutors Have to Say

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Justine K

“And that’s a wrap on my first semester with Amplify! I find so much joy and fulfillment in working with these young learners. I am so proud of the growth each one has made. How I will miss these students but am so thankful for this company. The endless support, not only from leadership but from fellow tutors, is a rare find in today’s work culture. THANK YOU!”

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Adam S.

“As a tutor, I love Amplify’s science of reading approach to literacy. The reading rope incorporates language comprehension along with word recognition to develop skilled reading for students. Watching the science of reading improve students’ literacy skills has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in any career.”

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Britani H.

“Amplify Tutoring was a one of a kind experience as an educator where I was privileged to support students with their specific needs and goals. I always felt incredibly supported by all of the program managers and coaches because of their responsiveness and focused professional development throughout my journey as a tutor.”

Interested in tutoring math?

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We are thrilled to announce the continued expansion of our math tutoring program for students in grades 3 through 5! Introduced in the 2025–2026 school year, this program was designed to meet the growing need for personalized, high-quality math support during these critical foundational years.

Grounded in evidence-based practices, Amplify Desmos Math mini-lessons are aligned with the most critical topics at each grade level. Mini-lessons reinforce the same topics and content students see in core instruction to give students a double dosage. Students can be seen (and heard!) asking questions, debating answers, justifying their thinking, grappling with problems, and working together and independently.

As our program continues to grow, we are actively looking for passionate, dedicated tutors to join our team and make a lasting difference in young learners’ lives.Whether you have experience teaching multiplication, fractions, or general elementary math, we’d love to hear from you. Be part of something new, impactful, and expanding — apply to join our math tutoring team today!

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 thoughtfully combines conceptual understanding, fluency, and application, motivating 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.

Educational materials featuring various graphs and applications, including rocket motion and quadratic functions, displayed on Desmos and paper.
Interactive digital math lesson interface with colorful graphics showing parabola exploration and plotting tools on screen, enhanced by the New York math curriculum.

Structured approach to problem-based learning

  • Differentiation and personalized practice
  • Easy-to-follow instructional guidance
  • Robust assessments and reports
  • Spanish student materials
A classroom dashboard displays student names and their progress in activities, with checkmarks indicating completed tasks and circles showing ongoing or incomplete tasks.

Math that motivates

  • Powerful teacher-facilitation supports and tools
  • Students talking and building from each other’s ideas 
  • Every lesson has fully compatible print and digital materials for a collaborative classroom
Illustration of an Amplify Desmos math learning tool on a student screen showing abacus representations for the sums 8+7, 7+4+5, 3+8+4

Student thinking is made evident

  • Curiosity-driven lessons that motivate students with interesting problems they are eager to solve
  • Explicit guidance for teachers on what to look for and how to respond
  • Technology that provides Responsive Feedback and is designed to reveal mathematical thinking

Figuring out Problem-Based Learning

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.

In the short videos below, Fawn Nguyen (Math Teaching and Learning Team, Former Math Coach and Teacher) and John Hoogestraat (Math Product Specialist, Former Math Coach and Teacher) share their thoughts about the power of Amplify Desmos Math.

Promotional graphic with the text “Figure it out with Fawn and John” and photos of a smiling man and woman in circular frames.
Illustration of a New York math curriculum map for grade 6-algebra 1, divided into 8 units with topics and a cartoon snail next to it.


Scope and sequence

Click the link below to view the program scope and sequence for grade 6–Algebra 1.

Grage 6-A1

Program Preview lessons

Check out the links below to explore our interactive digital lessons.

In addition to the sample lessons below, you can view a sampler of Amplify Desmos Math 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.

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Grade 6, Unit 6: Expressions and Equations

Sub-Unit 1: Solving Equations

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Grade 7, Unit 6: Expressions, Equations, and Inequalities

Sub-Unit 3: Inequalities

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Grade 8, Unit 6: Associations in Data

Sub-Unit 2: Analyzing Numerical Data

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Algebra 1, Unit 2: Linear Equations and Inequalities

Sub-Unit 1–2: One-Variable Equations and Multi-Variable Equations

Review full-year content

The login information provided below enables you to preview the complete mathematical content by grade level in less-than-final format. This content will be updated to the final Amplify Desmos Math format for the 2024-25 school year with the robust instructional supports shown in the Program Preview lessons.

To begin your review:

1. Review the Amplify Desmos Math Program Preview lessons.

2. Click here and use the following credentials to log in:
Username: t1.sfmath@demo.tryamplify.net
Password: Amplify1-sfmath

3. Use the following links to begin your review:

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Looking for help?

imSupport 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.
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Ready to learn more?

S3-05: Thinking is power

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Join us as we sit down with Melanie Trecek-King, college professor and creator of Thinking is Power, to explore how much of an asset science can truly be in developing the skills students need to navigate the real world. You’ll learn about “fooling” students and the importance of developing critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy in the classroom. We’ll also share real strategies and lesson examples that help build these essential skills and engage students in learning.

And don’t forget to grab your Science Connections study guide to track your learning and find additional resources!

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

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Trecek-King (00:00):

We say knowledge is power, but it’s not enough to know things. And there’s too much to know. So being able to think and not fall for someone’s bunk is my goal for my students.

Eric Cross (00:12):

Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host, Eric Cross. On this third season, we’ve been talking about science’s underdog status. And just this past March at the NSTA conference in Atlanta, I had the chance to speak with science educators from around the country about this very topic.

Hermia Simanu (00:28):

Right now, there’s only two teachers in our high school teaching science.

Shane Dongilli (00:32):

I have 45 minutes once a week with each class. The focus is reading and math.

Alexis Tharpe (00:38):

Oftentimes science gets put by the wayside. And you know, I love math and I love my language arts, but I also think science needs to place be placed on that high pedestal as well.

Askia Little (00:46):

In fifth grade, oh, they teach science, because that’s the only grade that it’s tested.

Eric Cross (00:50):

That was Hermia Simanu from American Samoa. Her team flew for three days to make it to the conference. You also heard from Shane Dongilli from North Carolina, Alexis Tharpe from Virginia, and Askia Little from Texas. All of these teachers were excited to be at the conference and had a lot to say about the state of science education in their local schools. Throughout this season, we’ve been trying to make the case for science, showing how science can be utilized more effectively in the classroom. We’ve explored the evidence showing that science supports literacy instruction. We’ve talked about science and the responsible use of technology like AI. My hope is that all of you listeners out there can use some of this evidence to feel empowered to make the case for science in your own communities. And on this episode, we’re going to examine how science can help develop what might be the most important skill that we try to develop in our students: Good thinking. On this episode, I’m joined by a biologist who actually advocated for eliminating the Intro to Bio course at her college. Instead, Professor Trecek-King created a new course focused on critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills. In this conversation, we discuss why the science classroom is such a good environment for helping students become better thinkers. Now, I don’t think that you can make a much stronger argument for science than using it to develop the skills that Melanie describes in this conversation. So, without further ado, I’m thrilled to bring you this conversation with Melanie Trecek-King, Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, and creator of Thinking Is Power. Here’s Melanie.

Eric Cross (02:29):

Well, Melanie, thank you for joining us on the show. It’s so good to have you.

Melanie Trecek-King (02:34):

I am so happy to be here.

Eric Cross (02:35):

Now, I went to your session at NSTA in Chicago … I think it was two years ago. A couple years ago. And I was listening to your session, and as I was listening to you, I started Reverse Engineering in my mind what you were doing with your college students. I started reverse engineering the K–8. I was like, “This is amazing.” Where has what you’ve been doing been hiding? We need this not just in the college, higher ed. We need this all the way up and down. Because I hadn’t seen it before. So I think a good place for us to start is gonna be like the story of how and why you as a biologist wound up making the case to actually eliminate the Intro to Biology course at your college. So can you start off and tell us a little bit about that story?

Melanie Trecek-King (03:20):

Sure. So I started teaching at a community college in Massachusetts. And I absolutely love teaching at a community college. And I was teaching the courses that people who don’t wanna be scientists when they grow up have to take to fulfill their science requirement. And that course was Intro Bio. And I tried every way I could figure out to make that class be useful,] relevant to students. I mean, the thing is, our world is based on science and you have to understand science to be a good consumer of information, to make good decisions. And I’m a biologist, so it pains me to say this, but you know, somewhere in the middle of teaching students about the stages of mitosis and protein synthesis, I thought, “Is this really — like, if I have one semester that’s gonna be the last chance that someone’s gonna get a science education, is this really what they need?” And I just decided, “No.” So, to my college’s credit, they were very supportive. I went to them and said, “You know, I think we should assess the non-majors courses. Like, why do we teach non-majors science?” And we all agreed, well, it was for science literacy. OK, great. Do our existing non-majors courses do that? And so we evaluated each of the courses. I made a case that Intro Bio was not doing it. And so we actually replaced it with a course that I call Science for Life. And the whole course is designed to teach science literacy, critical thinking, and information literacy skills.

Eric Cross (04:48):

And so you did this while you were looking at mitosis. And you’re looking at students who may or may not be science majors. And then kind of asking that question. I know every educator asks this, and whether or not it’s welcomed or supported is a different question: “Is what I’m teaching actually gonna be relevant and useful later on down the road for this group of students?” And you actually got to run with it and then create this course, this new course. So, what were the skills that you were hoping to achieve with the new course you developed, and and why were those skills so important?

Melanie Trecek-King (05:21):

Well, if I just go back for a second to what you said, ’cause it, really hit me: I remember the actual moment — it had been building up to that point, but the actual moment that it hit me — I was teaching students the stages of mitosis. And I was applying it to cancer, because the thought is that if we use issues that are relevant to students to teach concepts, that it will be more meaningful to them. They’ll learn it better; they’ll be able to apply it. And they just looked absolutely deflated. They didn’t wanna be there. And I had this moment where I thought, “You know, if, if these students ever have cancer somewhere in their lives, is what I taught them going to be something that they remember? Is it going to be useful to them?” And quite frankly, like, no. <Laugh> They’re not gonna remember proto-oncogenes. And quite frankly, is that really what they need to know at that moment? What they need to know is, “What does this mean? Who is a reliable source of information here? If these treatments are recommended, what is the evidence for them? What are the cost-benefit analyses? Where do I go to find reliable information?” And in that space, cancer in particular, we have this whole field of — I wanna say charlatans, ’cause they may not actually be lying, but they’re pedaling false cures, false hopes. And people need that kind of hope, and so in their time of need, they’re more likely to fall for that kind of thing. Which leads me to the skills that I teach students. I call them this tree of skills. And the order is important. I start — and there’s a lot of overlap to be fair — but critical thinking, and then information literacy, and science literacy. The idea is that students carry in their pockets access to basically all of human’s knowledge at this moment in time. And if they needed to access it, they could. The question is, do they know what they’re looking for? Are they aware of their own biases that are leading them to certain sources, or certain false hopes? Are there certain things that are making them more vulnerable to the people that might prey on them? Are they able to use that information to make good decisions? There’s a great Carl Sagan quote, and it’s something like, “If we teach people only the findings of science, no matter how useful or even inspiring they may be, without communicating the method, then how is anyone to be able to tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?” So yes, the process of science is a process of critical thinking. However, we do tend to present science most of the time. Like, here’s what science has learned. And to be fair, those things that we’ve learned from science are really useful and inspiring. But if we don’t teach the process, so you’ve got somebody now who let’s say has been diagnosed with cancer and is on their phone and they’re scrolling through social media and everything looks the same. And of course the algorithms learn who you are. Next thing you know, there’s all of these like pseudo-treatments popping up. It all looks the same. Somebody who says that acupuncture can be used to cure cancer can feel the same, from someone who doesn’t understand the process of science, as a medical fact. And so the process is the process of critical thinking. My class everything is open note. The quizzes are open note. The exams — and I say open note, they’re also open online, because I know for the rest of their life they’re gonna have resources available to them; I want them to be good consumers with that information, which to me requires metacognition and critical thinking and information literacy and all those skills that I’m trying to teach them.

Eric Cross (08:58):

You’re basically taking what … we’ve taught science for so long. And more recently, it’s changed to more focusing on skills. At least in K through 12. But a lot of it was just memorization of a ton of different things that now we can pull up our phone, go on the internet. You can pull up a lot of those facts. But those facts don’t necessarily translate to actual real-world skills. When I listen to… I kind of make this analogy sometimes: students say … it’s funny, I have 12-year-olds that say this. They go, “How come they don’t teach us how to do our taxes?” And you know they’re regurgitating what they hear from adults, right? “Teach us real-world skills!” And I was like, really, if we taught you right now how to do your taxes, how many of you would really be like, “Oh, this is an awesome lesson! We’re really engaged!” But their point is that “I wanna learn something that I could actually use later on, that’s that I’m gonna carry on.” And in your course, you’re talking about these skills that actually can apply. Like you said, if I had cancer and I’m looking at different types of medical procedures, do I have the skills to really be able to evaluate and make informed decisions on that? And that’s, that’s not something that I’ve seen explicitly taught really anywhere. And I hadn’t heard anybody talk about it, really, until I heard your session, where you’ve kind of unpacked this, and over the last couple of years, have created some programs or resources for educators, where they can take this into their classroom. So what were some of those skills, again? What were were some of the skills that you thought, “I wanna make sure that my students can walk out and they know how to do this and apply it to maybe several different fields”?

Melanie Trecek-King (10:35):

Oh, that’s a really good question. Because the whole thing was a process for me. Like, when I finally let go of Intro Bio, I was so glad to see that class go, by the way. ‘Cause I just felt like I was beating a dead horse. So when I let go of it, I thought, “What do they need instead?” And for me, what I realized was I was trying to make the class I would’ve wanted to take. I realized the things that I personally didn’t know, that my own education maybe let me down a bit. But things that I thought were important. So then I took all of those, synthesized them, tried to figure out the best order. The class is currently in its third iteration. And I hope every iteration is an improvement. But I’m thinking about the students that I taught before the pandemic. It was Intro Bio. Up to just maybe the couple years before the pandemic, and during the pandemic, we had a new virus and we had a new vaccine and we had new treatments. There was hydroxychloroquine and there was ivermectin and then there’s masks. Are masks effective? Well, you know, in what circumstances? What kind of mask? There are all of these questions. And that whole thing was we saw science playing out in real time.

Eric Cross (11:50):

Absolutely.

Melanie Trecek-King (11:51):

And so were my students able to follow that? And then what happened in that process is that science became politicized. And in a time where things are uncertain and we need answers, ’cause it’s scary, people want certainty and science doesn’t tend to provide that. Especially when it’s just starting out. And then when it becomes politicized, people decide that they’re going to — it’s not necessarily a conscious decision — but they retreat into what people in their camps are saying or their groups are saying. Which actually leads me to one of the more important parts of information literacy skills in there, which is most of our knowledge is shared. We tend to have overinflated senses of what we individually know. And studies actually show that with Google, if you have access to Google, you think you’re smarter than if you don’t have access to Google. But we all have access to knowledge in our communities, and that’s one of the reasons humans are so successful, is that we can each specialize in different things and share our expertise and become greater than the sum of our parts. The problem with that, of course, is that we forget what we don’t know, and we assume that we know what the community knows. And so recognizing the limits of your own knowledge and how different communities produce knowledge, like the different epistemic processes that communities use to come to knowledge. When it comes down to it, an important part of knowing is knowing who to trust, right? Knowing where the source of knowledge lives. And in order to do that, you have to understand the processes that they’re using to come to that knowledge and the limits of your own knowledge. And then how to find who has that knowledge so that you can use that to make better decisions.

Eric Cross (13:38):

So, when I hear what you’re doing with your college students, and I think about what I’m doing in the classroom, in the middle school, we are really focusing on literacy as skills. Reading, writing, speaking, listening. And then when I think of the next step of the journey, your information literacy and the literacy you’re teaching is really the application of those things in the real world. And the examples that you gave are very critical examples. Evaluating claims about Covid. Making informed decisions about a medical procedure that you might need. And we all get that applied to us. We’re scrolling through social media and somehow social media is listening. It’s figuring out exactly what I’m doing, because all of a sudden the ads are telling me … how did you know I was alking about KitchenAid mixers now? I just said KitchenAid mixers and it’s gonna show up in my feed! But <laugh> I take that in the same way from the same place that I take in maybe an oncologist. So it’s it’s coming through the same channels. So now I kind of wanna pivot. So we’ve talked about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, the connection between “am I really teaching the skills that my students need in the science class? Is it really critical thinking explicitly or is it just kind of implied?” Now I wanna ask you how you do it. What’s the annotated, abbreviated kind of syllabus of your course?

Melanie Trecek-King (15:03):

So the course is called Science for Life. And the premise behind it is the kinds of skills and understanding of the process of science that they would need to make good decisions to be empowered in a world based on science. And so the very first lecture, I say, “OK, I’m gonna tell you a story and I just want you to listen to the story. And at the end I’m gonna ask you why I told the story.” And the story that I tell them is some of the history of the witchcraft trials in Europe. And I start with the Malleus Maleficarum, or the Hammer of Witches, from the Pope, and about how people would accuse witches of causing birth defects or storms or crops dying. And, the best evidence that they had to absolutely know somebody was a witch was if somebody accused them, and then if they were accused, if they confessed. OK? But the problem is, to get them to confess, they would torture them. Roasting over coals, or splitting until somebody broke. And so I tell my students, “OK, this was absolute proof that someone was guilty of witchcraft. I don’t know about you; I would confess to anything, right? Make it stop!” So this is where I get to ask students, “Why would I ask you this? Why would I tell you this story? And traumatize you on the very first day of lecture?” And they see the reasoning, right? They thought they had evidence. The question was, is that good evidence? And so, you know, I’m getting students to have a basic understanding of epistemology, right? Without calling it that, or without going into all of the philosophical background of epistemology. Apply this to your own reasoning. What are you wrong about? Well, you probably wouldn’t know. OK, how would you know if you were wrong? Like what kinds of things do you feel that you’re so right about? How good is your evidence for that? So what I want them to do is internalize the thinking about thinking, and analyzing how they come to conclusions, and proportioning how strongly they believe. Their confidence in how right they are. So I think starting with that kind of misinformation, and getting students to internalize that process is important. But I think the example is really useful, because most of my students don’t believe in witchcraft. Right? So it’s not an issue that would immediately threaten them in some way. So when, when a belief is tied to identity or how we see ourselves or is really important to us, then it’s very difficult to be objective about that belief. And so by starting with witchcraft, it’s not triggering. I get them to think about thinking and practice that muscle so that when we get to those more important issues, they have the skills they need to evaluate them.

Eric Cross (17:55):

So would it be fair to say that your Science for Life class is really applied scientific thinking for the real world?

Melanie Trecek-King (18:01):

Absolutely. That’s the idea. I mean, science is too good to keep to ourselves, right? And it’s everywhere. So how can you understand the world through a scientific lens?

Eric Cross (18:10):

What are the nuts and bolts of how you teach your students these strategies? What do you do? What are some strategies and techniques that we can maybe share with listeners? And then where I want to go after that is I wanna ask you, how early do you think this can be started? So lemme start off first with, what do you do?

Melanie Trecek-King (18:28):

So I use three different strategies. One is, I provide students with a toolkit. And the toolkit is one that I created and it is like my one toolkit to rule them all. It is trying to apply critical thinking and science reasoning all together in one place. So that if students are met with a claim, they’ve got the toolkit with an acronym. They can now start and have somewhere to go. In that if I gave you a claim and said, “Just critically think through this claim,” I mean, that’s a mighty task. But if you have a structured toolkit, then it’s hopefully a systemic way that’s helpful. The toolkit is summarized by FLOATER. I have published it on Skeptical Inquirer. It’s free. So it’s Falsifiability, Logical, Objectivity, Alternative Explanations, Tentative Conclusions, Evidence, and Reproducibility. So I provide students with a toolkit. The next thing I do is I use a lot of misinformation in class. Back to what Carl Sagan says: What I heard was we should use pseudoscience to teach students the difference between a pseudo-scientific process and a scientific process. So, I use science denial, conspiracy theories, and give my students a lot of opportunities to practice evaluating claims with the toolkit. And the other thing I do is, I use inoculation activities. So inoculation theory is based on William McGuire’s original research in the ’60s, which is basically like a vaccine analogy. Where you can inject a small amount of a virus or bacterium into the body, so that it creates an immune response, so that it can learn the real thing. And so in the real world, it can fight it off. Inoculation theory does the same thing, but with misinformation. So, what we can do is, in controlled environments, expose students to little bits of misinformation so that they can recognize it in the real world. There’s different kinds of inoculation, but I’m a big fan of what’s called active and technique-based inoculation. So technique-based means that students are learning not the facts of misinformation, not factually why this thing is wrong, but about the technique used to deceive. So maybe the use of fake experts. Or maybe the use of anecdotes. Or the use of logical fallacies. The other part of that is active, which is where students create the misinformation. So for example, my students, just now, we finished covering pseudoscience. And I teach students the characteristics of pseudoscience. And basically we have fun with it. Where they pretend to be grifters and they sell a pseudoscience product. And so they have to make an ad like they’d see on social media, using the different techniques. And the point there is that it’s supposed to be funny, right? And lighthearted. But in a real way, by using the techniques used to sell something like pseudoscience, it’s opening their eyes. You can’t unsee how every alternative product has, “it’s an all-natural and used for centuries and millions use it and look at this person who says, ‘Wow, it worked for me!’ And it’s certified by some society that doesn’t exist, but this doctor behind it says that it’s really great!” I mean, it’s all the same stuff. So they create the misinformation using their own techniques.

Eric Cross (22:02):

That’s one of my favorite things that you’ve talked about, and I want to dive in that a little bit more. But when you’re teaching the toolkit, FLOATER, what does that look like in the classroom, when you’re actually breaking all of those things down? What does it look like as you’re walking your students through this, and you’re kind of coaching them on all of those different things? ‘Cause I feel like some things might be like, “Oh yeah, I got that.” And then some of them might be, “Oh, what is that?”

Melanie Trecek-King (22:24):

Yeah, it takes me probably a good solid lecture to get through the basis of the toolkit. But then over the rest of the semester, I’ll spend more time going into different parts, different rules, a bit more in-depth. So, for example, logical fallacies and objectivity. So the rule of objectivity basically states that you need to be honest with yourself. I’m gonna quote Feynman here, so: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” We don’t tend to think that we can be fooled. But of course we can. So actually, if you wanna talk about it, I start class by fooling my students.

Eric Cross (23:03):

Wait, what do you do? What do you do for that?

Melanie Trecek-King (23:05):

Oh, so this is really fun. Day 1 of class, after the syllabus, I tell my … so you’re in my class now, Eric. “So I have a friend, and she’s a psychic. She’s an astrologer and she’s pretty good at what she does. I mean, she’s got books and she’s been on TV and stuff. She knows I teach this course about skepticism. And so she’s agreed to test how effective she is by providing personality assessments to students in class. So if you wanna participate, what I need from you is your birthday, your full name, answer a few questions. Like, if your house was on fire and you could take one thing, what would it be? Or if you could get paid for anything to do anything for a living, what would it be? Um, there’s a third one. Oh! If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” So the next class, it’s usually over a weekend. The next class I say, “OK, I’ve got your personality assessments back, but remember, we wanna test how effective she is. So in order to do that, I need you to read your profile as quietly as possible. And then I’m gonna have you rate her accuracy on a scale of 1 to 5. OK? So close your eyes; rate her.” Over the years doing this, it’s about a 4.3 to 4.5 out of 5. They think she’s pretty accurate. OK? “So now, if you feel comfortable, get with a person next to you. And I want you to talk about what parts of the personality assessment really spoke to you and, and why, and why you thought she was accurate or not.” And it takes them 5, 10 minutes before they realize they all got the same one. So, this is not my original experiment. It was first done by Bertram Forer in … I think it was the ’50s. And it’s done in psychology classrooms. James Randi made it famous. But the personality assessment itself is full of what are called Barnum statements. So, named after P.T. Barnum. These are statements that are very generic. So, “You have a need to be liked and admired by people. You are often quiet and reserved, but there are times where you can be the life of the party.”

Eric Cross (25:13):

How do you know this about me, by the way? This is a — I feel like you know me right now.

Melanie Trecek-King (25:17):

“There are times where you’ve wondered whether you’ve done the right thing.”

Eric Cross (25:19):

This is getting weird.

Melanie Trecek-King (25:21):

I’m just on fire, right? So these are Barnum statements. They’re the basis of personality assessment.

Eric Cross (25:29):

Mel, can I pause you right there? You said Barnum. Is that the same Barnum, like Barnum & Bailey Circus?

Melanie Trecek-King (25:34):

Yeah. P.T. Barnum, who didn’t actually say “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but we attribute him with that kind of ethos. These statements though, if you read a horoscope or even like personality indicators, like the MBTI, it is basically pseudo-scientific. And it ends up with lots of these Barnum statements. They produce what’s called the Barnum Effect, which is, “Wow, that’s so me! How did you know me?” I could even do more. Like, you have a box of photos in your house that need to be sorted. Or unused prescriptions. And these can apply to nearly everyone, but they produce this effect where we go, “Wow, that is so me!” Right? So by fooling them this way, I get to … well, so the next thing is, “Yes, I lied to you. And I’d like to tell you I won’t do that again. But I’m not going to, ’cause I might. So be on your guard.” But I did it for free. And why did I do it? “I did it because I could tell you ‘I could fool you,’ but you wouldn’t necessarily believe me. So I fooled you, so that you would learn what it feels like to be fooled.” It’s not fun. But we’re gonna make a joke outta this. And students are almost never upset about this ’cause it’s a fun process and they’re all fooled. And again, the point is, I didn’t disprove psychic powers. I didn’t just disprove psychics with this exercise. But I did show you how easy it was to fake. So if somebody is gonna tell you that they can know these things about you through some way, hopefully the evidence they provide should be stronger than something that’s easily faked. Right? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you claim to be able to read my personality based on my birthdate, then I need more than something that you can be taught to do in 15 minutes. So, I fool them to convince them that they could be fooled.

Eric Cross (27:27):

You’re giving them a practice scenario for thinking. And I was thinking about basketball. I grew up playing basketball. And my coach would have our own team be the defenders of the next team we were gonna play, so that we can be prepared for the defense. We were gonna see. Now, when I’m thinking about education, and what you just said reminded me of this, it’s like we’re often just teaching offense. We’re always teaching the plays. We’re always teaching what to do. But we rarely teach defense. What happens when someone comes towards you and, and they challenge you or they come at you with claims? How do we evaluate this? And I think in pockets we do it. We do claim-evidence-reasoning. We present claims and evidence and reasoning. But we don’t always have practice defending them. And I think there’s great resources. There’s Argumentation Toolkit and there’s all these awesome resources that do this. But does that fit? You’re kind of having them practice defense?

Melanie Trecek-King (28:26):

Yeah. You know, that’s brilliant. I never considered that analogy. But, yeah, in the real world, you don’t just get to always try to score all the time. Someone’s gonna challenge you and give you a claim that maybe you haven’t heard before. So how do you think through it?

Eric Cross (28:41):

Yeah. And you become better. So now I’m thinking about how early could we start doing this? For one, I love the idea of lying to your students, because I do that. And it’s just such a fun scenario. How early could we start implementing these strategies or these ideas or these toolkits? In your mind, what do you imagine? How early could we start this with young people?

Melanie Trecek-King (29:07):

Yeah. I’m so glad you asked that question, ’cause honestly, by the time they get to me, it’s almost too late. And I don’t wanna say it’s too late, ’cause it’s never too late. But, oh, we need to start so much earlier! That example that I gave about the selling pseudoscience argument? I have a wonderful colleague, Bertha Vasquez, who’s a middle school teacher in Miami and the director of TIES at CFI. She did this with her middle school students. And quite frankly, their examples were just as good, or in some cases better, than my college students. And they had so much fun with it, too. And she just said that, you know, <laugh>, they actually are more savvy with the kinds of things that they see online than we — I don’t wanna say give them credit for. But almost that we want to believe. My students give me examples of things that are from corners of the internet that I didn’t know existed. And quite frankly, that’s probably a good thing for my own mental health. But students are on there too, like middle school students, and we need to prepare them for the kinds of things that they see in the wild.

Eric Cross (30:13):

So in middle school, definitely. Now, you’ve also done some work in high school as well, right? In Oklahoma? Did you do some. …?

Melanie Trecek-King (30:17):

Yeah.

Eric Cross (30:18):

…some work with high schoolers? What was that like? Did you see any impact there?

Melanie Trecek-King (30:21):

So I didn’t actually do it in Oklahoma. I have taught the course … actually, you were talking about younger kids. I’ve taught the course to high schoolers in my area that are parts of dual enrollment. And they absolutely ate up the curriculum. And they were wonderful, wonderful students. And it was completely appropriate for … they were juniors, actually. But the course has also been taught in Oklahoma, through a dual enrollment program as well. And it was a small sample size. But we have pre-post testing that showed that it improved their critical thinking, their acceptance of science. But anecdotally the head of the program there said that in his years doing this, he’d never seen a course that helped them improve in their other courses so well. So, I felt very rewarded by hearing this. But apparently their critical thinking skills and information literacy skills helped them succeed in their other courses that they were taking. And I love that the students were transferring those skills to other classes. That’s the whole point.

Eric Cross (31:23):

And that’s a big … I think that what you just said is really the core, especially of what we’ve been talking about this season: What you’re talking about and what you’re teaching can transfer and supports literacy. And this is an example of science doing that across all other content areas. So I think that that’s huge, that that was said. What do people say about this course? I know I went on your website, and I looked at some of the comments that some folks were saying, and I know it’s just a snippet, but what do you hear from the education world about this? Because I don’t see it in many places. I see it kind of embedded, sprinkled into different content areas. But you’re actually teaching it explicitly. Do you tend to find positive feedback, overwhelmingly? Or do you get pushback on on some of this? What’s it been like for you?

Melanie Trecek-King (32:16):

I think the biggest pushback — and it’s good pushback, and I would agree entirely — is with inoculation activities, you do need to be careful to, when you debrief students, you wanna tell them why you did what you did and to use their powers for good and not for fooling other people. And I think importantly, for not putting misinformation out into the wild without having context around it. So if you do these kinds of inoculation activities, like if you have your students create pseudoscience ads, don’t just let them put them on social media. Obviously, you can’t control everything that they’re doing. But explain to them why you wouldn’t wanna do that. As far as everything else, I’ve heard really great feedback. You’re referencing my website. So, when I put together the course, I was trying to find resources for students to read. Textbooks are ridiculously expensive and I couldn’t find anything that I really wanted students to buy. So I just started writing, and I put it on my site. I have a site that’s basically the core of the curriculum. More in progress. And then I’ve got some of the topics that we explore and those are all assigned readings. My students are captive, in that I know they want a grade, and for four months they have to sit with me for the entire semester, in that I’ve specifically ordered the content in a way that would be most conducive to them learning these things. On the internet, though, and on social media, ’cause I post on there as well, people come in from all kinds of entry points, and so the goal would be to have them start at the beginning and go to the end. But people … I’m pleasantly surprised that there is an audience for critical thinking and science literacy content out there. And so that really warms my heart. But I am doing more and more for educators. And so I have a section for educators. I put content on there. I put assignments, the assignments that we’ve talked about and more, are on there. And the educators that I’ve had use it have just been really wonderful. Like, I hear great things. If I might, the biggest issue that I’m having is actually reaching educators. I’ve gone to — I met you at NSCA, actually, that was only last summer.

Eric Cross (34:30):

Oh, wow. Wow.

Melanie Trecek-King (34:32):

Right?

Eric Cross (34:32):

Yeah, you’re right. It wasn’t even a year.

Melanie Trecek-King (34:35):

Yeah, I think it was like July last year. So, um, you’ve been to the conferences. And I just went to the last one as well. But I have yet to figure out a way to really get in front of enough educators to share the content. So if anybody’s listening and is interested in learning more, please let me know! <Laugh>

Eric Cross (34:52):

Yes. And we talked about your website, but I didn’t say what the website was. So it’s ThinkingIsPower.com.

Melanie Trecek-King (34:57):

Yes.

Eric Cross (34:58):

And on there, there’s tons of resources. There is the toolkit. And it’s all free.

Melanie Trecek-King (35:06):

Yes.

Eric Cross (35:07):

And there’s a dope t-shirt on there that I just bought today, that Melanie’s actually wearing right now. It says, “Be curious, be skeptical, and be humble.” And I love that. Because I think one of the things that we can’t forget about teaching people how to think and critically evaluating information, sometimes those conversations can become very dehumanizing. And what I mean by that is it sometimes can become, like, intellectual sport, where we forget that there’s a human being on the other other side. And we lose that empathy and compassion. We can kind of see that. It just becomes this intellectual jousting and arguing. And one of the things I know about you, and when you talk about this or you talk about the work that you do, and even the shirt that you’re wearing, there’s this, “be humble.” There’s this human that is never lost in this. And you said it, too: When you’re teaching your students and you’re equipping them with all of these intellectual skills and all of these tools, to use it for good. So to maintain your humanity, to maintain your character, and then to use it to edify and lift people up, not to go out and do harm. That balance, I think, is so, so important. So it’s something that I really appreciate about you and how you teach.

Melanie Trecek-King (36:19):

I appreciate those kind words. Actually—

Eric Cross (36:21):

Oh, of course!

Melanie Trecek-King (36:22):

—and if I might, I sometimes see people using critical thinking like a weapon. It’s like, “I have learned fallacies and I’m just gonna use the tools of critical thinking to tell you why you’re stupid, or why you’re wrong, and why my position is right!” But real critical thinking involves applying those same standards to your own thought processes. And even something like argumentation: the goal of our argumentation is not to BE right; it’s to GET it right. And so we’re on the same team. If we’re arguing about something, if the idea is in scientific argumentation we’re trying to find the truth, which one of us is making a better argument based on the evidence? Can your perspective help me see my own blind spots and vice versa? And the more different perspectives that we have, the more able we are to find whatever reality is. But we are in this together. And so, yeah, I think … I’m glad to hear that that’s coming through. But if you don’t have the kind of humility that says, “You know, I could be wrong,” then you’re never gonna change your mind anyway. So having the humility to say, I’m wrong. <Laugh>

Eric Cross (37:33):

Yeah. You end up just seeing people just defend turf, as opposed to support “look for truth.” And I know for me, my own education journey, I end up with more questions than answers anyways. So I go in trying to find an answer for something and I end up with 10 more questions. And I go, “OK, this is kind of how it is.” You go down this rabbit hole and you just end up with all these different questions. And it forces the humility, because you’re like, “I don’t know! I think this is what it could be, but it could also be these other answers or explanations. So this is just where I’m at, based on what we know right now, at this present time, which might shift.”

Melanie Trecek-King (38:07):

And that sounds reasonable. Yes. Which might shift. Yes.

Eric Cross (38:11):

And especially for us as life-science biology teachers, our content is something that definitely shifts. I know some of the things I teach now are not things that I learned when I was even in middle school. Just because things evolve. They change. We learn, we get new data. That’s just the way it is.

Melanie Trecek-King (38:24):

<Sighs> And Pluto is no longer a planet.

Eric Cross (38:26):

I know. Rest in — well, no, Pluto’s still there. Yeah. It’s no longer a planet. But that was one part of my kindergarten memorizations <laugh> is Pluto being in there.

Melanie Trecek-King (38:36):

Gotta change your mind.

Eric Cross (38:38):

I know. Any words of advice for science educators out there who want to focus more on honing these critical thinking skills and strategies with their own students, but they don’t know where to start? Where would you point them? Or what advice would you give them?

Melanie Trecek-King (38:52):

I think start with what you want the students to know. And not necessarily the FACTS that you want students to know, but start with the skills that you want them to know. And then really be honest with your process. When I designed Science for Life, I started with, “these are the skills that I want students to know.” And everything was in service of that. So this sort of backwards design, I think, helped me follow a path that was more likely to be useful, if that makes any sense. But it really required doing it all over again. So don’t be afraid to question the things that you’re currently doing, even if that’s all you’ve been taught or all you know.

Eric Cross (39:41):

What I’m hearing is, don’t be afraid to question your own assumptions about what you’re doing. And don’t be afraid to adapt or change or modify. Kinda, pivot. Be flexible.

Melanie Trecek-King (39:51):

Yes, be flexible and pivot. And this is where I’m in a different position than middle school and high school educators. Because I have complete freedom over what I teach in my class.

Eric Cross (40:01):

Sure.

Melanie Trecek-King (40:01):

At the end of the semester, I always joke with non-majors that there’s nothing they have to know, which actually gives me a lot of flexibility, because I could teach ’em a lot of different things. So if there are things that you have to teach students, obviously that’s one thing. But I personally think that the way that we’ve been teaching science needs a refresher. A rethinking. And so I would say, “If you want your students to learn science literacy, honestly ask, what does that mean to you? And what would that look like to get to that point?” For me, though, it was also keeping in mind that maybe I didn’t already know the best way to do that.

Eric Cross (40:43):

One of the things you mentioned earlier is trying to reach out to educators. And I know that when we work together, it’s a force multiplier. And what you’re doing is developing skills. And there’s these skills that are happening right now in academia that you’re doing. And then how do we transfer that into middle and high school. Or, I’m sorry, middle and elementary school, high school. We need to get more people into this conversation to kind of brainstorm and figure that out. We have a Facebook group, Science Connections: The Community, where we have educators that gather. That can be one place we start the conversation. And again, I know on your website you’ve been super active on social media; you’ve grown your presence on Twitter and all these different places, engaging with folks. Which is awesome. ‘Cause I know I see your posts and I’m saving the things that you’re posting and I’m thinking of ways that I can do it in my classroom. I’m gonna take that product. By the way, is that on your website, the lesson that you do with the product?

Melanie Trecek-King (41:43):

No, actually. So the article, “How to Sell Pseudoscience” is … I know Bertha Vasquez wrote up a version of it.

Eric Cross (41:50):

Maybe we can grab that. ‘Cause we might be able to put that into the show notes for folks, because she’s a middle school educator. If there’s already something that’s been done for teachers like us, we’re like, “Yeah, let me get that and let me remix it and make it my own!” if there’s already a exemplar out there.

Melanie Trecek-King (42:04):

Yeah, she’s done it. And so I will absolutely share that with you.

Eric Cross (42:08):

So, all season long, we’ve been talking about science as the underdog. We kind of framed it, you know, science oftentimes takes a back seat to math and English. It’s kinda the first thing to go. Or the first area where time can get cut. Because of what gets tested gets focused on, oftentimes. And then in addition to that, when you’re a multi-subject teacher, elementary science isn’t just one thing — it’s every field. You know, you’re a biologist, which is different than a geologist. And when you’re teaching every subject, that’s a lot. And you might not have had a science class for years. And the realities that we’re seeing over and over with different researchers and practitioners is that science could actually enhance literacy, and building those skills. And I think you really talked about it with the critical thinking skills. Those can transfer. Or the administrator that said, “This is one of the only courses I’ve seen where it transfers to other areas.” Could you share maybe with our listeners, just any advice for advocating for science in their own world?

Melanie Trecek-King (43:13):

Wow, I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that question! One of the things that comes to mind though — because I was listening to your last episode and educators … I honestly didn’t realize how little time they had for science. And how often science was then the first to go, to allow room for other subjects. But science overlaps with a lot of other issues. And so I feel like there could be a way to bring in science when teaching these other subjects. So, for example, argumentation and logical fallacies are easy to apply to reading and writing. Information literacy, and being able to find good information online, teaching students how to laterally read, to be able to check a source, or how to use Google effectively, to put in neutral search terms to find sources, or teaching students how to recognize the characteristics of conspiratorial thinking: All of these things can overlap with so many other subjects. So the scientist in me is a little biased towards science being important enough to do this. But try to bring it into the other subjects. It doesn’t have to be completely separate.

Eric Cross (44:43):

So integrating science into other things. And I … big believer. And a hundred percent agree with you. Now I’m gonna ask a question that kinda like takes us backwards. You shared an app with me when we first met that I thought was really cool. And I know it’s a friend or colleague of yours. But as a middle school teacher, I thought it was great, because it was something that my students could download and practice some of the skills that you’re talking about. Would you talk a little bit about the cranky uncle? Is it the Cranky Uncle app?

Melanie Trecek-King (45:17):

Cranky Uncle.

Eric Cross (45:18):

Could you share a little bit about that?

Melanie Trecek-King (45:20):

Yeah. Cranky Uncle is awesome. So, Cranky Uncle is the brainchild of John Cook, who is the founder of Skeptical Science and the author of the 97% Consensus study on climate change. Cranky Uncle … so he’s also a cartoonist. And Cranky Uncle is a cartoon game where … I don’t even have to explain who Cranky Uncle is to my students. Everybody inherently gets the, the character, right? So he’s like the guy at Thanksgiving that you don’t wanna talk to because he denies climate change and he’s just really cranky. But Cranky Uncle uses the techniques of science denial, which are summarized by the acronym FLICC: So it’s Fake experts, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Cherry-picking, and Conspiratorial thinking. So he uses those techniques. Again, this is technique-based inoculation. So they recognize the techniques in the game, and you earn cranky points. And as you make Cranky crankier and crankier because you’re recognizing his techniques, you learn the techniques of science denial, and level up and open up other techniques. This is another one of those examples where climate change has a lot of science behind it, right? And if you wanted to get to the science behind climate change for any particular issue … so let’s say it’s cold today, so I’m gonna say there’s no climate change. OK? If I’m gonna unpack that at a factual level, and with science, we could be here for a while. But if I told you, “That’s like saying, ‘I just ate a sandwich so there’s no global hunger.’” OK? So that’s a parallel argument. Humorous. Love to use this kind of argumentation, ’cause it makes for some … I mean, it’s funny, but you get the point. It’s an anecdote. And anecdotes aren’t good evidence. So just like that, you could teach the technique of using an anecdotal fallacy for climate-change denial. So, I have my students play this game. You could do it when you’re studying argumentation. You could do it for science denial. I use an inoculation extension with that, where I have my students pretend that … um, actually, back up for a second. So I teach a class on critical thinking. And at the end of semesters I would get emails from students on, well, they’re failing the class, but they really shouldn’t, for all of these reasons. And reading these emails, I’m like, “If you think that’s a good argument, you clearly didn’t learn what I was hoping you would learn.” So I now have my students, early in the semester, after they play Cranky, pretend that it is the end of the semester and you’re failing the class and you’re failing because you didn’t do the work. Use at least four of the fallacies from class to argue for why you should pass. So they have to put it on a discussion forum, and they’ll say things like, “Well, if you fail me, then I won’t get into graduate school and then people will die and it will all be your fault.” Or, “My dog died, and so I was really sad.” Or, um, “You’re just a terrible teacher. And you’re short. So I don’t like you.” Or that kind of thing. So, oh, they love to attack my character. It’s really funny. But it’s supposed to be funny. And the point is, the students are using those arguments, they’re using the fallacies, to argue for something. And so by creating that misinformation themselves, they learn how those fallacies work. But taken together, I mean, everything that we just talked about there, Cranky Uncle, and the fallacy assignment, or whatever iteration you want that to be in, that doesn’t have to be in a purely science unit. Right? That could be sociology. It could be argumentation. It could be English.

Eric Cross (49:01):

Absolutely. That could be totally a prompt in an English class. And practiced in there. And then this could be an interdisciplinary thing, going back and forth between English and and science. Just having these discussions and looking at it from different angles. And you’re practicing the skills in two different contexts. So you get into argumentation. And then that app, I know I had fun with it. And the questions on there definitely resonate with people in my own family. I’m like, “I feel like I’m talking to exactly somebody that I’m related to right now.” <Laugh> Melanie, anything else that you wanna share, or discuss or highlight, before we wrap up?

Melanie Trecek-King (49:39):

So we could talk about lateral reading, if you like. ‘Cause I know a lot of educators use the crap test.

Eric Cross (49:45):

Please, please, please talk about that.

Melanie Trecek-King (49:47):

So, when evaluating sources, a lot of educators teach what’s called the CRAP test. And I wish I remembered what it stood for. But basically what you do, a lot of us have been taught when you go to a website, to figure out if it’s reliable, you wanna go to the about page. Read the mission; see who they are; maybe read some of the content; evaluate the language. So is it inflammatory? Are they making logical arguments? Are the links to reputable sources as well? And the problem is that if a site wants to mislead you, they’re not going to tell you that it’s a bunk site, right? They’re just gonna do a good job of misleading you. And so, what you wanna do instead … the CRAP test basically is an evaluation of a site. And that’s what’s called vertical reading. So you’re looking through a site to determine if it’s reliable. Uh, I think his name’s Sam Wineberg at Stanford, proposed something called lateral reading. Where, instead of on the site, what you wanna do is literally open a new tab and into the search engine type the source. You could do the claim, too. And then something like Reliability or FactCheck or whatever it’s that you’re checking, and then see what other reputable sites have to say about it. So, in their study, actually, they did a really interesting study where they compared professional fact checkers to PhD historians to Stanford undergrads. And they evaluated — I wish you could … um, there’s two pediatrician organizations. One’s like the American Association of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatricians, something like that. They’re very similar sounding. So you give them to students. I do this with my students as well, the same study. So I give my students those two websites. And I say, “Which one of these is more reliable?” And they do exactly what most of us do, which is spend time on the site looking around. And most of the time, if not nearly all the time, they come to the wrong conclusion. And so then I tell them what lateral reading is: “OK, instead of looking through the site, open a new tab, search the organization and reliability.” Something like that. And it takes probably 30 seconds before they realize one of them has been dubbed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. As opposed to the other one, which is like a hundred year old huge pediatrician organization that produces their own journals and so on. But nearly all my students are fooled. And in the study, none of the fact checkers were fooled. I’m gonna get the number right. It’s something like 50% of the historians and 20% of the Stanford undergraduates got the correct answer. And they spent a lot more time on it. So it’s a great way to teach students how to use the power of the internet to evaluate sources much more quickly and, effectively. And yes, use Wikipedia, right? Wikipedia is not a final answer, but Wikipedia is actually pretty accurate. So if Wikipedia is the first place you stop, then yes, go there, see what Wikipedia says, and then follow some of their sources.

Eric Cross (52:47):

What popped in my head was like, Yelp reviews for websites. That almost sounds like what it was. It’s like when I search for a product, I don’t go and read the product description marketing. ‘Cause that’s all designed to sell me on something. But I’ll go and look in Reliability, if it’s like a car, or just other sites to cross-reference. And that sounds like what you were talking about is like cross-referencing. Seeing what FactChecker [sic] said about this site, versus seeing what a site says about itself.

Melanie Trecek-King (53:14):

Well, that’s a great analogy. Because if I wanted to know if a product was effective, what the manufacturer says about the product, clearly there’s a strong chance of bias. Right? They’re going to be on their best, um, put their best foot forward. Versus, what do independent reviewers say about this product?

Eric Cross (53:35):

Yep. And I am known to research something to death. And I get something called “paralysis by analysis.”

Melanie Trecek-King (53:42):

Ohhhh, yeah.

Eric Cross (53:44):

And it’s so bad that even if I’m trying to buy, like, towels, I need to find the best-bang-for-the-buck towel. I have to defer some of these decisions out, because I’m on the internet for three hours now. I’ll be a pseudo-expert in towels, and thread count, and all of that stuff. But yeah, that maybe that’s just the science person.

Melanie Trecek-King (54:03):

I mean, I feel your pain. I do the same thing. <Laugh> It’s annoying. Like, it’s just towels. What does it really matter? But yeah.

Eric Cross (54:10):

Coffee! It doesn’t matter what it is. I just need to go, “OK, I have to use these powers for good. Otherwise I’m gonna be researching forever.”

Melanie Trecek-King (54:16):

I wanna say one other thing. So, again, this is a college class and I have a lot of freedom. But one of the driving philosophies behind the class is a wonderful quote in a book, Schick and Vaughn, How to Think about Weird Things. And they said, “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your decisions, and the quality of your decisions is determined by the quality of your thinking.” And I know my students want a grade. But I’m really trying to teach them how to be empowered through better thinking. That’s where the name “Thinking is Power” came from. I mean, we say “Knowledge is Power,” but it’s not enough to know things. And there’s too much to know. So being able to think and be empowered to have your own agency and not fall for someone’s bunk is my goal for my students.

Eric Cross (55:07):

And doing that is gonna help them through the rest of their lives. Not be swindled, not be taken advantage of, be able to make better decisions. There’s so many benefits to building that skill. And I know your students have definitely grown and benefited. I’m sure you’ve heard, long after you’ve taught them, heard back from them and how they’ve applied that course to their lives. Melanie, thank you so much for being here. For a few things. One, for providing and filling this space where there’s such a need. Again, the critical thinking resources, the tools that you used, are so, so important. If we ever lived in a time where they were critical, it was really what we experienced during the pandemic in the last few years. We watched people’s information literacy and science literacy play out in real time. And we literally saw life-and-death decisions being made based off those skills. That highlighted, I think how important this is. And then, taking the time to generate resources for educators like myself, that we can take and adapt and put into our classroom and start teaching our students. ‘Cause like you said, by the time they get to you, they’re, they’re so far downstream or so far in a system that, depending on the teachers that they’ve had and the education system they’ve been in, may or may not have even touched on these things. They might have learned a lot of facts, but they may not have built their muscle to be able to critically analyze and interpret the world around them. And you’ve just — even the last year, it hasn’t even been a year since we talked the first time — I’ve watched your resources continue to grow, and you share them. And so I, on behalf of those of us in K–12, thank you. And thank you for being here.

Melanie Trecek-King (56:49):

Oh, well, thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you for everything that you do, reaching out to other educators and for giving me a platform to hopefully reach other educators.

Eric Cross (57:00):

Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Melanie Trecek-King, Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College and creator of Thinking Is Power. Make sure you don’t miss any new episodes of Science Connections by subscribing to the show, wherever you get podcasts. And while you’re there, we’d really appreciate it if you can leave us a review. It’ll help more listeners to find the show. You can find more information on all of Amplify shows at our podcast hub, Amplify.com/Hub. Thanks again for listening.

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What Melanie Trecek-King says about science

“Students carry in their pocket access to basically all of humanity’s knowledge at this moment in time. The question is: do they know what they’re looking for?”

– Melanie Trecek-King

Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College and creator of Thinking is Power

Meet the guest

Melanie Trecek-King is the creator of Thinking is Power, an online resource that provides critical thinking education to the general public. She is currently an associate professor of biology at Massasoit Community College, where she teaches a general-education science course designed to equip students with empowering critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills. An active speaker and consultant, Trecek-King loves to share her “teach skills, not facts” approach with other science educators, and help schools and organizations meet their goals through better thinking. Trecek-King is also the education director for the Mental Immunity Project and CIRCE (Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative), which aim to advance and apply the science of mental immunity to inoculate minds against misinformation.

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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. 

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S2-06: Making time for science in the K–5 classroom

Promotional graphic for "Science Connections" podcast, Season 2 Episode 6, featuring Lauran Woolley discussing making time for science in K–5 classrooms.

In this episode,  Eric Cross sits down with TikTok star and podcast host Lauran Woolley about her experience teaching science content within her K–5 classroom. Lauran shares how she’s learned how to make time for science, and what most K–5 teachers experience when creating their own science curriculum. Lauran also talks about her rise in popularity on TikTok, her podcast, Teachers Off Duty, and establishing strong relationships with her 5th grade students. Explore more from Science Connections by visiting our main page.

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Lauran Woolley (00:00):

I wanna make sure that they’re ready for the real world, and I wanna make sure that they’re able to apply these things that I’m teaching them in their life, not on a multiple choice test.

Eric Cross (00:11):

Welcome to Science Connections. I’m your host Eric Cross. My guest today is Lauren Woolley. Lauren is a full-time fifth grade teacher in Leetonia, Ohio, who has amassed a following of 5.5 million subscribers on TikTok and over 1 million followers on YouTube. She’s also co-host of the podcast, Teachers Off Duty. Lauren has combined her teaching vocation and her talent for entertaining to connect with her students and encourage teachers across the world using her own unique style of edutainment. My most vivid memory from our discussion was her sincerity and openness about her experiences. It quickly became obvious to me that her personal transparency was a characteristic that she has remained grounded in despite her social media success. And now, please enjoy my discussion with Lauren Woolley.

Eric Cross (00:53):

You’re currently teaching fifth grade?

Lauran Woolley (00:55):

Yes.

Eric Cross (00:55):

What is it like to teach all content areas? ‘Cause I’m a middle school science teacher.

Lauran Woolley (00:59):

I didn’t always teach all content areas. First I started in second grade, so I used to teach like primary. I taught that for about three years. And I only really got my 4-5 endorsement because it was told to me that it would make me more marketable as a teacher. So I got it <laugh>. I was like, I’m never gonna use that. And then, my second year teaching, my class had low numbers and they collapsed my second grade classroom, split up my students, and then moved me to fifth grade in January. I had to take over a fifth grade class with all content areas in the middle of a school year. And it was really hard. It was like probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever had to do teaching. When I got my job at my current school, it was only language arts, social studies.

Lauran Woolley (01:46):

So we only have two fifth grade classes. My other teacher would teach math, science. I taught language arts, social studies, and then the timeframes weren’t matching up. Like, I didn’t have enough time in my schedule for all the things we had to do in our curriculum. And she had like a little bit too much time. We realized as a district that it would be better for our fifth grade classes to just be self-contained. And last year was the first year I taught all five subjects. And I liked the variety of teaching everything because when I taught just language arts, social studies, I just felt like I was repeating myself twice a day. <laugh>. It was kind of boring for me. So like, I like doing all of it. <laugh>.

Eric Cross (02:24):

Yeah. With all of your talents and like your background and what I’ve seen, I could totally see why having all the different content areas would like make sense. Are you using a set curriculum? How do you come up with what to teach? Do you do it with teams? Like who comes up with that?

Lauran Woolley (02:36):

Uh, me, myself and I.

Eric Cross (02:38):

Well done.

Lauran Woolley (02:39):

My school, for literacy we’re using literacy collaborative. Then for math, we just adopted bridges, which I love and it’s very hands-on, very like student-led. For science, we had nothing. And I am not a science, or was not a science teacher at the time when I took over. So I panicked a bit and I was like, “Hey, can we have some kind of science curriculum? ‘Cause I got nothing.” And it’s not hard to look at the state standards and figure out what you need to teach them, but having no resources to go off of is extremely difficult. And luckily I have an older brother, he’s like three years older than me and he’s also a teacher. He actually is a science teacher. ‘Cause that first year that I was teaching all subjects, I was like, “Hey Ryan, can you just like send me all of your Google Drive files for science <laugh>?

Lauran Woolley (03:33):

And he’s like, “Yeah, sure.” So he kind of was like a mentor for like the first year that I taught science. And this year being my second full year teaching science, I feel much more confident. I’m still using his resources. We don’t have a dedicated curriculum at my school. So that’s like one thing I’ve been fighting my school on. And not that they don’t wanna get us one, but like they were focused on getting the math curriculum last year. And then I was told, okay, this year will be science because in my state, fifth grade is a tested area for science and we have no curriculum.

Eric Cross (04:04):

Ryan, keep doing what you’re doing big bro. Second, thank you to every teacher who’s had a Google Drive folder full of curriculum that you graciously shared to a new teacher or someone else that they could have.

Lauran Woolley (04:18):

Can we just say like, can schools, like schools, please get your teacher’s science curriculums.

Eric Cross (04:24):

No, absolutely right. And there is this way of thinking that, especially as a science teacher, it’s something that is dear to my heart, but we do want to develop these math and English skills that’s important and we need that for science. But we’ve always taught so siloed for so long, but that’s not the way that we learn and that’s not the way life works. Something that intrigued me about what you said, and I think a lot of people can relate to it, and I know I can because that was me, is you created your own content or your science content. Like you’re kind of piecing that together from what Ryan had shared with you. How do you make time for that with all of the other things that you’re doing and pressures of state testing and things like that. Like how do you weave that into your teaching?

Lauran Woolley (05:02):

So we have like things that are non-negotiable in our schedules. Like we have to have so many minutes of this, so many minutes of that, so many minutes of whatever else. Well, the first year, I was self-contained. I was like, okay, my main goal, because science is a tested area, I wanna make sure that I get in science every single day, 90% of the time I’m able to get anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes of science every day. But this year it was my goal to make sure that I was getting science done and like we were doing meaningful lessons. And last year I didn’t do this, but this year I’m doing a Christmas center for STEM. So I got it off of Teachers Pay Teachers. I’m sorry, I can’t remember who it was made by, but it’s called Jingle All the Way and it’s like building Santa’s new sleigh. And so like the kids have an activity where they have popsicle sticks, straws, a plastic cup and then like tape. And they have to build a new sleigh for Santa and see how many pennies their sleigh can hold. Like talk about a sleigh being lightweight but also strong and like what would make it strong and different things like that. So I’ve been trying to incorporate a lot more STEM activities. And then something I really like to use for experiment days, I call them lab days, is Gizmo. Have you heard of Gizmo?

Eric Cross (06:15):

Yeah. The simulations.

Lauran Woolley (06:16):

Yeah. My brother showed me that too and he was using it in his class. I mean there’s so many different ones that they have that align with the standards and they have like student lab sheets that go with them and teacher guides and stuff. I’ve just been trying to like up my game a little bit more this year, because last year I was like struggling to get all of the standards in before state testing came around because, can we agree, state testing should not be as early as it is? Our state test happens in like March and we have two months of school left. So like, we better be done with standards by February so we could review, because otherwise we’re kind of outta luck because we run outta time.

Eric Cross (06:59):

Yes. That and there’s all kinds of other things that state testing brings with it that we could spend a lot of time probably critiquing and talking about like as far as what’s ideal for kids and what’s the best way to measure and assess learning. That is one question I wanna ask you though, because I know with your work on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, you must be connected to a pretty vast teacher network and maybe you have like, kinda like more of an inner circle of people, but you must come across so many different perspectives and get into great discussions. Is there <laugh>, is there anything that kind of stands out to you as far as if you were in charge of what we’re doing? Because that’s kind of the system that we all live in and we kind of are trying to internally change it, but it’s been that way for a long time and we just kind of have to work within it until we can make changes. But if you were to, I dunno from an elementary school perspective, change or modify the way kids are learning, what would you do if you had Monarch ability?

Lauran Woolley (07:54):

Okay, I got three main things I’m thinking in my head. Okay, first things first, we got Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Okay. If kids are coming to school hungry, if they’re coming to school and don’t have, you know, fresh clothing to put on, if they’re coming to school and they have issues at home that they are dealing with, that they are not okay with, the learning is not happening. That’s secondary. They don’t, it doesn’t matter to them. It doesn’t matter to me because what’s most important is that child as a human being and whether or not they’re okay. If I had unlimited resources, I would love to be able to build like a little mini village inside a school and have like a clothing store that kids could grab stuff from. Or like a, you know how I know how school have like closets and food pantries, but like a real place they could get some new clothes, not like hand-me-down clothes, like a store they could go and grab some food if they needed food for their homes or whatever. We have like an onsite counselor but not like a school counselor, like a therapist-type counselor for like mental health. Having some kind of like health clinic, not just like a school nurse because, let’s be real, our school nurses see everything <laugh> and they do not get enough credit, but like to have like a little like urgent care clinic, like basically a small town <laugh> inside a school that like kids would have all of the resources that they need met. Like that would be my number one thing that I would love to do. I have taught in, you know, I’ve only taught in two different schools, but like I’ve seen a lot of things and the number one thing that keeps coming back is just like home lives and mental health and having someone to talk to.

Lauran Woolley (09:41):

And I think our kids don’t have enough of that. Second of all, would be obviously state testing. Because I mean, it’s good to see like where our kids are at. I don’t think it should be used punitively and I don’t think that it should be putting as much pressure on teachers and students the way that it is. It’s not effective that way at all. Let teachers do their jobs without us having to, like, ’cause honestly, who’s not gonna say that they’re not trying to set their students up to do the best on that test. Our evaluation depends on it. I’m gonna make sure my students are prepared for it. I’m gonna teach all the standards, but like, I shouldn’t have to be teaching so that they could do well on a test. I wanna make sure that they’re ready for the real world and I wanna make sure that they’re able to apply these things that I’m teaching them in their life, not on a multiple choice test. Third of all, <laugh>.

Eric Cross (10:33):

This, this is great. And I think a lot of teachers will listen and be like, “That’s what I’m talking about right there.” Keep going. You’re on three.

Lauran Woolley (10:40):

That would be two teachers in every classroom. Either two teachers in each room or like a teacher and a paraprofessional in each room, because there’s not even an argument that teachers are more effective when they have help.

Eric Cross (10:54):

I would even carry the math on further and say that it’s a force multiplier, like exponentially, that it’s not just, it’s not just like a one plus one equals two teachers. It’s almost like you can almost have like three or four just because of the energy and the synergy that can be created between the two. And you can push off of each other, encourage one another and both support different types of students. So I agree a hundred percent. I think that if you had two teachers that were in sync and planning together and talking about kids all of the time, you would be able to go deeper with students. You’d be able to find out those things that you talked about in Maslow’s because sometimes we don’t find out about it until a parent-teacher conference or kids left our classroom. I wish I would’ve known that. The student was without these things in the very beginning.

Lauran Woolley (11:41):

Absolutely. Mm-hmm.

Eric Cross (11:42):

So when do you start in the school and do we go on LinkedIn to sign up and apply or is it like a lottery system? Like, ’cause you know, I was gonna get a lot of attention.

Lauran Woolley (11:52):

I would love to Oprah Winfrey this and like build my own school <laugh>.

Eric Cross (11:56):

We gotta get those followers up. We gotta build up the sponsorships. We gotta get you up to a hundred million.

Lauran Woolley (12:01):

Listen, if all of my followers across all my platforms donated like $2, we could have $12 million to build a school. <laugh>.

Eric Cross (12:10):

Think about like, DonorsChoose, right? People do that. And I know there’s mixed feelings about it because we need stuff in our classroom. I’m just gonna say that. All right. So, whether I have to ask for it on a website or whatever, but people want to give directly to kids, or people who need it. And I think when there’s opportunities like that, that are visible, people are more likely to want to.

Lauran Woolley (12:29):

In reality, should other people have to fund education in classrooms? No. That’s literally what your taxes are for. A government-funded classroom versus a teacher-funded classroom are two different things. And we know that. But if teachers are asking for things or asking for donations on Amazon or on DonorsChoose, just know in your heart that that teacher has probably already shelled out a lot of their own cash to do that. It’s not that they’re, you know, asking for handouts or anything like that. They’re trying to give their students the best that they can and that’s the thought process behind it. And until we get changes in our education system or changes in legislature that will allow us to do that or will allow classroom budgets, I mean, our hands are tied. Like there’s only so much teachers can do. I’m very fortunate to teach in a district that sees the value in spending money on their teachers and students. And, like my school, like I said, they just shelled out thousands of dollars on a new math curriculum. They bought school supplies. Literally every teacher made their school supply list this year. And then the district went in and paid for every single student’s school supplies in the entire district.

Eric Cross (13:49):

Can we get a shout out to your district real quick?

Lauran Woolley (13:51):

Uh, yeah. I mean, shout out Leetonia schools like, I mean, you guys are awesome and I’ll shout that from the rooftops. I love where I teach. Like I really do think that they value our students and they care about our students and our admin is great. We got a new superintendent a couple years ago. He’s been doing a phenomenal job and I really love it and I’m glad I teach there.

Eric Cross (14:12):

When you move out of the classroom, you know, in any position of leadership, you do have the microscope or magnifying glass on you and a lot of times it’s critical. And not unjustifiably so, I mean, there’s a lot of things that can be critiqued. However, what we don’t always hear is the success stories or where it’s working for teachers and why. And we need leaders to be able to talk to each other and find, “Hey, it’s working in your district? Oh, I just heard, I just heard this district get shot out. I’m gonna go reach out to those people. Hey, what are you doing?” Because we connect with each other, but I think when you go like a level up, that kind of getting up the top of the mountain, the, the connection sometimes can become more difficult for people. There’s not a lot of, I don’t know, maybe there are, but admin influencers.

Lauran Woolley (14:54):

Oh yeah, there definitely are. And I’ve met some really incredible ones. I’m on a committee at my school, it’s called NNPS, it’s the National Network of Partnership Schools. It was started out of Ohio State University. Essentially it is a committee in the school that’s dedicated to bringing together the community and businesses and partnering with people to make our school as strong as it can be. We started last year and we did a bear breakfast, ’cause our mascot is a bear. And we had Christmas things and we had the choir caroling, and we had pancake breakfast for everybody and it was completely free. It was just really nice to see everybody come together. And it feels like the culture changes when people work together and come together for the betterment of the school and for the students. And I think what’s challenging is that so many people have such a negative experience from their schooling that they’re hesitant to get involved in their kids’ schooling. I urge any parents out there, any guardians out there that are, you know, in that mindset where you’re like, I didn’t like my teachers in school, or I had this, this, this and happened to me at school. Give it a chance to know that things have changed and things are changing.

Eric Cross (16:11):

I definitely agree with you about parent engagement and getting involved and sometimes parents, they just don’t know that they should. But wow, your voice is so powerful, especially at board meetings and things like that. Getting stakeholders involved, creating community, which it sounds like your school did a great job or your district did a great job of. The last question I wanna ask you, and it’s kind of going back to who your influencer was, is you now are in a position where your impact exceeds more than, you know. You’re planting so many seeds you’re sharing, and you’ll hear maybe a few, or I’m sure you’ll hear the things that kind of come back to you, but that’s only a fraction. But I wanted to ask you, like, as you think back on your career as an educator or when you were in school K through five or K through 12, is there anyone who stands out to you or who was maybe your influencer or teacher who made a big difference that was memorable? And if so, who was it and what was it about them or what did they do?

Lauran Woolley (17:01):

So I had a lot of teachers that I really had good relationships with and I loved school growing up. But one always stood out in particular, and that was my ninth grade English teacher and her name is Andrea Reid. She was the first person who really told me that I was talented at something and that I could succeed in something because she was the English teacher. She was also a coach of the speech and debate team at my high school. Just one day after school. She was like, “Hey, like you should come to speech tryouts.” So I went to tryouts, like I did it not thinking like I cared if I made it or didn’t, and then I made the team. And honestly, I feel like speech was the starting point of all of it. I competed in speech and debate for four years of high school and she was my coach.

Lauran Woolley (17:49):

I always have horrible nervousness with public speaking, even though I do it a lot. And she would always give me like the best hype speeches and the best confidence boosters. And I feel like speech started my love of acting and started my love of like, you know, comedy and stuff like that. And so therefore TikTok happened and I don’t think any of this would’ve happened had it not been for her and her opening that door for me and telling me, “Hey, you would be good at this. You should try it.” We’re still friends to this day, 15 years later, and she is like an older sister to me and I love it.

Eric Cross (18:26):

That’s amazing. Andrea Reed, that’s her name.

Lauran Woolley (18:28):

Andrea, yep.

Eric Cross (18:29):

Andrea. Andrea Reid. Ms. Reid, thank you, for inspiring Lauran and <laugh> because of your impact, now it’s impacting so many others and as teachers, like, we don’t even, we don’t know, but it’s so humbling to know that like the words that we say to people have that impact and power. It’s so, it’s, it’s so inspiring to me. One of the things that resonate with you so much is your transparency. Like in your depth. Like even as just listening to you talk, you normalize and humanize so many things that we experience and I’m sure that’s what a lot of the people that watch you connect with. You show your life, your family, your house, all these things that are happening. And I was just looking through the comments and there’s just so many people that are warmed. Not just your students, but like so many teachers. So thank you for doing what you’re doing and I wish you tremendous success. Thank you for your time.

Lauran Woolley (19:17):

No, thank you so much for having me. This was awesome. I just wish everybody a great school year and I hope that we all make it through winter break. <laugh>.

Eric Cross (19:27):

Thanks so much for listening to this season of Science Connections. I love learning about science educators just like you. You can nominate educators that inspire you to become a future guest on Science Connections by emailing STEM@amplify.com. That’s S T E M at amplifycom.wpengine.com. Make sure to click subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and tune in for a brand new season of Science Connections coming soon.

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What Lauran Woolley says about science

“I want to make sure they’re ready for the real world and I want to make sure they’re ready to apply these things I’m teaching them in their life, not just on a multiple choice test.”

– Lauran Woolley

5th Grade Teacher, Northeast Ohio

Meet the guest

Lauran Woolley is a fifth grade teacher in Northeast Ohio. She has loved being able to combine her love of education and entertainment into one career. Her goal is not only to humanize educators to both families and students, but to create a safe space for her students on the internet. She has had the privilege of collaborating with educators around the world to shed a light on this amazing career. You can listen and watch the Teachers Off Duty podcast here!

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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 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

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!

You might also like:

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Check out Shad’s website!

Check out Shad’s website!

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Earn CE Credit! Free Coding Webinar

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

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Math Teacher Lounge

Looking for ways to support students in problem-solving? Check out the Amplify’s…

Amplify Desmos Math for Baltimore County Public Schools

Welcome, Baltimore City community!

Amplify Desmos Math is a new, curiosity-driven program that supports teachers in building their students’ math proficiency for life. On this site, you’ll find a variety of resources to guide you in learning more about what Amplify Desmos Math has to offer.

Jump to preview lessons

About the program

Amplify Desmos Math makes it easy for both teachers and students to make the shift to a problem-based approach by providing captivating activities, powerful teacher-facilitation tools, and lots of support for differentiation and practice.

We’ve combined interactive problem-based lessons with explicit instruction, reinforcement, and practice to enable students to develop math proficiency that lasts. Lessons set a strong foundation in procedural and fact fluency, deepen understanding of concepts, and enable students to apply learning to real-world tasks.

Amplify Desmos Math will be available for 2025–26 school year implementation. Interested districts can pilot the Beta release starting fall 2024.

Structured approach to problem-based learning

  • Differentiation and personalized practice
  • Easy-to-follow instructional guidance
  • Robust assessments and reports
  • Spanish student materials

Math that motivates

  • Powerful teacher-facilitation supports and tools
  • Students talking and building from each other’s ideas 
  • Every lesson has fully compatible print and digital materials for a collaborative classroom

Student thinking is made evident

  • Curiosity-driven lessons that motivate students with interesting problems they are eager to solve
  • Explicit guidance for teachers on what to look for and how to respond
  • Technology that provides Responsive Feedback and is designed to reveal mathematical thinking

Figuring out Problem-Based Learning

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.

In the short videos below, Fawn Nguyen (Math Teaching and Learning Team, Former Math Coach and Teacher) and John Hoogestraat (Math Product Specialist, Former Math Coach and Teacher) share their thoughts about the power of Amplify Desmos Math.

Scope and sequence

Click the links below to view the program scope and sequence for grades K–5 and for grade 6–Algebra 1.

Grades K-5
Grades 6-A1

Start your digital review

Amplify Desmos Math expands on Desmos Math 6–A1 (which received all-green ratings from EdReports) with beautiful print resources, and robust practice, differentiation supports, assessment and reporting. Read the review on EdReports.

To review Desmos Math 6–A1 lessons click the orange button below, then click “Sign In” and use the following login credentials:

Email: desmos-program+BCPS@amplify.com
Password: Desmos1

Review now

Preview lessons

Check out the links below to explore our interactive digital lessons, as well as preview pages from the Teacher Editions and Student Editions. Watch our quick walkthrough video for tips on navigating our lesson resources.

In addition to the sample lessons below, you can view a sampler of Amplify Desmos Math 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.

Grade 1, Unit 3, Lesson 15: 10-frames and Towers

Grade 2, Unit 1, Lesson 3: Ways to Make 10

Grade 5, Unit 1, Lesson 3: Cube Figures

Grade 5, Unit 7, Lesson 7: Bullseye!

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Grade 6, Unit 6, Lesson 16: Subway Fares

Grade 7, Unit 6, Lesson 14: Unbalanced Hangers

Grade 8, Unit 4, Lesson 4: More Balanced Moves

Algebra 1, Unit 2, Lesson 6: Shelley the Snail

Looking for 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: (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.

Ready to learn more?

Sign up to be among the first to preview Amplify Desmos Math.

Desmos Math 6–A1 is available now for Texas classrooms!

Brought to you by the team behind Desmos Classroom activities, Desmos Math 6–A1 is available for grades 6–8 now, with Algebra 1 units rolling out over the course of the 2022–2023 school year.

Join a webinar Request a free trial
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What’s Desmos Math
6–A1?

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Available in English and Spanish!

TEKS-aligned lessons that help students express their brilliance every day

Every student is brilliant, but not every student feels brilliant in math class. We designed our program to put students’ ideas at its center. Our lessons pose problems that invite a variety of approaches, and our technology helps teachers celebrate and develop all of that interesting thinking in their classrooms.

A blend of paper and technology meets the needs of Texas classrooms

Leveraging our expertise in technology, pedagogy, and design, we based Desmos Math 6–A1 on the top-rated programs from Illustrative Mathematics® and Open Up Resources to create dynamic and interactive digital learning experiences, offered alongside flexible and creative print activities.

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Powerful facilitation tools for teachers

Our student-centered lessons empower students to explore new ideas, and our teacher dashboard helps teachers bridge those ideas together. Whether teachers are observing student learning on our lesson summary page or guiding productive discussions with our conversation toolkit, our facilitation tools make teaching more effective and more fun.

Built-in resources support Texas teachers and students

Desmos Math 6–A1 provides powerful resources teachers need to prepare their students for STAAR and beyond. Better yet, students are provided with an opportunity to practice with the same tools they’ll use on the STAAR exam!

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TEKS objectives are identified for each lesson at point of use

Both ‘Addressing’ and ‘Building Towards’ TEKS are identified making it easy for teachers to see exactly what students are learning and what is ahead.

What are people saying?

“I have been a teacher for 23 years and this is the most engaged I have seen students in a mathematics classroom.”

Rebecca Moore

Math Coach, Naugatuck, CT

What are people saying?

“If you’re teaching math and not utilizing Desmos, you may as well be climbing a mountain with your hands tied behind your back.”

Mike Del Greco

Math Teacher, Sudbury, MA

What are people saying?

“Every lesson that I preview, I fall in love a little more ❤ thank you for this work and thank you for reflecting and listening to the feedback!”

Jenny Ainslie

Secondary Math Facilitator, Orange County, NC

Try a warm-up activity from Desmos Math 6-A1

Students’ ideas are the engine of our lessons. Their sketches power simulations and their mathematical thinking powers classroom conversations. In this lesson about functions, teachers help students make connections between scenarios and the graphs that represent them. Interact with a warm-up activity below!

Want to learn more?

Request more information

Contact us

What are the results?

We surveyed 70 teachers and 1,500 students who piloted our program, asking them to compare it to their prior program. Here’s what they shared with us…

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DM6-A1_CurriculumMigration_Chart-StudentsLearn-Update

Students learn more math

We design student-centered lessons that promote mathematical curiosity and student engagement, building on the coherence and rigor of the Illustrative Mathematics program. Each unit includes student notes, skill practices, and rich assessments to help students show what they know and can do.

The result: Students and teachers in the pilot both said that students learned more with Desmos Math 6–A1 than with their prior program.

Students enjoy math more

We help students experience the need for new mathematical ideas, and our interactive feedback shows them the value of their own thinking.

The result: Teachers in the pilot said their students were more engaged using Desmos Math 6–A1 than in their prior program, and students reported enjoying math class more.

DM6-A1_CurriculumMigration_Chart-StudentsEnjoy-Update
DM6-A1_CurriculumMigration_Chart

Teachers enjoy teaching more

We pair your entire teaching team with a dedicated coach who will support your team’s onboarding and instruction throughout the year. Additionally, we offer just-in-time lesson preview emails, unit overview webinars, and other supports to help your team succeed.

The result: Teachers in the pilot felt better supported with Desmos Math 6–A1 than with their prior program.

Questions?

Please reach out to
texas@amplify.com

Contact us

Our K–12 international education programs inspire students around the world.

At Amplify, we believe that every teacher and student deserves access to high-quality materials. That’s why we collaborate with international schools to meet their core curriculum, assessment, and intervention needs.

By providing solutions grounded in research and evidence-based practices, Amplify is making an impact on international K–12 education.

We are making an impact around the globe.

6

continents

80+

countries

900+

schools worldwide

700,000+

students globally

Amplify international education programs

The following programs are available internationally.

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Core curriculum

STEM

Literacy

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Assessment and Intervention

STEM

Literacy

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Supplemental

STEM

Literacy

Amplify professional learning

From live, in-person training and coaching to online courses and virtual professional development, we offer a range of support to fit schools’ needs and educators’ busy schedules. Professional development offerings include the following:

  • Launch sessions
  • Strengthen sessions
  • Coach sessions
  • Custom packages
Learn more
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Custom development

We collaborate with governments and government agencies to localize and customize our high-quality instructional materials to ensure they align with specific education standards and frameworks.

Get in touch with our sales team to discuss how we can help your organization.

License our digital tools.

Explore Amplify’s digital tools and how they can make your programs more engaging and digital-forward.

Publishers can license the Amplify teaching and learning digital platform, which offers robust digital functionality—including digital manipulatives—that can transform print-based instructional programs into interactive, collaborative, and engaging digital experiences for teachers and students.

If you want to use our platform for commercial purposes, please contact our team.

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Amplify international education support

Amplify aims to provide the best customer support throughout each stage of your journey, whether you are exploring our programs for the first time or are a long-term partner.

Below, you’ll find a quick guide on the international purchase process and expected timelines.

Simple steps to get your order processed quickly:

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To ensure that there are no delays, we advise you to place your order 3–4 months prior to your first day of school. This should allow enough time for shipping and digital set up.

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Purchasing

Our international sales team can answer your questions about our programs and services. Please fill out the form to speak with your account executive.

FILL OUT FORM

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Ordering and payment

We want your purchasing experience to be as seamless as possible. Visit our customer portal to learn more about your payment options.

Please be sure to include:

  • A signed PO. Don’t forget to add your PO number.
  • A copy of your Price Quote.
  • A copy of your Tax-Exemption Certificate.

GO TO CUSTOMER PORTAL

You can also email your documents to IncomingPO@amplify.com.

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Shipping physical materials

  • Submit your logistics and product quantities on the Order Management Page (OMP).
  • Track shipment(s) with the Shipment Status Page (SSP).
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Enrollment and licensing

Please note that our team needs to review your school’s rosters for accuracy and completeness:

  • This process can take up to 12 business days.
  • You will be notified when the licensing process is complete!

Frequently asked questions

Payment processing time can vary, depending on chosen payment method, as well as banking institution. Please allow at least 10 business days for it to be processed. For additional support contact internationalsalessuport@amplify.com.

For digital licenses, you will need to submit your digital logistics information, which includes your school’s rosters data. Our technical onboarding team then needs to verify it for accuracy and completeness. (They might contact you, should they need any clarification.) The digital setup process can take up to four weeks to be completed. For help along the way, please use our Amplify Onboarding Hub.

To avoid delays, please submit your logistics information and product quantities on the Order Management Page as early as possible. Note that international shipping time varies from one country to another due to many factors, including different customs procedures. We are therefore unable to estimate and guarantee delivery time in each case. Amplify offers two international shipping options: 1. Your materials can be shipped from the U.S. directly to you, which will incur an international shipping and handling fee of 25% on the physical products ordered. 2. Alternatively, Amplify can ship your materials to a U.S. freight forwarder, and you can manage the shipping.

Note that setup communications will be sent to the contact person listed on the quote. This email is sometimes routed to the spam folder, so please check there as well. If you do not receive a link within five business days, please reach out to the customer care and support team.

Get support

Our dedicated team members will assist you with purchasing, order fulfillment, enrollment and licensing, and more!

Our support hours are Monday through Friday,
11 a.m.–11 p.m. GMT.

An orange outline of an envelope on the left accompanies the words "Contact Us" in black text on the right, inviting inquiries about how we amplify education through our international K-12 curriculum.

New to our programs? Our international sales support team is here to help!

Email us: 

internationalsalessupport@amplify.com

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Already a customer but don’t have a login yet?

Open a support case.

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If you already have your login details:

Access our chat live with our support team.

VISIT AMPLIFY HELP CENTER

International events

Join us for an upcoming event, webinar, or podcast. You can browse all of our events by month, or use the filter to find events close to you.

GO TO EVENTS PAGE

Ready to learn more?

Fill out this form and we’ll be in touch with you shortly.

From Gaps to Growth: Supporting Students in Mathematics

Register now

Tuesday, 1pm UTC

Every student brings valuable ideas and prior knowledge to math class. This session shows how warm-ups and instructional routines help teachers uncover what students already know, spark curiosity, and turn gaps into opportunities for growth.

Discover how problem-based learning fosters collaboration and builds the confidence students need to see themselves as mathematicians.

Joining us will be Alyssa Strickland, math teacher and coach at the International School of Prague. She’ll share her classroom experiences with problem-based learning and insights on how it drives student engagement and lasting understanding.

Join our User Research Community!

Help shape Amplify products.

Educators and students are at the center of what we do. That’s why we test our products with real users, visit classrooms across the country, and gather ideas and feedback from educators like you! This is how we ensure that we’re developing new products that meet your needs, as well as continuously improving our existing products to better support your classrooms.

That’s where our User Research Community comes in. This is a group of valued educators we look to for their expertise! They regularly participate in research and feedback opportunities and share their insights with our Product teams.

We hope you’ll consider joining Amplify’s User Research Community. When we have a study that’s a good fit for you, our team will reach out with details and next steps.

Sign Up
A person is using a tablet, immersed in progress and analytics data graphics on a white and orange backdrop, reminiscent of tools often employed by school administrators.

Why participate in user research?

Make an impact

Help influence and improve Amplify products by sharing your feedback and ideas

Get sneak peeks

Learn about new products and features that Amplify teams are working on

Connect with us

Share your thoughts and feedback directly with Amplify product development teams

Enjoy thank-you gifts

Receive incentives as a thank you for your time

What to expect

When you sign up to join the Amplify User Research Community, we’ll ask you some questions that will help us match you with research studies. When an opportunity sounds like a good fit, we’ll send you an email and share the details up front, such as study topic, research format, time commitment, and compensation. Then, you can decide if you’d like to participate.

A person in a shirt and tie, possibly a school administrator, reviews documents at a desk. Inset is an image of the "User Research Community Questionnaire," perhaps focusing on insights from K-12 teachers.
Three people from the research community collaborate with digital devices, including a tablet and a laptop, fervently discussing their findings.

Frequently asked questions

Sign Up

We’re looking for all types of educators to join our User Research Community: new Amplify users, power users, and everyone in between. We’re also looking for people who don’t use our products. If you work in a school setting or support schools, we want to hear from you. Here are some of the people we’d love to connect with:

  • Classroom teachers (PreK–12)
  • Biliteracy teachers
  • Special education teachers
  • Interventionists
  • Coaches
  • Curriculum directors
  • School administrators
  • District administrations
  • Parents and caregivers

We have a separate research program for K–12 students. Learn more about our Playtesting program below.

Amplify runs a variety of research studies, and we’ll include the details of the study in our email. When you participate in one of our studies, you might be invited to:

  • Talk to a researcher in a video call: Share your experiences with a specific product.
  • Share your screen: Show us how you use Amplify’s products, try out a prototype, or test new features.
  • Complete a survey: Answer questions about your current practices and/or preferences.
  • Host a school visit: Have a few Amplify employees visit your classroom to observe our programs in action.
  • Participate in a long-form study: These studies may involve a small commitment for several days or over a few weeks. You may be asked to review new materials or designs or to try something out in your classroom. Our researchers may ask you to respond to questions or take notes based on your experience using a product.

The information you provide will only be used to match you with suitable research studies and won’t be shared or sold to external parties. All data is stored on a secure server. See our Privacy Policy for more detail.

Amplify’s goal is to design welcoming product experiences. To do this well, it’s important for us to get feedback from everyone. We collect demographic information to help ensure that study participants represent the educators, students, and school environments we serve. All questions are optional and your information is kept confidential in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

You can opt out at any time by clicking unsubscribe in any of our research emails.

We typically offer e-gift cards as a way of saying thank you to those who participate in our research studies. We’ll include the exact details of the thank-you gift in the email invitation for the session. If your session is eligible for a thank-you gift card, you should receive it within five business days after completing your session. Please note that not all study participants will receive a thank-you gift.

Amplify Playtesting Program

A fun and empowering experience for kids

Students in our Playtesting Program provide feedback on new Amplify games and features as they’re being developed. Our researchers work one-on-one with students for 30 minutes at a time, inviting them to interact with new games and designs and gathering their feedback. We then integrate that feedback directly into our product development. It’s a chance for students to share their thoughts and ideas and have a real impact on the programs we’re building.

A girl wearing headphones smiles while using a laptop, surrounded by illustrations of a building and a house. A colorful creature dances nearby, reminiscent of the creative tools K-12 teachers use to inspire young minds.

Who can participate?
Any students in kindergarten through grade 12 this school year can be part of our playtesting program, with parental permission.

What are the perks?
Aside from a fun time and a sneak peek at what’s in development, all students receive a $20 Amazon gift card for participating in a playtesting session.

When, where, and how do kids participate?
When playtesting needs arise, our User Research team will reach out to parents/caregivers to schedule a Google Meet session at a time that’s convenient for you and your child.

How can I sign my child up?
To enroll your student, please fill out this consent form. Your child will then be added to our playtesting program database. When a playtesting opportunity arises that we think would be a good fit, we’ll reach out!

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.
Contact Us
Two women are seated at a table with laptops and papers, engaging in a discussion about program implementation in a classroom or meeting setting.

Professional learning journey

Four connected circular icons illustrating a business process: idea generation, planning, execution, and achievement, depicted with relevant symbols.
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.

Two women smiling and looking at a laptop in a classroom. One woman is wearing a striped shirt and the other a black top. Classroom decor is visible in the background.

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.
Three people stand in front of a whiteboard with colorful sticky notes, engaging in professional development for teachers as they discuss ideas and collaborate using a tablet and a laptop.

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.

A boy kneels and reads a book near stacked books, while a girl stands with folded arms; both observe a mobile with colorful shapes and letters, reflecting elements of classroom instruction inspired by the Science of Reading.

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.

A child points at large outlined letters on a board with a pointer stick, next to a stack of books—capturing an engaging moment in classroom instruction.

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.

Three people in lab coats stand around a lab table with test tubes and a flask, engaging in classroom instruction as they discuss and gesture to each other.

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.

Two children are seated at a small table in a classroom. Engaged in classroom instruction, the girl is writing in a notebook while the boy reads a book. Colorful storage bins are visible in the background, enhancing the learning environment

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.

Contact us to request a quote.

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.

Contact us to request a quote.

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.

Contact us to request a quote.

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.

Contact us to request a quote.

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.

Prepare Professional Development (PD)

Learning experiences to prepare for literacy and math instructional shifts

The following literacy and math sessions are designed to support all educators—regardless of the program used—in enhancing their instructional practices.

  • Sessions devoted to Science of Reading offer research-based strategies to deepen understanding that support students’ reading development.
  • Sessions focusing on a problem-based approach to math empower educators to facilitate meaningful learning experiences and foster critical thinking skills in their students.
  • Sessions supporting multilingual/English learners enable educators to make a meaningful impact on students’ multiliteracy development.
Contact us
An open book with stars on the left and a math-themed scene with numbers and shapes on the right, separated by a circular sync icon in the center.

Professional learning journey

Four circular icons in sequence—a lightbulb, pencil, whiteboard, and podium—are linked by arrows, illustrating professional learning steps ideal for professional development for teachers or Science of Reading initiatives.
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.

A chart outlining nine Science of Reading principles is shown, with a note to prepare for a virtual session and an estimated time of 90 minutes.

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.
A graphic outlines elements of early reading, showing how skills like vocabulary and reasoning support language comprehension and word recognition; “3 hours” is noted for session duration.

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 courses

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—each course spans 25–30 hours of instruction and is accessible for 12 months. Upon completion, you’ll be provided with a downloadable certificate, validating your new expertise in the Science of Reading.

A boy kneels and reads a book near stacked books, while a girl stands with folded arms; both observe a mobile with colorful shapes and letters, reflecting elements of classroom instruction inspired by the Science of Reading.

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.

A child points at large outlined letters on a board with a pointer stick, next to a stack of books—capturing an engaging moment in classroom instruction.

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.

Three people in lab coats stand around a lab table with test tubes and a flask, engaging in classroom instruction as they discuss and gesture to each other.

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.

Explore the scope and sequence of Applied structured literacy with our Pacing Guide.

Access the free Preview Pass for this course.

“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

Sessions supporting multiliterate learners

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.

Graphic showing speech bubbles with "Hello!" and "¡Hola!" and text reading "Prepare: Virtual session" and "90 minutes.

Build your knowledge of multilingual/English learners

Virtual | 90-minute session

This session provides educators with a foundational overview of how to teach multiliterate learners using evidence-based literacy practices.

Contact us to request a quote.

Graphic showing text bubbles with "¡Hola!" and "Hello!" and a note indicating to prepare for an on-site or virtual session lasting 3 hours.

Deepen your knowledge of multilingual/English 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.

Contact us to request a quote.

Sessions focusing on a problem-based approach to math instruction

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 graphic showing steps for a virtual learning session: Warm-Up, Activities, Synthesis, and Reinforce, with a progress bar and "90 minutes" indicated.

Build your knowledge of a problem-based approach for grades K–5 or 6–8

Virtual | 90-minute session

This session provides you with a foundational overview of what an engaging problem-based approach in math entails.

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.

Contact us to request a quote.

Screenshot of a math practice activity showing an equation with blocks, a table to fill in values, and a note indicating a 3-hour preparation for on-site or virtual sessions.

Deepen your knowledge of a problem-based approach for grades K–5 or 6–8

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.

Contact us to request a quote.

Get in touch with a PD expert

The promise of Next Generation Science Standards

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and other state standards like them, represent more than just new expectations—they embody a transformative vision for science education. Instead of asking students to memorize isolated facts, NGSS calls for students to think like scientists and engineers while grappling with real-world phenomena that matter to them and their communities.

This shift from learning about to figuring out develops the critical-thinking skills and problem-solving mindset students need to tackle complex challenges throughout their lives.

Two children wearing safety goggles conduct an NGSS-inspired science experiment at a table, mixing substances in clear plastic cups with plastic spoons.

Three-dimensional (3D) learning that engages and inspires

Two girls conduct a science experiment in a classroom, holding a clear cup with water and a straw, while observing and taking notes at their desks.

At the heart of NGSS lies three-dimensional learning, where Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs), and Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) work together to create rich, meaningful learning experiences.

Science and Engineering Practices are the approaches and habits of real scientists and engineers: asking questions, developing models, planning investigations, and constructing evidence-based explanations and arguments. Working with these practices awakens student curiosity, drives student-centered learning, encourages deep and critical thinking, and creates opportunities for students to articulate their understanding in a variety of meaningful ways. 

Crosscutting Concepts are the big-picture thinking tools that scientists use every day. When students use Crosscutting Concepts as a lens to examine common themes in science such as patterns, cause and effect, systems, and energy, they begin to identify and connect science ideas across disciplines.

Disciplinary Core Ideas represent the essential knowledge of science. Students figure out these science ideas through their investigation of real-world scientific phenomena, and consequently develop deep understandings of science ideas.

The student experience: from passive to passionate

Four children sit at a classroom table examining a small object together, surrounded by open notebooks and colorful classroom decorations.

In three-dimensional science learning, students become active investigators, gathering evidence from multiple sources and constructing increasingly sophisticated scientific arguments and models about real-world phenomena. They engage in evidence-based debates, collaborate on engineering challenges, and make connections between their investigations and their own communities, as well as the world beyond. See it in action.

An adult and a child sit cross-legged on the floor in a classroom, reading a book together. The classroom setting includes chairs, tables, and colorful decorations.

The literacy-rich nature of NGSS instruction means students read, write, speak, and listen like real scientists and engineers, actively questioning, analyzing, and communicating findings. This integrated approach develops both scientific understanding and communication skills—skills that transfer across all subjects and even beyond the classroom.

How Amplify Science delivers as an HQIM curriculum

Amplify Science was built from the ground up to fulfill the NGSS vision and is an HQIM (high-quality instructional materials) curriculum, characterized by the following:

  • All green on EdReports. Amplify Science has been evaluated by EdReports, an independent K–12 curriculum review organization, and received the esteemed all-green rating (“meets expectations”) across all three of its gateways: Alignment to the NGSS, Coherence and Scope, and Usability. Learn more about our all-green rating.
A circular badge with the text "Read the Report" at the top, "EdReports" logo in the center, and "Review Year 2021" at the bottom.
  • The real-world anchor phenomenon is deeply woven throughout each unit as the central thread. In Amplify Science, students assume the role of a real scientist or engineer to investigate a compelling phenomena in K–5 and grades 6–8. Over the course of the unit, they gather and make sense of a variety of evidence sources and develop increasingly sophisticated explanations and models as their understanding deepens. Whether investigating a mysterious fossil discovery as geologists or designing emergency supply delivery pods as mechanical engineers, students experience the kind of work done by real scientists and engineers.  
Two boys wearing safety glasses sit at a classroom table. One holds a cup with a white liquid; the other holds a pencil and notebook. Bulletin boards with colorful labels are in the background.
  • All three dimensions of the NGSS are intentionally and thoughtfully integrated throughout every unit and across all grades. As they built Amplify Science as an HQIM curriculum, the experts at UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science deliberately crafted each unit, chapter, and lesson with the following guiding questions in mind:
    • What do we want students to figure out (specifically, what Disciplinary Core Idea or part of a DCI)? 
    • How do we want them to figure it out (i.e., what Scientific and Engineering Practice will they engage in to reach understanding)? 
    • What Crosscutting Concept can scaffold students’ understanding and connect it to other ideas about the natural world that they have learned? 

This systematic approach ensures that every learning experience is purposefully designed to engage students in authentic scientific thinking while building connections across concepts and grades.

A teacher observes and assists a group of four students working on a science activity at a classroom table.
  • Educators receive comprehensive implementation support. Through lesson-planning resources, science background materials, built-in assessments, and expert coaching—all provided directly through Amplify—teachers are able to confidently implement the program’s NGSS-aligned, high-quality instructional curriculum with greater ease and success. 
Two women sitting at a table looking down at documents, appearing focused and engaged in discussion or review.
  • Multimodal learning experiences support all learners. Amplify Science ensures that everyone can access scientific concepts through the Do, Talk, Read, Write, Visualize multimodal approach that includes hands-on investigations, digital simulations, collaborative discussions, and literacy-rich activities. 
Two boys work together at a desk with a laptop and notebooks, while other students sit and work in the background.
Bar chart comparing percent growth in three skills—reading comprehension, science vocabulary, and science content knowledge—for “Business as usual” vs. “Amplify Science,” aligned with NGSS standards.

Ready to transform your science instruction with an HQIM curriculum?

Please contact your sales representative today, or download a sample unit to experience three-dimensional learning firsthand. Your future scientists, engineers, and citizens of the world are waiting!

Explore a unit

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The power of high-quality instructional materials for K–8 science

A teacher helps two young students with a classroom activity involving small craft sticks at a table, demonstrating how to teach reading comprehension using engaging hands-on methods ideal for k-5 reading comprehension.

Simply put, quality teaching means quality learning. But there is another key part of the equation: quality curriculum.

Research confirms that the instructional materials used in classrooms play a powerful role in shaping how teachers teach, and how students learn.

Shifting from low-quality or pieced-together materials to well-designed, high-quality instructional materials can significantly improve student achievement. This growing evidence—sometimes described as “the curriculum effect”—is one reason that states and districts across the country are paying closer attention to the quality of the materials they adopt.

So what does high-quality instructional materials actually mean? And what does it look like in a real science classroom?

What does HQIM mean in science education?

High-quality instructional materials (often called HQIM) are curriculum materials intentionally designed to support student learning: aligned to rigorous standards, grounded in research, and built to support teachers.

High-quality instructional materials work alongside teachers, shaping instructional practices in ways that reduce guesswork, support consistency, and free up time and energy. This lets teachers do what they do best: interact with students. HQIM provide a coherent system that supports both teaching and learning over time.

And high-quality science curriculum materials go the extra mile, clearly articulating learning goals, providing guidance for facilitation and discussion, and including embedded opportunities to check for understanding. They also support a range of learners by offering scaffolds, differentiation strategies, and multiple ways for students to engage with content.

How HQIM align with NGSS science standards

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) define what students should know and be able to do in science. At their core, these academic standards emphasize three-dimensional learning, integrating science practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts.

In science, HQIM are designed for three-dimensional learning: where students don’t just learn about science, but actively figure out how the natural world works. Three-dimensional learning integrates:

  • Science and engineering practices (what scientists do).
  • Disciplinary core ideas (what scientists know).
  • Crosscutting concepts (how scientific ideas connect).

HQIM are designed from the ground up to weave these dimensions together, rather than adding them on as an afterthought. That coherence helps students build understanding over time, and helps teachers see how each lesson fits into a larger learning story.

What do HQIM look like in a science classroom?

One of the best ways to recognize high-quality instructional content is to look not only at the materials, but also at the students using them.

Instead of memorizing disconnected facts, students taught with HQIM are engaged in the kinds of practices scientists use every day.

In classrooms using HQIM for science, you’ll often see students:

  • Investigating real-world phenomena that spark curiosity.
  • Asking questions, analyzing data, and building explanations.
  • Using evidence from multiple sources—texts, simulations, discussions, and investigations.
  • Revisiting ideas over time to deepen understanding.

“It is so encouraging to hear students engaged in conversation and building their ideas off of one another,” says classroom teacher Sarah Loessl of Big Hollow School District 38 in Illinois. “Students finding the confidence to challenge one another and use evidence to support their thinking is so much fun to watch.”

How HQIM support teachers

A key feature of high-quality instructional materials is that they’re designed by teachers, with teachers in mind.

This means materials that:

  • Clearly articulate learning goals.
  • Provide guidance for facilitation and discussion.
  • Include embedded formative assessment opportunities.
  • Support a range of learners, including multilingual/English learners and students who need additional scaffolds or challenges.

When materials shoulder this heavy lifting, teachers can spend less time creating from scratch and more time engaging with students.

How can teachers start engaging with HQIM?

Even if curriculum adoption decisions happen at the district level, teachers play a critical role in bringing HQIM to life.

Getting familiar with high-quality instructional materials can start with questions like:

  • What are students expected to figure out in this lesson?
  • How does this activity connect to a larger phenomenon or question?
  • Where are students using evidence to explain their thinking?
  • How does the curriculum support discussion, sense-making, and revision of ideas?

Developing a shared understanding of what high-quality science instruction looks like helps everyone—teachers, coaches, and leaders—move in the same direction.

Where does Amplify Science fit in?

Amplify Science is an example of high-quality instructional materials designed specifically for K–8 science and aligned to NGSS science standards.

It’s built around phenomena-based, three-dimensional learning and developed with educators, researchers, and scientists to support both student learning and teacher practice. The goal is coherence, engagement, and understanding that grows over time.

Ready to learn more?

To support educators and leaders in building a shared understanding of HQIM, we’ve created a free science HQIM resource bundle, including:

  • A classroom look-fors checklist.
  • A three-dimensional learning explainer.
  • An NGSS alignment overview.
  • A closer look at the HQIM student experience.
  • Registration for two upcoming webinars focused on HQIM in science.

Whether you’re new to the concept or ready to deepen your practice, these resources are designed to make high-quality instructional materials highly understandable and accessible to all.

Explore the HQIM bundle and upcoming webinars to learn more.

Apply for the 2026 Science of Reading Star Awards!

Two rectangular badges, one orange with a trophy icon and one blue with speech bubble icons, appear against a light background with stars and a yellow ribbon—perfect for celebrating teacher awards or to nominate a teacher for an award in early literacy.

When you look up at the night sky, you see some stars that shine especially bright. They guide travelers, inspire wonder, and illuminate galaxies.

That’s how we think of the literacy educators who champion the Science of Reading. They brighten the path for countless students and light their way to lifelong literacy.

Making the shift to the Science of Reading is no small feat. It requires thoughtful engagement, systematic implementation, and the courage to change long-standing practices. Most importantly, it requires every part of an educational system to work in cosmic alignment for student success.

That’s why the Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards honor outstanding educators, schools, and districts who have transformed their classrooms with the Science of Reading.

We’re excited to celebrate another constellation of remarkable leaders in literacy development—and to invite you to be a part of it.

Leaders in early literacy skills at all levels

Successful Science of Reading implementation happens when everyone is on board. That means: classroom teachers mastering evidence-based teaching techniques, principals supporting school-wide initiatives, districts providing professional development, and entire communities supporting the shift.

Because this transformation requires such coordinated effort, our Science of Reading Star Awards recognize excellence across every level of education, with categories that reflect this multi-level approach.

Individual categories

  • Teachers who exemplify Science of Reading principles in daily instruction
  • Instructional coaches driving literacy transformation
  • Administrators leading successful reading initiatives

School categories

  • Schools demonstrating significant reading growth through Science of Reading implementation
  • Educational teams working together to strengthen early literacy skills

District categories

  • Districts orchestrating system-wide literacy development improvements
  • Large-scale Science of Reading transformations with measurable results

How our educator awards honor the winners

All award winners receive a comprehensive package designed to support their leadership and amplify their impact. Recognition includes:

  • Honorary Amplify Ambassadorship, which provides access to our community of literacy leaders.
  • Your story featured on our website and social media.
  • Science of Reading starter library of resources to continue your journey.
  • Enrollment in Science of Reading: The Learning Lab (for you and a friend).
  • Tons of swag, of course!

Grand prize winners in the District and School categories will also get access to an exclusive library of professional development resources. The grand prize winner in the Individual category will be our guest, all expenses paid, at the Reading League’s 10th annual conference in Chicago next fall.

How to nominate the literacy stars in your sky

Do you know educators whose Science of Reading work deserves recognition—like our 2025 winners? A school team that has transformed reading outcomes? A district that has successfully implemented evidence-based literacy practices system-wide?

These are the stars guiding us toward a future where every child can read with confidence and joy. Help us get to know them!

We are accepting nominations through Feb. 13, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET. Submit your nomination today!

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S4 – 03: LIVE from NCTM with Bethany and Dan

Hosts Bethany and Dan, both smiling, in a promotional image for the "Math Teacher Lounge" podcast, Season 4 Episode 3, titled "Live from NCTM!" with an

In this episode, co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are LIVE with more than one hundred Math Teacher Lounge listeners at the recent National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference. Listen in as they answer the pressing question: Who is the best teacher in film or television?

Explore more from Math Teacher Lounge by visiting our main page. 

Download Transcript

Presenter (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, from Math Teacher Lounge, we have Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer! <cheering>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:08):
Doesn’t go well that the door was locked. Like, I could not get in! <Laugh>

Dan Meyer (00:12):
Yeah. Gotcha. All right. We’re gonna sit a little bit. Let’s see how that works—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:16):
Hi!

Dan Meyer (00:16):
Yeah. I think we’ll stand up? Or whaddaya think, sit…?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:19):
Should we stand? Hi.

Dan Meyer (00:22):
Hello. Great to see you folks. Yeah, I can hear you.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:25):
Can you hear me? That’s—I know YOU can me. Can you hear me OK? OK! We’re here. Hello. Thank you for like, lining up and coming out and being here. Thank you!

Dan Meyer (00:35):
Means so much to me that you could be here for me, on my show, with Bethany Lockhart Johnson, my co-host. <Audience laughs>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:40):
The hour has just started.

Dan Meyer (00:42):
We’re just getting going. Yeah. If you folks have heard the podcast, you don’t know how much gets cut out. And it’s like, mostly me just having, you know, anxious nerves and saying something silly and then we cut it out and we can’t do that here today. So it should be real fun for all of us, I think. Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:55):
It’s not true. It’s mostly dancing. “Bethany, can you stop talking? Bethany?” Cause it’s mostly—

Dan Meyer (00:59):
“It’s my turn. It’s my turn! Bethany <laugh>! I haven’t been heard for a while.”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:02):
Dan. We’re at an in-person conference.

Dan Meyer (01:05):
In-person BIG conference, I would say. I’d say a big conference. Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:08):
And have you been to the Amplify booth?

Dan Meyer (01:11):
I have! Have these people? There’s a claw machine with free socks.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:16):
Yeah. You’re saving me socks, right? That’s what you’re saying. <Laugh> I mean, it’s exciting. How has your conference been so far?

Dan Meyer (01:21):
So far it’s been a blast. I feel fed. I feel like the community’s been awesome. How are you feeling about it?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:29):
OK. Let’s talk about me for just a second.

Dan Meyer (01:31):
Yeah. Talk about you.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:31):
Last night, Dan, was the very first night that I was away from my toddler. <Audience: Aw!>

Dan Meyer (01:38):
Big commitment being here. Thank you.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:40):
I got super-emotional walking back to the hotel after dinner, and then I got in my room, <laugh> I put on pajamas, and I turned on music. I slept so good!

Dan Meyer (01:50):
Yeah. <Audience laughs> Give it up for no kids! <Audience laughs> Hey!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:55):
I love him so much. But I slept all the way through the night. Oh, by the way, I ordered room service in the morning.

Dan Meyer (02:01):
On Amplify.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:01):
That bill’s coming. But it’s been a great conference and I’m so delighted to be here in person and to get to share energy…and hopefully that’s all we’re sharing today. Y’all got your tests, right? Yep. Sharing energy and community today. Because we know it’s been hard. Hardness. Hard.

Dan Meyer (02:25):
Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:26):
Years. Hard. And to be in person, I know conferences reinvigorate me and I go back into my educational spaces feeling revitalized with new connections and new ideas to try. So yeah, I’ve been excited to be here. And thank you all for being here.

Dan Meyer (02:40):
Yep. I don’t care if I get six different strains of Covid here. I’m just thrilled to be here. <Audience laughs> I don’t know if you’ve had the same feeling, though, Bethany, you folks…I’m a little bit confused to some degree about what we’re doing. I just wanna be really transparent. This is my sarcastic voice but I’m being sincere here. It kind of feels like we’re in a little bit of a time capsule. Like we all got in a time capsule in 2019 and, you know, you open it back up and it’s like, OK, so we’re still, you know, talking about X, Y, or Z protocol for establishing classroom routines or whatever. And I’m like, OK! Like, I loved that in 2019! But I do admit, I’m still trying to figure out a little bit like, what are we doing now? What’s our relationship to the world out there? Things are very different. I have had some great sessions that I’ve enjoyed. I’m also like, still waiting for a session to draw a little blood. Do you know what I mean? Like there’s been sessions…no? OK. You’ve been in these sessions where it’s like, “Oh, ow.” Like, and you look down and there’s and there’s blood there. It’s like, I thought I knew what we were up to. Like, I thought I knew what teaching was and how we relate to the world. I dunno, like in any Danny Martin session in 2019, “Take a Knee” was one, where I was like, “Oh, OK. Like, I’m not as hot as I think I am here. Like, I’m part of a system.” That kind of thing for me draws blood. And I haven’t been in one of those yet. Been some great sessions. I’m a little hopeful that today we draw a little blood and think about what we’re doing here, is my hope here, if that’s OK. So Bethany’s gonna moderate that impulse and she’ll be the fun one and I’ll be the blood-drawing one.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:05):
No, I don’t…that metaphor doesn’t speak to me personally. But what I will say is, I get what you’re saying about really wanting to be in that room where there’s like this synergy happening. No promises about that today other than—

Dan Meyer (04:18):
I promise. <Audience laughs> Go on.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:20):
Other than I get what you’re saying. I’ll find my own metaphor that does not involve bloodshed, but.

Dan Meyer (04:25):
Sure. There’s a lot of ways we we could go about this today. And the one that I’m excited about is, you know, we could like, you know, analyze some results from students, and talk about what went into that. Look at classroom video. Lots of possibilities. But here’s what we’re up to today. Hope you’re into it. Which is, we are here in the heart of the entertainment industry. You know, Tinseltown! Um, the Big Apple! Uh…

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:47):
No!

Dan Meyer (04:47):
Come on. What do you got here? Um…

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:51):
It was daytime at night. Like the lights were so bright.

Dan Meyer (04:54):
The City of Lights.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (04:55):
There was a movie premiere outside my hotel room, which I was not invited to, unfortunately. But so what are we doing today?

Dan Meyer (05:01):
So here’s what we’re doing. We are gonna settle, once and for all, a question you have not asked yourself yet, perhaps, but will want to know the answer to in a moment. Which is: Who is the best teacher in all of film or television? OK? We’re gonna do that. It’ll be fun. But I hope that in debating this a little bit with a special guest we’ll bring up in a moment, that we will start to uncover some truths about what makes good teaching. How that’s different from teaching as we see it in movies and tv. Why middle-class America wants teachers to look a certain way in movies and tv. What all that means. And it’ll be awesome. I think. I’m hopeful it’ll be awesome. So what we did here is we’ve invited eight people. Eight folks you people may have known. You’ve been in their sessions today, in this conference, perhaps. And asked them: Who’s your fave? Like, we might have our favorites, but we wanted to democratize it a bit. So asked some cool people who you folks like, who are very smart and thoughtful about teaching: Who’s your favorite teacher?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (05:58):
A few of whom are in this room. Thank you for your submission.

Dan Meyer (06:00):
Thank so much. Yeah. We’ll see what happens here. <laugh>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:03):
As they shrink down.

Dan Meyer (06:03):
Yeah. Might draw some blood that I don’t mean to right now. We’ll see. OK.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:06):
That metaphor, what IS that??

Dan Meyer (06:07):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I’m still going with it. <laugh> And you folks will be a huge part of this. THE part of this, really. So what will happen is I’ll share with you our first nominees. A few of us will make a case for our favorites, or least favorites, as the case may be sometimes. And then by applause, by acclamation, you folks will decide who wins and advances to the next round. Start with eight, move to four. You folks know math.You know where this goes. OK.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:34):
No, keep going. Keep going.

Dan Meyer (06:36):
Two, then one.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:36):
Yeah. Got it.

Dan Meyer (06:37):
Then a half of it. No?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:38):
He had to school me on the making of brackets. But we got it. Yeah.

Dan Meyer (06:41):
How brackets work.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:41):
But we got it. March Madness, what?

Dan Meyer (06:44):
Yeah, in order to do this right, we had to bring up—all the folks that you’ll see are also former Math Teacher Lounge guests, or like, just fan favorites. And we’re also bringing up a former Math Teacher Lounge guest to help us decide this and debate this in a respectful manner.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (06:59):
New dad.

Dan Meyer (07:00):
New dad.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:01):
You see where my brain’s still at? I miss him. <Laughs>

Dan Meyer (07:03):
Friend from San Diego. Really cool teacher.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:06):
Incredible teacher.

Dan Meyer (07:06):
Works at Desmos and Amplify. And I just want you to welcome up your friend and mine. Chris Nho!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:11):
Chris Nho!

Dan Meyer (07:13):
Come up, Chris. Let’s go, buddy. We didn’t talk about it, but did you want to do the cornball stuff too?

Chris Nho (07:22):
Wow. Would I love to do—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:23):
And then the door could be locked! And then you have to wait and like, just—

Chris Nho (07:27):
Yeah, I’ll skip that part.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:28):
Hi. Welcome. You’re here. We’re here in person.

Chris Nho (07:30):
Very glad to be here. Thank you all for having me.

Dan Meyer (07:33):
Tell me who you are.

Chris Nho (07:34):
My name is Chris Nho. I live in San Diego. I’m a new dad. A three month old, just had. Yeah, she’s actually here at the conference with us in the hotel room. And I promise you she is not by herself. She is with…come on. I was like, “Hey, just gimme one hour. I’ll be right back. I have to do very important work.” But yeah, I think I got invited here because I have opinions and I’m willing to draw…some…blood.

Dan Meyer (08:02):
There we go! Two outta three! We’re good on the metaphor now.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:06):
We’re so glad you’re here. If you haven’t listened to the episode where Chris and Molly and some other public math folks share their ideas and ideas of how to take math out into the world, please listen, because we had a blast.

Dan Meyer (08:19):
Inspiring work. Really inspiring work. Very cool. Cool. OK. Right on. OK.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (08:23):
Let’s do this!

Dan Meyer (08:24):
Let’s get started here. Yeah! <Audience cheers> Yeah. And we might ask you who your favorite teacher is, who’s missing from our list of eight? We might have forgotten some people. Anyway. All right. So here’s our first two. Our first two are nominated by way of, let’s see, um, Mandy Jansen is a professor at the University of Delaware. Got some awesome talks here this week, a Shadow Con talk last night. She’ll be nominating one. And also, um, Lani Horn is a professor at Vanderbilt, also extremely cool, prolific author and speaker, just all-around great human and friend of teachers everywhere. And she’ll nominate another in this bracket, which is the Northeastern Comedy bracket, Northeastern comedy bracket.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (09:06):
It just worked out that way.

Dan Meyer (09:07):
Yeah. Here it is. Here is Tina Fey in Mean Girls.

Tina Fey in Mean Girls (09:12):
“OK. Everybody close your eyes. All right. I want you to raise your hand if you have ever had a girl say something bad about you behind your back. Open your eyes. Now close your eyes again. And this time I want you to raise your hand if you have ever said anything about a friend behind her back. Open up. It’s been some girl-on-girl crime here.”

Lani Horn (09:52):
I am nominating Sharon Norbury from Mean Girls as the best movie math teacher. She is an awesome teacher who is always there for her kids. She always sees the best in them. She shows that she can forgive even some pretty bad behavior, if she sees that kids are trying. She’s a strong feminist who makes sure that smart girls don’t dumb themselves down just to impress boys.

Tina Fey in Mean Girls (10:22):
“Katie, I know that having a boyfriend may seem like the most important thing in the world right now, but you don’t have to dumb yourself down to get guys to like you.”

Lani Horn (10:30):
She’s also super hard-working. She works three jobs. She’s always there for the kids. She plays piano in the talent show and takes them to Mathlete competitions. And she’s also socially aware. And when things go really badly among the girls, she does some pretty creative things to try to get them to be kinder to each other.

Dan Meyer (10:54):
OK. That’s one.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:55):
Helen Case.

Dan Meyer (10:57):
All right. Settle down. Settle down. Settle down. All right.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:59):
Piano too!

Dan Meyer (11:00):
Bethany’s already trying to bias people here. All right. Chill out. Hold on. So next one is Mandy Jansen with Jack Black from School of Rock. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Jack Black in School of Rock (11:09):
“What was your name?”

Kid in School of Rock (11:10):
“Katie.”

Jack Black in School of Rock (11:11):
“Katie. What was that thing you were playing today? The big thing.”

Kid in School of Rock (11:14):
“Cello.”

Jack Black in School of Rock (11:15):
“OK. This is a bass guitar and it’s the exact same thing, but instead of playing like this, you tip it on the side. Chellooooo! You’ve got a bass! <Laugh> Try it on.”

Mandy Jansen (11:25):
And I’m nominating for best teacher in a film Jack Black as Dewey Finn playing Mr. Ned Schneebly in the film School of Rock. So why this portrayal? First of all, playing a longterm sub. Those are so hard to find right now. <Audience laughs> Really hard. And then he teaches using class projects. That’s brilliant. Integrated learning. And then love this. He gives students roles and tasks that are differentiated and align to the specific strengths that each student has.

Kid 2 in School of Rock (12:05):
“I can also play clarinet, you know!”

Jack Black in School of Rock (12:06):
“I’ll find something for you when we get back from lunch. I’ll assign the rest of you killer positions.”

Mandy Jansen (12:13):
And the film culminates in a performance of a collaborative song that they all wrote and performed together. And the students experience that collaboration and teamwork and creating something beautiful is much more important than winning first place. And finally, one of the songs that the character sings in the film is “Math is a Wonderful Thing.” Can’t beat that.

Dan Meyer (12:40):
All right. That’s tough. That’s tough. So here’s the deal. What we have right now is just a quick minute—so Bethany, you ranked, we all ranked our own faves here outta the list of eight. And Bethany put Jack Black in School of Rock a bit higher than Tina Fey in Mean Girls.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:54):
Missed the piano part though.

Dan Meyer (12:55):
And Chris, vice versa here. So Bethany, would you start us off and just make a quick case here for Jack Black versus Tina Fey?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (13:01):
OK. So here’s what I’m thinking. There’s been rumor that maybe they’re putting less than credentialed people into classrooms to fill teaching gaps. I mean, just rumor. And so here’s this guy who is a rocker. He is not a substitute. He has no teaching training. And yet he goes in there and it turns out that he has the ability to see students’ potential and to recognize their unique abilities. And like Mandy said, he really tapped into, like, he saw them and said, “No, more is possible for you than what you think is possible.” And there’s like real sub anxiety. When you walk in, you can either be like, happy there’s a sub, but I was usually really nervous. Right? And he goes in and he makes that classroom into a home.

Dan Meyer (13:53):
Wow.

Chris Nho (13:54):
Wow.

Dan Meyer (13:56):
Chris, speak on it. Tina Fey needs you. Chris.

Chris Nho (13:59):
Tina Fey. Here we go. I’m gonna argue here that—when was that movie made?

Dan Meyer (14:03):
T is for terrific. I is for Interesting.

Chris Nho (14:06):
Decades ago. And I’m gonna argue that Tina Fey was very progressive for her time. OK, let’s talk about social emotional learning. Hello. <Audience laughs> Love that. Right? Stand up if, I mean, she’s getting people to talk about their emotions. And there’s a curriculum. But let’s just pause, because that’s not what’s really happening in the classroom right now. So social emotional learning, I think she’s, she’s got that a lot. And then number two, you know, if you remember the plot of Mean Girls a little bit, she gets her name written in that Burn Book. Like she sees what they say about her. Restorative justice. Let’s go. <Audience laughs>.

Dan Meyer (14:38):
Whom amongst us. Yes.

Chris Nho (14:40):
You write Mr. Nho in the Burn Book?? Well, your grade book is gonna look like a Burn Book! OK? <Audience laughs> Tina Fey, Tina Fey, she was like, “No, you know, know what? I’m actually gonna spend more time with you. You’re gonna become a mathlete.” And Lindsay Lohan discovers—she drops the most iconic line in all of math education. “The limit does not exist.” Thank you, Tina Fey, for that. For that gift.

Dan Meyer (15:04):
Bless. Bless you. Tina Fey. Wow.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (15:05):
Oh, man. Wow.

Dan Meyer (15:09):
Let’s see what the people say here. I do wanna just add one quick thing about—it’s interesting to me how often in these movies—just kind of go in a little bit, zoom out just a minute—how often it’s a teacher who has no training as a teacher. <Bethany laughs> I am kind of curious why it is. Like, those are the movies that get hot, that get made. Again, these are all kind of a mirror of the taste of the moviegoing public. You know what I’m saying? Like, these, these are not movies—I wanna believe they are made for me and for us as teachers. But they are not. There’s not enough of us to justify, you know, Jack Black’s, you know, M&M budget or whatever he’s got going on in his trailer or whatever. That needs to be for everybody in middle-class America. So what is it about middle-class America that wants to see teaching as something that anybody can do? Just like, you know, just, just run up there in your van and make it happen.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (15:54):
Magic magically manifests.

Dan Meyer (15:56):
Yeah. Manifest. Yeah. That’s just interesting to me. I just toss that out there as some red meat. Let’s see what the people say here. All right, OK, so you’re ready. Let’s get the bracket going here. The question is Tina Fey versus Jack Black. You had a moment here. Just whisper to someone real fast who you’re going for here real quick. What are you thinking here? <Crowd murmuring> All right. Crowd’s buzzing. Crowd’s buzzing. Would you folks…? All right. Bring it back. Go ahead and make some noise for Tina Fey. <Crowd cheers> OK. OK. Make some noise for Jack Black! <Crowd cheers> Judges say Tina Fey. Tina Fey moves on. All right. All right.

Chris Nho (16:44):
Stunned. I’m stunned. I’m speechless.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:46):
Tina Fey moves on. Wow.

Dan Meyer (16:48):
This has exceeded my expectations in terms of having some fun, but also getting deep, getting deep and real about teaching. I’m into this right here. Yeah. What’s up?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:54):
That’s the goal. That’s the goal. OK. You wanted blood? Oooh, this next matchup might just be where that blood comes forth! OK. Stretch. Warm up. Dan Meyer, who’s up next?

Dan Meyer (17:11):
We’ve got the animated/animatronic round here in the Southeast. And repping the two contestants here, who do we have? We have Allison Hintz, professor, author outta Washington, as one of the two nominators. And the other nominator is one of my heroes, though we’ll find out very wrong about this nomination, Jenna Laib, who’s in the crowd, and I’m trying not to make eye contact here. <Laugh> And here are the two nominations. A couple minutes each. And then we’ll chat about it. And one of us will probably die. But we’ll see how it goes.

Allison Hintz (17:50):
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, MTL, we began learning from the Jedi Master of Teaching. With the Socratic and experiential approach. With unparalleled mindfulness, compassion, and humility. The best teacher in TV and film, Yoda is. <Audience laughs> Yoda lives the values we share as teachers and learners. He humbly comes alongside us as we construct new knowledge.

Yoda (18:29):
“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

Allison Hintz (18:32):
Yoda allows us to struggle and sees mistakes as critical to learning.

Yoda (18:39):
“The greatest teacher, failure is.”

Allison Hintz (18:43):
Yoda values curiosity and reminds us of the beauty and joy of teachers learning from children.

Yoda (18:52):
“Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.”

Allison Hintz (18:59):
MTL! Join the Resistance! Let the force flow through you in declaring, the best teacher in TV and film, Yoda is.

Dan Meyer (19:18):
Give it up for Allison Hintz! All right! <Audience applauds>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:20):
Alison! And to have that on hand too, which Is kind of perfect.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:26):
Just to be clear, the helmet is not a part of a Zoom background.

Dan Meyer (19:29):
You may evaluate the quality of the nomination based on the costumes of the nominator. That is acceptable. That’s acceptable.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:35):
That is a REAL HELMET.

Dan Meyer (19:35):
All right. The next nominator here, this one is from Jenna Laib, math coach, all-around stellar human. Here we go. This is Ms. Frizzle.

Ms. Frizzle (19:42):
“Single file, class. Our rotten field trip has only just begun.”

Jenna Laib (19:47):
And I think that the best teacher from TV or movies is Ms .Valerie Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. First and foremost, Ms. Frizzle believes in her students. She encourages them to take an active role in their learning, and also to advocate for change in their local community. For example, there’s an episode where there is a logger who’s gonna cut down a rotting log that would benefit the local ecosystem. And the students figure out a way to convince him to leave the log so that all of the animals and the plant life can benefit. She orchestrates really challenging situations for these students, and she allows them the space to ask questions and engage in problem-solving and puzzle their way out of these really, really difficult scenarios. Ms. Frizzle has unmatched pedagogy. She’s bold, she’s innovative, and she’s a major proponent of experiential learning. So these students are heading straight into a storm to learn about weather systems. <Audience laughs> These students are heading into the human body to learn about digestion and disease. They literally get baked into a cake to learn about some chemistry and reactions.

Children in The Magic School Bus (20:54):
“What’s happening?” <Audience laughs> “Why is it suddenly getting so hot?” “Maybe it’s because the floor is on fire!” <Audience laughs>

Jenna Laib (21:02):
This pedagogy is all led by her outstanding catchphrase, which is:

Ms. Frizzle (21:06):
“Take chances; make mistakes; get messy!”

Jenna Laib (21:14):
From her pedagogy to the classroom community that she creates, Ms. Frizzle is an inspiration, and that is why I think that she is the best teacher from TV or film. <Audience applauds>

Dan Meyer (21:25):
Right on! Give it up for Jenna. Give it up for Jenna. All right. I’m gonna take first pass at this. Chris knows my argument already, so I’m gonna take this here. I see some of you are feeling how I’m feeling on this one. OK, so I don’t have tons to say in favor of Yoda. I think it was all true what Allison said. I think the costume was banging. It was awesome. So there’s all that, but I have more to say against Ms. Frizzle than for Yoda.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:48):
No, no, no. Wait a second!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:49):
Let’s let it happen. Bethany, I’ve come prepared.

Dan Meyer (21:54):
I may have made a misstep here, I realize.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:56):
I’ve come prepared.

Dan Meyer (21:56):
So I think Jenna is all correct. I think those clips spoke for themselves. I think that what they add up to, to me, is not “great teacher,” but more “someone who should be locked up.” <Audience laughs> Or at the very minimum, “someone who should be kept away from children.” <Audience laughs> Do not let that woman around children. I mean, check it out. Look, I don’t wanna throw down credentials. I’ve been to grad school, though. I know how this works. When your brain is stressed, you get these—all the cortisol happens. Your working memory shrinks up. You cannot learn when you’re stressed. And those kids, like whatever lesson Ms. Frizzle is teaching by sending them into an oven, I repeat, an oven <audience laughs>, like, they’re not gonna learn anything ’cause their brains are freaking out with stress and fear. OK?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (22:41):
“What’s happening??”

Dan Meyer (22:43):
“What’s happening? Am I on fire? Well…I’m learning lots, though! Sure is magical!” <Audience laughs> It’s like, “No. Get that woman out of a classroom.” That’s my opening and closing argument. Right? There’s all it is.

Chris Nho (23:01):
All right. All right. All right.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (23:02):
Chris knows.

Chris Nho (23:03):
I’ve got, I’ve got lots to say. First off, I think Dan was in charge of the editing of those video clips. So let’s let that be—you know, let the record stand. <Audience laughs>

Dan Meyer (23:11):
Where’s the lie though? Where’s the lie?

Chris Nho (23:14):
And, you know, second, I think, um—this is the guy up here saying, “I wanna see blood.” You know? And then he has a teacher who literally takes the students into a blood cell and, and you get a little scared! You get a little worried for the students, you know? So I just don’t get it, Dan. This or that. OK? I think Ms. Frizzle—so I actually went to a project-based learning school. I taught at a project-based learning school. And the best thing about it is like, your learning, it doesn’t just stay in this box of math lesson or writing lesson, history lesson. And I think with Ms. Frizzle, like you can’t help but learn things because you are getting baked in a cake. <Audience laughs> Yeah, it is a little scary. And I imagine there’s cortisol and things happening, but guess what? Probably the next episode, they go into their own brains and explore what’s happening. That kind of thing. You know?

Dan Meyer (24:07):
The kids that survived, just be clear. <Audience laughs>

Chris Nho (24:10):
Yeah. OK. Would I want Nora, my three-month-old, to be babysat by Ms. Frizzle? Maybe not. <Audience laughs> But what I have to say about Yoda is Yoda maybe wins the best tutor award. Give it up for Yoda’s Best Tutor Award.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:24):
Oh, yeah…

Chris Nho (24:25):
That ratio’s looking really nice. I could teach the heck outta Luke Skywalker. OK? But 20 little Luke Skywalkers running around. I’m not sure. OK?

Dan Meyer (24:34):
Luke did survive the training, though. <Audience laughs> So that’s awfully nice to say about it. All right, Great words from Chris here. I’m still not convinced. We’ll see how you’re convinced here. Would you whisper to someone where you’re leaning here? Frizzle or Yoda? <Audience buzzing>

Chris Nho (24:47):
I tried. I tried.

Dan Meyer (24:53):
All right. That’s enough of that. Let’s hear it folks. Give it up for Yoda. <Audience cheers> Give it up. Give it up. You. Give. It. Up.

Chris Nho (25:05):
Hey, next. Next.

Dan Meyer (25:06):
All right. All right, all right. <Mutters> Give it up for Ms. Frizzle. <Audience cheers louder> I dunno, it’s pretty close. Call a tie. Maybe Yoda? Yoda by nose? <Audience laughs> All right. All right. Let’s…let me see who’s it. Let’s get the people advancing here. I’ll keep on moving here.

Chris Nho (25:26):
As you’re doing that. Um, Dan ranked Ms. Frizzle last in his personal ranking. And I ranked Ms. Frizzle very high, so we knew this one would be spicy,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (25:36):
<laugh> Spicy it was. Are you having a good time so far? <Audience cheers> So while we love seeing these images and we love seeing these video clips, at the core, what are these things about how teachers are portrayed? And how accurate is that to our real lives? I mean, besides the cake part, right? That my chemistry class did often feel like I was on fire. I was so stressed in it. Um, we’re ready?

Dan Meyer (26:05):
Yep. Great. We’re ready, we’re up here. So the next two nominees are coming to you folks from Tracy Zager, who is the editor of my book, forthcoming in 2027 at the earliest and 2032 at the latest. And also your very own Zak Champagne from Florida, here in the room. Hey, Zak. Zak, let’s see who the nominations are. I’m gonna skip past that, didn’t work out so well for me. Here it is. This is Marshall Kane from the TV show Community.

Michael K. Williams in Community (26:32):
“You two complete your case to the class and let them decide your grades.”

Joel McHale in Community (26:37):
“Professor, thank you.”

Michael K. Williams in Community (26:40):
“It’s not a favor, Mr. Winger. Man’s gotta have a code.”

Joel McHale in Community (26:44):
“Awesome.”

Zak Champagne (26:46):
This is a pitch for an underdog. This teacher didn’t stand on desks or encourage his students to follow their musical passions. In fact, this teacher was seen only in a few episodes of my favorite TV show of all time, Community, Community has set at Greendale Community College in Colorado. And in season three, we get to meet Dr. Marshall Kane, a biology professor whose story is an inspiration to anyone who just takes the time to look and listen. Dr. Marshall Kane slowly earned his PhD while in prison, serving a sentence of 25 to life. In his classroom, he inspires students to love biology, question why LEGO has become so complicated, and randomly pairs his students for group projects to ensure no one feels left out. His greatest performance comes when a group of students believe their yam project was intentionally sabotaged. Dr. Kane took this as an opportunity for some trans-disciplinary real-world learning. So yes, at community college, he felt that a middle-school mock trial was the best way to determine who killed the yam. So let’s all pick the underdog and vote for Dr. Marshall Kane. After all, man’s gotta have a code. <Audience goes “oh!” and applauds>

Dan Meyer (27:53):
Thank you, Zak.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (27:54):
I have a code.

Dan Meyer (27:56):
Next up is Tracy Zager, nominating an unusual nomination, not a single person, but an ensemble performance. A bunch of people from a movie called Searching for Bobby Fisher. Here we go.

Rapid-fire movie dialogue (28:11):
“What’s that?” “Schleimann attack.” “Schleimann attack? Where’d you learn that from, a book?” “No, my teacher taught me.” “Aw, your teacher. Well, forget it. Play like you used to, from the gut. Get your pawns rolling on the queen’s side.”

Tracy Zager (28:26):
Hey, Math Teacher Lounge. This is Tracy Zager. I’m excited to share my nominee for the best movie teacher. But I have to admit that when I first got the email, I thought, oh, who am I gonna nominate? Because most movies about teachers are highly problematic. They usually have like a saviorism thing, usually white saviors. And I just felt like I couldn’t suggest any of those. So rather than nominate a movie about a single teacher, I wanted to nominate a movie that taught me something about teaching. And that movie is a deep cut. It’s Searching for Bobby Fischer. It’s a movie about a chess prodigy. And what I love about it is that all of the different adults in the movie are in teacher roles in some way. And the student, Josh, the chess player, is a fully realized character, not an empty pail, who pulls from the strengths of each one of those adults while also dealing with their flaws and humanity. And there’s just beautiful synergy in the way he gets the best out of everybody, but also has to overcome some of the barriers that they put in front of him. So I feel like it’s a much more authentic and humbling, but also inspiring, movie about the power of teaching. So if you haven’t ever seen it, check it out. And I can’t wait to see who the other nominees are. Thanks so much.

Dan Meyer (29:53):
Right on. Thank you, Tracy. Wherever you are. <Applause> We’ll move a little quicker here. I’m curious, Bethany, you put Marshall Kane pretty high. I put Bobby Fischer pretty high. What do you have to say about Marshall Kane for us here?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (30:04):
Well, I just wanna say two things. One is that, like Zak said, he has this code of conduct that he brings in. And he stays true to it no matter what happens. If you saw him in in Community, you know that he held himself up to such high esteem, but not just himself, his students as well. And he took accountability when he felt he had done wrong, even though, well, that’s controversy. But first—oh, the other thing, rest in peace, Michael K. Williams. Oh my gosh. The actor who plays Marshall K. And the thing that I wanna say most of all about it is that he brings his whole self to the classroom. He was in prison for decades. He brings his whole self and says, “This is who I was. This is who I am today. And this is how we can work together as a community.”

Dan Meyer (30:58):
That’s big. I love your comments about code of conduct too. It makes me wish that Ms. Frizzle had a code of conduct also.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:05):
I knew that was coming back!

Chris Nho (31:06):
Two slides ago, Dan. That was two slides ago.

Dan Meyer (31:08):
Can’t let it go. So yeah, I love what you said there. I have no strong beef here either way. Bobby Fischer’s a movie I have loved dearly and can’t be objective about it. I love that the kid in that movie, more than any other movie here, the kid teaches the adults so much through his innocence and how he challenges them and how they’re treating him. Dig all that so much. Will not, will not begrudge anyone any vote either way here. I do begrudge many of you your vote in previous rounds. <Audience laughs> So let’s just, let’s hear. We’re not gonna ask you folks at all to chitchat. We’re gonna move on this one. So would you folks make some noise here for Marshall Kane in Community? OK. OK. And would you make some noise here for Bobby Fischer, the kid in Bobby Fischer, the ensemble? <Audience cheers, applauds>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:56):
Marshall Kane.

Dan Meyer (31:57):
Marshall Kane takes it. All right. Good job, Marshall Kane! All right. Zak’s feeling good. Moving on to the final four here, Zak, right on. OK. Our last—the Northwest Division here is also the large urban district division here. We have a couple different teachers in sets of large urban schools. They’re nominated, they’re advanced by a couple people here. One is past president of NCTM, Robert Berry. And another is Fawn Nguyen, Southern California phenom. Great teacher and friend of lots of us. Um, let’s see who they nominated here. First from Robert Berry, let’s see, who is it here? Janine Teagues from Abbott Elementary.

Abbott Elementary dialogue (32:37):
“Hey, you know what? I’m probably probably gonna be Kenny’s second-grade teacher. Why don’t you just let him get a head start with me today?” “That’d be great.” “Yeah? OK. Hey, Kenny, would you like to be in my group today?” “Not really.” “That’s the spirit.”

Robert Berry (32:54):
My nomination is gonna be Quinta Brunson, the Emmy Award-winning Quinta Brunson from Abbott Elementary. Janine Teagues is the character. She exemplifies care not only from an affect way, but she also exemplifies care in the things that she does for her students. While the scenes in the show are entertaining, they do represent the challenges that teachers experience when they’re trying to meet the needs of her students. So she goes, goes all out for her students and finding resources. She accesses other people to get resources for her students. But the care shows up in the way that she is mindful of their needs. And so, for me, when I think about teachers and teaching, sometimes we can talk about pedagogy, but sometimes we also can talk about those kind of intangibles that makes a teacher a great teacher. It is apparent from her students that she cares about them, she supports them, and she goes all out 100% for her students. Janine Teagues, Quinta Brunson is, I think, is my choice of the best teacher on television because of the realism and the representation that she brings to this character of what teaching is about. <Applause>

Dan Meyer (34:28):
Right on. Right on. OK. OK. Next up, we’ve got, Fawn Nguyen is nominating Erin Gruwell from Freedom Writers. Here we go.

Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers movie (34:39):
“Look, you can either sit in your seats reading those workbooks or you can play a game. Either way, you’re in here till the bell rings. OK? This is called the Line Game. I’m gonna ask you a question. If that question applies to you, you step onto the line and then step back away for the next question. Easy, right? The first question. How many of you have the new Snoop Dog album? <kids move around> OK, back away. Next question. How many of you have seen Boys in the Hood?”

Fawn Nguyen (35:26):
We all learn about Miss G and her 150 students in the movie Freedom Writers starring Hilary Swank. All great teachers share a common set of traits. They care deeply about their students, have high expectations of them, and always believing wholeheartedly that they will succeed. Great teachers go above and beyond, not because they extraordinary—as Anne Gruwell would always refer to herself as an ordinary teacher—but because extraordinary things happen to people when we believe in them, give them hope, help them write their own story with a different ending. So what stood out for me with Miss G is the scope of her reach, the ever-expanding sphere of her humanity. The red tape she had placed on the classroom floor for the line game shows just how much we all have in common despite our differences. Her students didn’t just learn from her; they learned from one another. If you’d like to be part of this expanding sphere to give voice and hope, please check out Freedom Writers Foundation dot org.

Dan Meyer (36:38):
OK. This right here is a tough one for us. Thank you, Fawn. We collectively ranked—that’s our number one seed and number eight seed, which I hasten to say does not have to do with Erin Gruwell, a person, but the portrayal and the movie. So we don’t have like a whole lot of…there’s not a lot of defense we have to offer here of our eighth seed. And I heard like a kind of a little bit of a murmur over the crowd on Erin Gruwell. So I’m more interested than having a defense back and forth. I’d be curious what you, Bethany, think about what, like, what both movies have to say about like, what teaching is, especially teaching urban schools with black and brown kids and lower-class kids, for instance. They both have, I think, very different things to say about them. Do you have thoughts about that?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (37:19):
Well, it’s interesting because there is some overlap in the sense that the arguments that both Fawn and Robert Berry put out, they both care deeply about their students, right? We’re not gonna argue that. They care deeply. And something that I would say about Miss Teagues is there’s something about the way that she sees not only her classroom, her students, but she sees all of the students in the school as her students. And her idea of resource generation is really helping the teachers to generate resources from their community themselves, and to also realize that the students see themselves reflected in the teachers. And I think that—you know, again, this is not about the real person—but the movie portrayal, and we often see kind of this, for Freedom Writers, we often see this like, Great Last Hope whisked in and her personal sacrifices are what makes these students, these brown and black students’ transformation possible. Because of her sacrifices. Including her marriage. Including, you know, three jobs. And it’s just portrayed in a way that I think really celebrates her sacrifices rather than what the students have already brought—they already come into the room bringing so much as they are, already, without her intervention.

Dan Meyer (38:38):
I love the portrayal of the teacher as part of a community of teachers. Versus in so many of these movies, it’s the teacher as the only person who gets it, you know, oftentimes coming from outside of the world of teaching and everyone’s against them and wants ’em just to fall in line and do the thing we always do, and they’re the outlier. But in Abbott Elementary, it’s like we all rise and we fall together. And teachers are investing in each other’s success, especially with Gregory the longterm sub. We’re all rooting for his, you know, his flourishing. I love that. And yeah. That’s bigtime.

Chris Nho (39:09):
Yeah, I think one interesting thing is that Freedom Writers, when it came out, I think it was like a commercial success.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:17):
Oh, big time. Yeah. It was.

Chris Nho (39:18):
It probably influenced a lot of people to try teaching out. So I do wonder what it says about us, right? Like that we want teaching to fit this narrative, and we wanna be those people who could go into a classroom and <puts on “cool voice”> “Y’all listen to Snoop Dog?” and just have that question HIT. <laughter> And you know, I’ve taught in a large urban school district, and I’ve been that person and I’ve seen other people try and be that person. And I think stepping away from it a little bit, just—it’s a reflection of what people want out of teaching and what they think better education looks like.

Dan Meyer (39:57):
Yeah, yeah. This idea that, so I’m a middle-class person, let’s say, and like, there’s this idea, like, “I know what I would do if I was going into circumstances of impoverishment.” Like I have—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (40:06):
“All they really need is…”

Dan Meyer (40:07):
…for me to give ’em some real talk and tell ’em, you know, pull their pants up or whatever, listen to Snoop Dog, that kind of thing. And that will be the key. And that’s not how it is in, you know, in Jack Black in School of Rock or Tina Fey school, which are, you know, coded as largely like upper-class or largely white schools. And in those movies, it’s interesting, like how it’s about students discovering themselves, oftentimes. And the central figures are often students. And the students need to reject an oppressive parent figure or something and find themselves. But no, in Freedom Writers, it’s like, “You need to become more like the middle-class teachers who are coming in here to give you this wisdom.” It’s just interesting. I do find it—a pet peeve of mine is when movies portray teachers as only successful if you endure, for instance, the failure of your marriage, or even in Stand and Deliver, for instance, like Jaime Escalante, they depict him having a heart attack. And, like, the job oughta be…easier. <Audience laughs>

Chris Nho (41:04):
Truth.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (41:05):
That’s the barometer for how much….

Dan Meyer (41:09):
Like, no heart attacks and no divorces related to the job, that kind of thing. I do love how in Abbott—one last thing and we’ll vote and Abbott will win <audience laughs>—is like how, like there, there is a lot of degradation in Abbott, but it’s not a divorce or a heart attack—it’s the petty indignities of asking a student, “Do you wanna hang with me?” And a student says, “Nah, not really.” And that just spoke to me like how it’s not cinematic, but teaching, successful teaching, is like a collection of developing an immunity to students saying, “You’re not hot.” <Laugh> You know? And so I love that. I do wish that there was more depiction of students in Abbott Elementary. It’s a lot of adult stuff. Whatever. Give it up for Abbott, if you would, please. Let’s just get this done here. All right. That’s plenty. That’s plenty. Not gonna ask folks about Freedom Writers. OK, let’s move on to— all right, let’s hear it for Freedom Writers! Yeah. OK, cool. We go, yep.

Chris Nho (42:05):
Plot twist!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:07):
OK, let’s see our final four. Cut and paste. Real time. Real time.

Audience member (42:12):
Where’s Dolores Umbridge?

Dan Meyer (42:14):
Oh….

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:16):
Hey, did you hear that? He said, “Where’s Dolores Umbridge?”

Dan Meyer (42:20):
All right. OK.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:20):
See, we missed so many. We could…

Dan Meyer (42:21):
So coming up here, we’ve got in the Eastern Conference, Tina Fey and Ms. Frizzle. Y’all know how I feel about that one. Let’s just get this one done. OK, let’s give it up for Tina Fey. Let’s hear it. <Audience cheers> OK. All right. Yes! Let’s give it up for menace to children everywhere, the terror, the Ms. Frizzle. <Audience cheers> One more time for Tina Fey. Let’s hear it. <Audience cheers> One more time for Ms. Frizzle. Let’s hear it. <Audience cheers>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (42:59):
Yeah. OK.

Dan Meyer (43:00):
It took ’em one round, but they made the right call in the end. <Laugh>

Chris Nho (43:04):
All it took was 10 minutes of constant Ms. Frizzle-bashing. <Laugh>

Dan Meyer (43:09):
Persevering and problem-solving, that’s my game. Yes. All right. So, do either of you want to influence the audience one way or the other?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (43:16):
That’s not how I play, Dan.

Dan Meyer (43:18):
Oh, OK. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. You’re good. On Abbott versus Marshall Kane, should we just let ’em have it? All right. All right. Give it up For Abbott Elementary. Not bad. And for Marshall Kane. OK. OK. I hear Zak and five other people. All right, cool. <laugh> Right on. All right. We got our, we got our finals,

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (43:45):
We did it. We made it to two. And we know: We left out a lot of people. Right? And honestly, I kind of wish we could poll like everyone. I mean, think you put it on Twitter, right? Like, who would you pick? But I would say we had a pretty solid eight there. I’m excited to see who… Look at the little crown he put, you guys. Come on.

Dan Meyer (44:05):
I worked hard for you. For you. <Laugh> Yeah. I liked that it was a good bunch that had a lot of different kinds of qualities…and lack of qualities in some cases. And it allowed us that—I shouldn’t knock her while she’s down, and she IS down, it’s true. <Laugh> And I appreciate the conversation we’ve had, what they have revealed overall about teaching and what the world wants teaching to be versus what it actually is or actually should be. I appreciate that. So let’s settle this here. Give it up, if you would, for Abbott Elementary. <Audience cheers> And give it up for Tina Fey in Mean Girls. <Audience cheers>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (44:49):
Wow.

Dan Meyer (44:51):
That was close. I almost give that to Tina Fey.

Audience member (44:55):
Yeah, we do!

Dan Meyer (44:55):
I don’t know. That was a bracket-buster for me right there. Yeah. I lost money in the office pool off that right there. Maybe let’s just find out one more time here. One more time.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (45:03):
Last time.

Dan Meyer (45:03):
Time to summon up all your conviction on one or the other here. No half-measures right now. All right.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (45:07):
Emmy Award-winning Quinta Brunson.

Dan Meyer (45:09):
Yeah, you saw Robert Berry on that, right? He was like, “Oh, I got one more card to play. Emmy Award-winning.” That’s admissible. That’s admissible. We’ll take that. All right. So…give it up for Abbott Elementary, one last time. <Audience cheers> OK. All right. All right. And give it up for Tina Fey in Mean Girls. <Audience cheers>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (45:30):
Drumroll, please!

Chris Nho (45:33):
Best teacher is….

Dan Meyer (45:34):
Tina Fey in Mean Girls! Yeah. Not a bad pick.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (45:39):
I love it. And I think, too, I think we’re gonna have a little bit of a more reflective lens than we thought we did when we see depictions of teachers in film and television. And, you know, hopefully we’ll see some new tropes come in, right?

Dan Meyer (45:55):
Yep. Yeah. Every dollar we spend on movies with lousy teachers is just encouraging these people to make more lousy teacher movies, you know? Awesome. Thank you for being here for a live taping—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (46:06):
Thank you for being here.

Dan Meyer (46:06):
—of our podcast, Math Teacher Lounge, in a hot room. Appreciate that. Yeah, it’s been fun for us to have you here. Um, super-important, super-important final remark: Bethany loves Oprah and Oprah occasionally, in the show—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (46:18):
Is she coming?! Is she here?!

Dan Meyer (46:19):
Not here! Not here! Calm down. Calm down. Um, but we do have in Oprah fashion, not something—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (46:24):
Oh. Oh, OK. Oh, that’s, that’s OK. Sorry. I got, had really excited for a second. As if the Amplify playing cards, The Amplify t-shirts being chucked at you at high speed—I did try to get a t-shirt cannon, and that was quickly ruled out <laugh>. They didn’t know about my rocket arm, right?

Dan Meyer (46:46):
Yeah, you got a cannon. <Laugh>

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (46:47):
Yeah. Oh, that’s a compliment. Oh, is that a compliment? Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Look under your seat because we have five winners. We wanna thank you for being here in person. We wanna thank the folks who are listening. We wanna thank Amplify. Oh my God. Somebody just pulled off the chair tag. You get to take that chair home with you.

Dan Meyer (47:08):
Does anybody have a prize?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:10):
OK, stand up if you…stand up if you…Yes! Stand up if you have one!

Dan Meyer (47:16):
Free set of classroom dry-erase boards, right here. Congratulations.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:22):
And for you who pulled off the chair tag, I don’t know. We gotta we gotta find something for you.

Dan Meyer (47:27):
Put that in your backpack.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:30):
Thank you again for being here. Thank you. Amplify. Thank you, Desmos. Thank you. Dan Meyer.

Dan Meyer (47:36):
Thank you folks. Chris, thank you buddy.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:38):
Chris! Chris Nho, everybody!

Dan Meyer (47:40):
We will be, we will be at—Bethany and I will be at the booth, if you wanna chit-chat and hang out, sign some stuff. Whatever. You wanna have Bethany sign you, she’ll do that. Um, come on down to the Amplify booth and we’ll—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:50):
We’ll talk to you more about Ms. Frizzle.

Dan Meyer (47:52):
Fun and prizes. I will share with my real thoughts about Ms. Frizzle down there. I’d love to see you. Thanks for being here, folks.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (47:57):
Thanks for listening. Bye.

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What Dan Meyer says about math teaching

“Teaching, more than other professions, is a generational profession. The kinds of joyful experiences we offer—or don’t offer—now affect the experiences students that haven’t even been born yet will have years later.”

– Dan Meyer

Meet the guests

Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer taught high school math to students who didn’t like high school math. He has advocated for better math instruction on CNN, Good Morning America, Everyday With Rachel Ray, and TED.com. He earned his doctorate from Stanford University in math education and is currently the Dean of Research at Desmos, where he explores the future of math, technology, and learning. Dan has worked with teachers internationally and in all 50 United States and was named one of Tech & Learning’s 30 Leaders of the Future.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson

Bethany Lockhart Johnson is an elementary school educator and author. Prior to serving as a multiple-subject teacher, she taught theater and dance and now loves incorporating movement and creative play into her classroom. Bethany is committed to helping students find joy in discovering their identities as mathematicians. In addition to her role as a full-time classroom teacher, Bethany is a Student Achievement Partners California Core Advocate and is active in national and local mathematics organizations. Bethany is a member of the Illustrative Mathematics Elementary Curriculum Steering Committee and serves as a consultant, creating materials to support families during distance learning.

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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!

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S5-05. Math technology & hacks for math anxiety: research-based tips for caregivers

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We’ve been very lucky to have so many prolific and brilliant researchers on this season of Math Teacher Lounge, and our next guest is no exception.

Listen as we sit down with Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer to discuss what causes math anxiety, math hacks, and how the right math technology can make an incredible impact in children and caregivers coping with math anxiety.

Listen today and don’t forget to grab your MTL study guide to track your learning and make the most of this episode!

Download Transcript

Marjorie Schaeffer (00:00):

I think the most important thing we know from literature right now is that high math-anxious parents, when they interact with their children, their children learn less math over the course of the school year.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:12):

Welcome back to Math Teacher Lounge. I’m Bethany Lockhart Johnson.

Dan Meyer (00:15):

And I’m Dan Meyer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:16):

We’re onto Episode 5, Dan, of our series on math anxiety. And I wanna say it feels so lovely to imagine all of these people out there doing work to help combat math anxiety. I dunno, it just makes me feel excited about the possibilities. This work is out there; it’s happening! Kids and teachers and caregivers are being impacted by these conversations. Not just — I mean, I don’t just mean the conversations we’re having on Math Teacher Lounge, but I mean, that these researchers are doing. Like, yes, we can change this!

Dan Meyer (00:53):

This is great. Yeah. We have people who are extremely smart, who have dedicated their professional lives to studying math anxiety and resolving it. And each of them that we’ve chatted with — they share lots of ideas in common, but I’ve loved how they each have their own different flavor or take or area of emphasis on a problem that hits everybody everywhere. It’s in your home, with kids and caregivers. It’s in schools. It’s in our places of teacher preparation and professional learning. Every place is a place where we can focus on resolving issues of math anxiety. It’s exciting.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:26):

Yeah, I feel like … if there could be a course in — we all know that our teacher prep programs, in MOST teacher prep programs, there’s not nearly enough math methods or time to cover <laugh> — it’s like ready, set, go! And depending on who your mentor teacher is or what your math methods course … I mean, it can totally shape the way that you are prepared or really not prepared for going out there to teach math! And so I love that we’re having these conversations.

Dan Meyer (01:55):

What I love about today’s conversation is, one, it’s got a little bit of a technology flavor, so there’s that. But I also love, it’s got one of my favorite features about change, which is that it focuses on change to action, change to routine, rather than change to belief. Rather than saying like, “OK, everybody! Everybody stop thinking bad beliefs about math and transmitting them to your kids!” Instead, it says, “What we’ll do is just, hey, we’ll set that aside for a second and we’re gonna do a certain thing every day and watch as those actions make your beliefs change.” That to me is extremely cool. And I think it has a higher likelihood of success than just, like, me telling parents, “Hey, stop thinking these thoughts!”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:37):

“Ready, set, stop being anxious!”

Dan Meyer (02:39):

Exactly. Exactly. So it’s an exciting conversation we’re gonna have here.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:43):

Right. So it’s not a, you know, “wave the wand and all of a sudden, you’re not anxious about math anymore.” But these incremental changes, these incremental conversations, this validation, can really, really impact change. I’m with you on it, Dan. I hear what you’re saying.

Dan Meyer (03:01):

To help us talk through all of these ideas and more, we’re joined by Dr. Marjorie Schaeffer, Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Mary’s College in Indiana.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:10):

Enjoy. <Jaunty music> So, yes, Dan, we are so excited to welcome Marjorie Schaeffer. She’s Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Mary’s College. Dr. Schaeffer, we’re so excited you’re here. Hello!

Marjorie Schaeffer (03:28):

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Dan Meyer (03:29):

Yeah. We are super-lucky to have had so many prolific and brilliant researchers about math anxiety on our show. You’ll be no exception. And every time, we love to find out about how you came to study math anxiety, which winds up being a really interesting glimpse into your backstory bio. So tell us, what is the route by which you came toward studying math anxiety?

Marjorie Schaeffer (03:51):

Oh, I love that question. I’m really interested in how the attitudes and beliefs of parents and teachers influence children, especially around math. And I actually became interested in this idea in college, when no Child Left Behind was actually first starting to be implemented in schools with high-stakes standardized testing. So much so that I actually did my thesis on this thinking about, “Do children understand the importance of high-stakes testing? Do they have anxiety around that idea?” And so that was really my first foray into the anxiety literature. And that was kind of the entry point into math anxiety for me.

Dan Meyer (04:28):

So you started by studying a very high-stakes assessment, like our students connecting with this. And the assessment is once per year. And classroom instruction is every day. So how did you move from the assessments to the everyday instruction?

Marjorie Schaeffer (04:44):

That’s a great question. So, after college, I actually taught kindergarten. And so from that, I saw the day-to-day impact of instruction and the day-to-day impact of children’s individual attitudes and beliefs. And so I really became interested in thinking about, “How do we understand why some children are really successful from the instruction happening in classrooms and why other children need a little bit more support?” And so math anxiety was one way for me to really think about the individual differences I saw in my kindergarten classroom.

Dan Meyer (05:18):

It feels like you headed … you went farther upstream, is what it feels like. Where assessment … there’s like some kind of anxiety around assessment, let’s say. And then you ventured farther up the stream to classroom instruction and then still farther into kids’ homes. It seems like your research invokes a lot of curiosity about the sources of a kind of amorphous, flowing phenomenon called math anxiety. And I’d love to hear a bit about what you know about how caregivers transfer, transmit — whatever the word is — math anxiety to their kids.

Marjorie Schaeffer (05:55):

For parents … we think that the attitudes and beliefs of parents matter. And we see that for lots of areas, not just math anxiety. But I think math anxiety, we see that really clearly. And so, we can think about it both in terms of what kind of input parents provide. So, how do families talk about math with their children? What kind of support do they provide around homework? And those are ones that I think are a little obvious. But we can also think about the offhanded comments that parents say to children when they’re talking about math generally. Right? So, we see lots of memes going around, talking about how hard math homework is. And so, I think when parents say offhanded comments like, “I’m not a math person,” or “We’re just bad at math,” that communicates values to children. I think the most important thing we know from literature right now is that high math-anxious parents, when they interact with their children, their children learn less math over the course of the school year. And this specific mechanism by which that happens is still an area for a lot of research. And so some people think it’s about input. So maybe if I’m math anxious, I’m avoiding math. And so, when I have an option to read a picture book that has math content, I focus on the colors instead. And so, my child is actually getting less math than other children. We can also think it’s about these messages that are provided. So, when I talk about math, I send the message to my child, it’s not for them, and therefore the child wants to engage in it less. And some of my work looks at things like expectations and values. So, thinking about, “Do math-anxious families actually value math less than other families unintentionally?” And so, we have some support for this idea that they expect less of their children. And so maybe when they struggle, they respond in different ways than a family who’s lower in math anxiety.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (07:53):

This is so fascinating to me. I also was a kindergarten teacher. And I remember a mom who just … she had such like palpable math anxiety. And during one of our conversations, she was talking about these homework sessions with her daughter. And I may have mentioned this on the podcast before. But she was talking about how every night they would sit together and they would do all this math. They’d do, like, extra math together. And it always ended in tears. And despite her math anxiety, she didn’t want her daughter to experience the math anxiety that she did. So she was trying to pile it on, so her daughter was more proficient and comfortable. And instead, it was perpetuating this anxiety about it. And so, it’s a phenomenon then, right? Even if a parent is saying, like you said, maybe completely unwilling, this mother was actually trying to do the opposite. She was trying to help, you know, imbue the love and comfort with math. Right?

Marjorie Schaeffer (09:01):

Absolutely. This is why I think in my research, it’s really important that we find low-stakes, low-stress ways for high math-anxious families to do math. They absolutely can support their children in doing math. But they need a little support. We want it to be a fun, low-stakes environment, right? So maybe that’s the connection back to high-stakes testing, that I want children to have fun math experiences.

Dan Meyer (09:28):

Yeah. This is challenging, because it feels like the more caregivers know about math anxiety, and its pernicious effects on students, and how easily transmitted it is, one could become quite anxious about math anxiety. And, you know, no one makes great decisions when they’re anxious. So if I’m recalling our various episodes we’ve done, we’ve heard from people say, “Well, you need to validate students’ math anxiety. This is not something to just ignore or brush past. But also, not validate it in a way that says, you know, ‘This is OK and generational and inevitable.’” Which presents parents with a very thin path to follow, it seems like. So I love what you’re saying about how we gotta just de-stress the whole process.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:11):

You’re avoiding the whole, “I wasn’t a math person either” kind of thing. <laugh>

Dan Meyer (10:15):

Right, right, right. Yeah. So I’d love to know more. We’re excited about the technology that you have studied and helped develop, presumably, called Bedtime Math, anapp for caregivers. And I’d love to know more about what that is and what it offers parents who know enough about math to know that they don’t want to transmit math anxiety to their children, but also want to support. So what does that offer them?

Marjorie Schaeffer (10:39):

So Bedtime Math is an app. It’s freely available on iTunes or the Apple Store or Google Play. And what it’s designed to do is to provide a nightly topical passage. So one of my favorites is the one about Groundhogs Day. And so it talks a little bit about the history of Groundhogs Day, and then it asks math-related follow-up questions. So starting at a preschool level, going through late fifth grade. And it’s really meant for parents to pick the one that meets their children where they are. And so the preschool-level question asks children to pretend to be a groundhog and walk to the left and walk to the right. So a skill that families might not think about as being math, but we actually think that IS part of understanding math. Understanding left and right directionality. And then the next question can ask questions like, “If it took the groundhog three seconds to climb out of the hole, and then two more seconds to see its shadow, how much time did it take all together?” So a simple addition problem, but it’s phrased in a fun way. And so the hope is that for high math-anxious families, these interactions are fun and playful. They don’t look like fights over homework. They’re just conversations that families can have around topics that are naturally interesting to children. And our hope is that when families have lots of these positive low-stakes interactions, they actually can see that we can talk about math in unstressful ways. In lots of ways, right? We can also do this at the grocery store. We can also do this while we’re cooking in the kitchen. It doesn’t just have to be fights over homework.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (12:14):

And I actually have the Bedtime Math — one of the Bedtime Math books. And I was so excited to find out that there’s an app. And I think one of the things that I loved about the book is that these are invitations, right? They’re exactly that. Low pressure <laugh>, and they’re invitations to have a conversation. And if we were just to tell parents, “Oh, just count!” or, “Hey, just count wherever you go!” You know? No. It’s, in a way, I think, like you said, it’s retraining the parents on what math could look like. Like, “Oh, I didn’t even think we could just kind of have this conversation and we’re actually doing math together.”

Marjorie Schaeffer (12:55):

Yes, absolutely. I absolutely agree. We want it to be fun and playful and not stressful. And we want it to also be things that are meaningful to children’s lives. So these are topics children are interested in. It’s not that we are using flashcards or making children practice math facts over and over again. These are things children should wanna do that can naturally fit into a child’s routine. So almost all families read books before bed, and what we hope is that math can also be a part of the nighttime routine.

Dan Meyer (13:27):

There’s something really subtle here going on that I just wanna name and ask a question about. First of all, it’s cool that you started with studying high-stakes stuff and now you are developing low-stakes stuff. And I’m really curious what makes a thing low-stakes? Like, a few things I’m hearing from you is that there’s, like … I have a small child that I read literature to on a nightly basis. And I feel very anxiety-free doing that. And it’s almost as though, because each of the — tasks is the wrong word for this, but experiences — involve some reading, it puts me, the parent, in a mode that is comfortable and familiar to me. I’m curious: Are there other, as you design, what, one per day for a year? All these different experiences. What are some of the principles that you lean on that help make a thing low-stakes for kids and for parents?

Marjorie Schaeffer (14:17):

Yeah, that’s a great question. So one thing we wanted to be really intentional about is that our app doesn’t look like a lot of traditional apps. There isn’t noises that go off. You don’t enter an answer. And so one of the things that we thought made it low-stakes is that while there is a right or wrong answer — there is a correct answer — we aren’t giving children upsetting feedback. Instead, what we wanna encourage families to do is, if you struggle to remember how many seconds it took the groundhog to come out of the hole, you can work through that with a parent. So it doesn’t feel like you’re getting negative feedback; you’re being told you’re bad at math; you did it wrong. Instead, you’re just getting natural support moving forward. And so that’s one thing we wanted to be really intentional about, was that it wasn’t going to be a negative experience for children. And we are trying to build on all of the positive interactions families are having around nightly book reading. So many ways this can look very similar. You get to read another story that’s topical and hopefully interesting. And then do these little questions together. And so for a lot of families, their children don’t actually really look at the question. It almost feels like the parent is just asking them on their own. Like, they just came up with it. They just wanted to know what would happen to the groundhog. If there were three more groundhogs? How many groundhogs would we have all together? Not like it’s gonna be like homework or other parts.

Dan Meyer (15:38):

So my understanding is that there isn’t a blank into which people type a number in, press “submit” for evaluation, receive the red X, the green check. That’s a key part of the design here.

Marjorie Schaeffer (15:50):

Yes, absolutely. And for research purposes, we would’ve loved to know what families were saying. But we think it’s really important that it’s fun, interactive, that families are working together to get to the right answer, that it’s not a test for children.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:03):

In your research, when you were — maybe you could walk us through the study a little bit. But I’m also curious if you heard from parents that it was carrying over beyond the bedtime routine. Because I would imagine, if I am building these skills and reading these questions and learning that I could talk to my kid like this about math in a fun way, that’s gonna happen then, like you said, when I’m in the grocery store. Or when I’m waiting in line for at the bank. Or whatever, you know? People go into banks now still, right?

Marjorie Schaeffer (16:35):

Yeah, absolutely. So in our study, we recruited almost 600 families and we randomly assigned them. So they had an equal chance of getting both our math app and what we call our control app. And that’s really just a math app without the math. We think of it as a reading control app. And that’s because we wanna make sure that families are having a similar experience, that it’s not just that having high-quality, fun interactions with your child is actually impacting children’s math achievement. And so what we then did is followed those children over the course of early elementary school. And so we worked with them in schools in the fall and spring of first, second, and third grade, really to look at their math learning. And so what we find is that children of high math-anxious adults, when they have the reading app, so what we think of as what’s happening in the real world, we see that really classic gap between children of high math-anxious adults and children of low math-anxious adults. So if you have a high math-anxious parent, you’re learning about three months less math over the course of first grade. But for children who receive this math app, we see this gap as closed. Those children look no different than a low math-anxious parent. And so that’s leading us to think that we’ve helped families talk about math in fundamentally different ways. We did a little bit of just talking to families to see a little bit about what might be going on. And a lot of families do report exactly what you’re describing, where they say this did help them talk about math in different ways they were doing it other times.

Dan Meyer (18:10):

That’s a really extraordinary study design. I don’t know … I love that you folks gave the control group not nothing. Like it’s possible that just parents and kids bonding over a thing regularly would be enough to provoke some kind of academic gain. But you gave the control group a thing that had them interacting socially, bonding, and still this large common gap between high-anxious and low-anxious parents, their kids shrunk together. Is that what I’m gathering here?

Marjorie Schaeffer (18:41):

Yeah, absolutely. So we’re basically seeing we can no longer, when we look at children’s data, say that parents’ math anxiety explains individual differences. So these children look really similar. They’re learning more than children who has a high math-anxious parent and just got our reading control app.

Dan Meyer (19:01):

just diving into the study a little bit more here, what is the time commitment? Or, did you guide parents to say, “All right, we’re gonna do this do this delightful story about a badger for an hour”? Or did people do it for five minutes? And what was the time commitment, roughly, for people?

Marjorie Schaeffer (19:17):

So we tell families to do it however they see fit. Because it is an app, we are able to get some sense of how long, and we are talking about three to six minutes for many families. For a lot of families, they’re reading a paragraph, the paragraph and a half, and then answering one or two questions. They’re not going through every possible question. They’re just doing a little bit, really meeting their kids where they are.

Dan Meyer (19:39):

Roughly how many times per week was that?

Marjorie Schaeffer (19:41):

So we asked families to do it as much as it fit. But we’re seeing about two and a half on average in the first year. And so families are fitting it in a couple of nights a week. It’s not every night.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (19:52):

So what it sounds like you’re saying is what really was powerful about this app is that it was the space and time and prompts between the caregiver and the child, that chance to really sit down and have some of these meaningful and positive math interactions. How did it shift those relationships?

Marjorie Schaeffer (20:12):

So one of the things I think that makes the app effective is the changing of expectations. After a year, families are really using the app a lot less. And I think that’s OK, that they have found other ways to incorporate math into their lives. And we find that we don’t see an impact on their math anxiety, that they aren’t becoming less math anxious from this experience. Which I think makes sense, because they have had a lifetime of math anxiety. But we do see a change in parents’ expectations and value of math. So they expect their children will be better at math, and they also report that math is more important in their children’s lives. And so I think that’s an important part of it, which is, we can change these values for families, even if we aren’t able to change the math anxiety of the adults in children’s lives.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (21:01):

I want to for a second before — because I’m loving this idea of the app, and I’m excited to find out more ways to cultivate these conversations in my home and also share this with other folks. Because even folks who don’t even maybe realize they have math anxiety … like you said, so often it’s unconscious. So often we’re putting these little snippets into our everyday conversation, like, “Oh yeah, I’m not a math person.” And we don’t even realize how much is impacting our kiddos and ourselves, right? So I am really curious: What do you think … in your research, what were some other takeaways that you feel like are really strategies that we can think about for combating math anxiety in general?

Marjorie Schaeffer (21:47):

So I’m particularly interested in thinking about how math-anxious adults can help tone down their anxiety so that they can have high-quality interactions with their children, that they interact with. And so one of the big takeaways for my research, I think, is that math-anxious families can help their children with math. They just need support. And so I think there are lots of ways for that support to look like. One, I think it can be an app, but I also think reading a little bit about math can be really helpful. So it’s not new. So the first time you aren’t thinking about some of these ideas is as your child has their homework open in front of you. And so you can process your own feelings separately before you have to do it with a child. I also think reminding parents that math is everywhere and that math is actually lots of things that we all love to do. Math isn’t just calculus. Not that calculus isn’t wonderful. But that math is measuring, math is counting ducks at the park. Math is talking about how many times did I go down this slide. And talking about math in this way, I think reminds families that they are great at that. That even if maybe they’ve had bad math experiences before, they can do math. Especially the way their preschool or early childhood, early elementary school student needs them to. And I think that can then set the foundation for being really successful later.

Dan Meyer (23:13):

So is your research then, your subsequent studies, your line of inquiry, is moving more towards how to support parents, then? Is that what I’m hearing?

Marjorie Schaeffer (23:22):

Yeah. So I’m really interested in both understanding how the math anxiety of parents and teachers influences children. And so math anxiety is really common and we know that it’s particularly common in early elementary school teachers. And so it’s very likely that children are interacting with a highly math-anxious adult. And so I’m really interested in thinking about how we can support those individuals in doing it. And so both, I think, things like Bedtime Math, which provide fun, unscripted ways to do that, but I’m also interested in the teacher equivalent. So, thinking about whether having things like a math coach can help teachers have more positive experiences with math. So if you see someone else play math games with your students, can that help you do it as well?

Dan Meyer (24:09):

It makes me wonder a lot about an app for teachers or an app for parents, one that’s not designed to be co-consumed with kids and their parents. But what that would look like … yeah, that’s really interesting.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:21):

If we have a parent who, let’s say they have a third grader, fourth grader, fifth grader, or a middle schooler, right? Outside of early education. And they say, “OK, but what do I do? I’m with my kiddo; I don’t remember this math.” And they’re realizing that their anxiety may be influencing their kiddos’ disposition of mathematics, Or maybe they’re just in the midst of the battle <laugh>. What would you say to those folks, especially if it’s math that maybe they’re not comfortable with?

Marjorie Schaeffer (24:56):

One, I think we should like tone down the stress, right? Remind ourselves that it’s homework and homework feels really high-stakes, but these other outcomes are really high-stakes too, right? And so I’m really interested in the idea that can we help parents feel more comfortable about math by watching their own children teach it to them. So what’s a concept that the fourth grader actually feels really good about? And can they remind their parent how to do it? Can, together, they problem-solve the math homework? And so it’s not just on the parent to give the child the right answer. We know that’s a recipe for communicating some negative things about math. But instead, help the parent-child pair figure it out together. So what are some resources we can do? Can we look it up on the internet together? Can we write an email to the teacher together? Can we think about what are other problems that maybe we know how to do, and therefore we can use that same model here? So I want parents to feel like they are not solely responsible for it. That they can help figure it out with their child together. And so it’s a fun interaction.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (26:02):

I love that. I love that.

Dan Meyer (26:03):

Yeah. Yeah. That’s wonderful. Yeah. A conviction that I have, and I think it’s true, is that any math that we’re learning at middle school, the attraction can be dialed down to a degree that a very small child, or a parent who has a very small child’s understanding of math, can appreciate. So instead of calculation, estimation. Instead of proof, just make a claim about something. And it makes me wonder about a companion to the work that’s happening in schools that parents feel inadequate to support, that students might not want to teach their parents. But which they could both, on a daily basis, say, “Here’s a way we can engage in this at a level that is comfortable to both of us.” Just dreaming out loud here. No question asked. No response needed. I just love your work. And made me wonder about that. Can you let me know your thoughts about technology? It is very rare that we have someone on the call who is an academic and very well-versed in research, but who also is published not just in in papers and textbooks, but also in digital media. It’s consumed by lots of people. So I am trusting that you have opinions about how math looks in technology. And I wonder if you’d offer some thoughts about how it goes, right? How it goes wrong from your own eyes.

Marjorie Schaeffer (27:14):

OK. That’s a great question. I think that we need more research. I first wanna say that I think that technology has really exploded in the last few years. How children have access to technology and screen times has really changed. And what we need is high-quality research happening. That said, I think that all of the things we know from child-development research still apply to technology. And so we know that children learn best when they are engaging in interactions with their parents. And so when families can use technology together, or at least can talk about what’s happening, it can be really effective. I also think technology, especially math apps, are best at teaching concrete skills with very clear answers. So I think practicing math facts is a great use of technology. So I love that Sushi math app where you solve multiplication problems and then get to quickly pull the sushi off the cart, right? But for higher-level questions, where we’re thinking about word problems or where what we’re helping to teach students is complex thinking, apps have a harder time doing that. Because students can often figure out the answer without engaging in the thinking that we are hoping that they’ll learn. And so I think technology absolutely has a piece. I think technology is helpful for parents. I think the logistics of helping parents live their lives is a good reason to use technology. But I think we need to be conscious of what it’s replacing. And so I think a world in which we think fourth graders can learn math only from apps is not realistic. But absolutely apps can be a great supplement to what’s already happening in the classroom.

Dan Meyer (28:56):

Yeah, that’s super-helpful. We have done a lot of work in digital curriculum here at Amplify, and often face the question on a daily basis, “Should this math be digital or on paper? Should we have the students stand up and talk or type something?” And those decisions are way too crucial and way more sensitive than a lot of the app-based education gives credit to. So appreciate your perspective there.

Marjorie Schaeffer (29:22):

OK. And I don’t think there’s one answer, or one answer for all classrooms. I think it’s like always a balancing act. I do think that one of the reasons our work is successful is because the parent-child interaction. And we want parents to learn from these experiences. And I think the same thing is true for for teachers.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:41):

Dr. Schaeffer, thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing about your research, and again, for inviting us to reconsider ways that we can develop a more positive relationship with math. And that parent or caregiver or teacher relationship with a child, we’re seeing just how incredibly impactful that is. And I really appreciate your work and your voice on this. Thank you so much for your time.

Dan Meyer (30:07):

Thank you.

Marjorie Schaeffer (30:08):

Thank you for having me.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (30:12):

Thank you again, Dr. Schaeffer, and thank you all for listening to our conversation. You can check out the show notes for more on Dr. Schaeffer’s work and to see a link to the app that we shared about Bedtime Math.

Dan Meyer (30:25):

Please keep in touch with us on Facebook at Math Teacher Lounge Community, and on Twitter at MTLShow.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (30:32):

We would love to hear … you’ve been listening to this series; we’re dipping our toe into all these aspects of math anxiety. Is there something that you’re still wondering about? Something you wanna share about your own story with math anxiety?

Dan Meyer (30:43):

And if you haven’t already, if this is your first exposure to the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, please subscribe to Math Teacher Lounge, wherever you get your fine podcast products. And if you like what you’re hearing, please rate us! Leave us a review. You’ll help more listeners find the show.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:01):

And let a friend know. But you know, it’s, it’s nice and cozy here in the Lounge, right? There’s no pressure. We’re hanging out. It’s all about learning. We’re learning together. We’re glad you’re here and we want others in your community to join us in the Lounge as well. You can find more information on all of Amplify’s shows at our podcast hub. Go to amplifycom.wpengine.com/hub. Next time on Math Teacher Lounge, we’re gonna be chatting about where we are today that we weren’t a few months ago in this topic.

Dan Meyer (31:31):

We’ll be chatting about this last series about math anxiety, and trading our favorite insights and observations from the run of the season.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (31:41):

I just love this series, Dan. And thanks, all, for listening. We really appreciate having you in the Lounge.

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What Marjorie Schaeffer says about math

“We want it to be a fun, low-stakes environment, especially in high-stakes scenarios like testing. We want children to have fun math experiences.”

– Marjorie Schaeffer

Assistant Professor of Psychology at Saint Mary’s College

Meet the guest

Marjorie Schaeffer is an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Saint Mary’s College. She received her Ph.D in developmental psychology from the University of Chicago. Marjorie is interested in the role parents and teachers play in the development of children’s math attitudes and performance. She is specifically interested in the impact of expectations and anxiety and on children’s academic performance. Her work has been published in outlets including Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Developmental Science.

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About Math Teacher Lounge

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.

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S5-03. Cultivating a joy of learning with Sesame Workshop

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Listen as we chat with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content for Sesame Workshop! Continuing our theme of math anxiety this season, we sat down with Dr. Truglio to chat about Sesame Street and her thoughts on how to spread a growth mindset to young children and put them on course to academic achievement and long-term success.
 
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Download Transcript

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (00:00):
Children don’t come with this math anxiety. Math anxiety is learned.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:07):
Welcome back to Math Teacher Lounge. I’m Bethany Lockhart Johnson.

Dan Meyer (00:11):
And I’m Dan Meyer.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:12):
Hello, Dan Meyer.

Dan Meyer (00:14):
Great to see you, Bethany. We are on episode three. Can you believe it?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (00:18):
So, I feel like we’ve just started scratching the surface about math anxiety. We’ve talked to two amazing researchers. We’ve talked about what math anxiety is, how it’s often screened for some of the causes, some of the consequences … I mean, we’ve had some good conversations. Dan, what do you think?

Dan Meyer (00:38):
Definitely, I think that the consequences have only grown more dire in my head. I’m not sure how you feel about the consequences. But, you know, it is enough for me that we ask students to take mathematics for much of their childhoods, to worry about their anxiety, taking that. But to hear about from these researchers about all the different things that correlate with math achievement and math anxiety—talking about future careers, certainly, but even some other, more serious lifelong concerns? That gives me a lot of motivation to continue this study of math anxiety here with you on the show.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:14):
It is really widespread. It has a big impact, not only on students, but on parents, on educators. You know, it’s—

Dan Meyer (01:23):
Multi-generational.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (01:25):
Yes. And you know, so often when folks think of math anxiety, what I hear them say is, “Oh, yeah, in high school is when math really ramps up. That’s when anxiety starts.” But we know that it starts in our youngest learners. And our research has already backed that up. We know it. I’ve seen it in my classroom. You may have seen it with some students you work with. And let me tell you, it starts young.

Dan Meyer (01:52):
It does start early. Right now, I have a son that’s just started kindergarten, and he seems relatively math-positive, but we’ve known from our interviews on this show and other kinds of experiences that oftentimes, that feeling —that math is for me, and I am for math, and we are all friends — can turn on a single moment. It seems like one teacher says a thing that changes a student’s perception of themselves as a mathematician or of math itself. So I keep waiting with bated breath, hoping not to find that one moment that changes our current open posture towards mathematics. So now it’s time to really dive into some strategies for combating math anxiety.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (02:34):
To help us out, we’ve called on a pretty exciting guest. I am so excited, Dan Meyer! We are being joined by Dr. Rosemarie Truglio. She is Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content at Sesame Workshop. Sesame Workshop! As in, “Tell me how to get to Sesame Street.” Dan, I have to tell you, I spent many, many hours of my childhood watching Sesame Street. I have to ask, do you have happy Sesame Street memories? Is this part of your formation, Dan Meyer?

Dan Meyer (03:08):
At this point? In my advancing years, and the brain cells that I have left, Sesame Street is really kind of just a vibe in my head. But that vibe is such a pleasant one. One in which like nothing bad could happen. One in which learning is common and normalized and fun. And you just kind of feel at home, constantly.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:33):
I don’t know about the “just the vibe” part, because for me, it is visceral. I’m there. I am actually … I mean, I might still be there.

Dan Meyer (03:42):
You could reenact some of the skits?

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:44):
. You didn’t watch Sesame Street with your kiddos when they were younger?

Dan Meyer (03:49):
We watched a lot of Elmo. A lot of Elmo. Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (03:52):
Next-generation Sesame Street. Well, I think it’s so perfect that we’re gonna be talking about what Sesame Workshop does to help combat math anxiety and create a positive connection and relationship with mathematics. So I’m really excited to hear what Dr. Truglio and her team have been working on. And here’s our conversation with Dr. Truglio.

Dan Meyer (04:15):
Welcome to the show, Dr. Truglio. It is an honor.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (04:18):
Great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Dan Meyer (04:20):
You are Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content at Sesame Workshop, which definitely sounds like the coolest job in the world to both four-year-old me and also Now me. Would you just help us help us with some backstory of how you ended up here, and what you do at Sesame Workshop?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (04:38):
Sure. It is a pretty cool job. And I am very fortunate that I’ve been in this position for the past 26 years. So, I am a developmental psychologist, and my job is to help Sesame Workshop identify curriculum needs, so that we could address them in the content that we create on the show and across our various platforms. So, Sesame Street is currently in its 53rd season. And we just, wrapped production for the 54th season, which we’ll debut next fall. And Sesame Street began with an experiment: Can television actually teach children school readiness skills, to have them better prepared for school? Especially those children who did not have access to formal education during the preschool years? And it is what we call a whole-child curriculum, because we’re dealing with all of the school readiness needs. So that that includes the academic needs, their social-emotional needs, and their health needs, as well as what we call these cognitive processing skills—how children learn content. Right? So it’s not just content skills, but how you approach learning and how you actually learn content. So as a grad student, I was fortunate to work at the Center for Research on the Influences of Television on Children. Very special center. It was at the University of Kansas. And my advisors, developmental psychologists, they studied the effects of television on children, both the positive effects and the negative effects. And so part of their research was to actually look at the longterm educational effects of Sesame Street. So I was working with Sesame Street content as a grad student, and then came to New York City. My first job was Assistant Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. And when this position became available, Director of Research at the time, it was called, I took that job. And so my job was to oversee both the curriculum and the implementation of the curriculum, as well as the research. Because what we know, our co-founder, Joan Ganz Cooney has always said, for Sesame Street to be a successful educational program, production has to work closely with early childhood educators. They are the ones who know the curriculum and, and develop the curriculum goals, as well as the developmental psychologists who actually study how children are paying attention to the content. But more importantly, what are they comprehending from the content? And we all have to work together. Because even though we are the experts, the real experts are the children themselves. So nothing is deemed final until we actually show the children and see what they are learning from the content that we are producing.

Dan Meyer (07:54):
Are you referring to like, test audiences of kids then?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (07:57):
Yeah, I guess you could call it test audiences. I mean, I don’t. I don’t like to call it that because I see them as co-collaborators. I don’t see them as a test audience. Because, as I said, they’re the experts. It’s a collaboration. I mean, they’re the experts. And so I wanna know—

Dan Meyer (08:12):
As collaborators. I got it now. Yeah.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (08:14):
They help us. So that’s exactly what we tell the children too. So it’s called formative research. You know, we, we do what we call, um, storybook testing, an animated version of a storybook to have some little movement and see are they finding the story engaging, but more importantly, are they picking up on the intended educational lesson that we’re trying to teach in the story. So they are co-collaborators. they’re the ones who are helping us get the story just right for them.

Dan Meyer (08:46):
That’s really exciting, and makes me think about what classes might be like if students were regarded in that kind of lens as well. I just wanna say that my four-year-old self is on this interview as well, and is re-contextualizing all the stuff I saw as a kid. And it just felt like, at the time, you folks turned the camera on and went down to the street and we just had this real natural time. And it’s great to hear about all the intense preparation and co-construction at work and work that went into that time. Yeah,

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (09:12):
It’s about a year preparation from start to finish. From the start of identifying, “What is the educational need? Is it an academic need? Is it a social-emotional need? Is it a health need? Is it a cognitive-processing need?” And then once we have the need identified, we have what we call a curriculum seminar. We bring in the experts who are studying this topic with preschoolers, because we wanna get it, we wanna get it right.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (09:41):
Which, by the way, little behind the scenes: How often do you get to go to set?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (09:46):
So we’re in a production probably about six weeks out of the year. Covid really messed things up. ‘Cause we have to be really—we have very strict Covid protocols, but there is someone on my team—and sometimes we have to, you know, rotate for availability—but there’s always an educator on set.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:06):
Awesome.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (10:07):
Because even though you stick to the script, questions arise; they wanna make changes; sometimes they have to cut; things are running too long and they have to cut and we gotta figure out where to cut. So there’s always an educator on set.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:19):
But sometimes you go and have lunch, like—.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (10:21):
Oh, I go, yes. Sometimes I go—

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:23):
And just hang out with Big Bird, right?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (10:24):
Sometimes I go hang out with Big Bird. No, those are my friends!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:27):
They are!

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (10:28):
No, no, I go hang out with them. They’re my friends. Yes.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (10:32):
When I think about Sesame Street and I think about … like, I can’t help but smile. Because I think I have such fond memories of the characters. I mean, we invited them, my mom invited them, into our home, right? And, you know, now I have a two-year-old and there’s no doubt that I’m gonna introduce him to Sesame Street. And I see how it really does feel like the folks who are doing this work, you and your team, you have a deep respect for children. So it makes sense that you call your test collaborators “collaborators,” right? They’re a part of it. And you know, I love that. And Sesame Street makes me smile. However, I’m like, we’re talking about math anxiety. And it’s so interesting, because as Dan and I were talking about our memories of Sesame Street … you know, it’s like Sesame Street feels like there’s not much anxiety. I mean, there are problems, and there’s problem solving, and it’s not like everything is perfect. But we figure it out. And it’s OK to make mistakes and it’s OK to try again. And a lot of times, we don’t see that in the math classroom—or at least, how folks talk about math. So, how do you all think about anxiety, about how to prevent it? Like, when you’re doing your work, you know that math anxiety is a real thing. But then that’s not translated in these experiences and the relationships with math that you’re building with your viewers.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (12:07):
Yeah, that’s a really good question, because it’s really easy, because our core audience are two- to four-year-olds and they love math. And what’s not to love, right? Because they are figuring the world out as they’re exploring the world. So you said something really interesting, that when you turn on the TV—when you turned on the TV when you were a child, and now you’re a mom of a two-year-old, we wanna make sure that the show represents content that is relevant and meaningful to our target audience. And that comes through with the characters. So all of our characters have very specific personalities, as all children do. And our characters represent all children, in terms of not only personality, but interest and learning styles, ’cause we wanna see—we wanna make sure that children see themselves in these characters. And we have a character who actually loves math. And he’s The Count.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (13:12):
I’m like, “I know! I know who it is!” I will save you my impression. Although I have done it for my child. But I’ll save our listeners .

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (13:20):
And you know, he’s an adult character. Some of our characters are preschoolers, like Elmo and Abby—they’re preschoolers—and Zoe. But The Count is an adult. He lives in the castle and he just loves numbers. But what’s really important is while we have The Count to explain—not explain to, but to portray to children, cause we don’t explain anything; we show children that math is more than number, right? Math is a pretty wide concept. Which is what I love about math. And the other thing about math is math language. The language of math. ‘Cause when we’re teaching children vocabulary words, we’re also teaching children the concept. Be it a math concept or a science concept or a social-emotional concept. So children don’t come with this math anxiety. Math anxiety is learned and it’s unfortunate. It’s picked up by their observations of the adults in their lives, who sometimes say out loud, “I don’t like math,” or “Math is hard,” or even worse, “I’m not good at math.” Or may even label it as math anxiety. That word won’t mean anything to a young child. But it then provides a, whaddya call it, like a negative valence for something that they never felt negative about. Because as they’re growing and interacting with the world, math is all around them. And there’s that sense of awe and wonder and joy, especially as they’re learning and they’re figuring it out. So I think we have to reframe math. Instead of saying “math anxiety,” we have to talk about the joy of math and all the wonderful joys that come with the exploration of these math concepts. Number is great. We know kids love numbers. We know that they love to count and use a big word here: enumerate . Because so many parents don’t make this distinction. They’ll say, “Oh, my child is counting!” Well, there’s rote counting, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, which is important. But then it’s like there’s an item for each number. So it’s one Cheerio, two Cheerios. And then as you point to each number, you are then figuring out what the set is, of the number of objects that you have. And then you get at what I love to call the meaningfulness of math. Right? Number has meaning. And as I said, it’s all part of your everyday activities. It’s part of—it’s in your kitchen; you’re following recipes; you’re measuring; you’re weighing. It’s at bath time, right? You could have the sorting of nested cups and you could, you know, and once again, the math language: big, bigger, biggest. These are relational concepts. You could then count what sinks and what floats, if you’re doing science. And then you could put them in two different buckets, and count. These are the items that sunk and these are the items that float. So math and bath time could be a lot of fun. And then there’s math and music. Music is so rich with math, as you talk about rhythm and tempo and dynamics and pitch and duration. That’s all math.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (16:57):
The way that you talk about it, it is so rich, right? It is so multi-layered. And you know, I’ve shared on the podcast before: I’ve actually had parents in parent-teacher conferences say that, “Well, I wasn’t good at math either,” or “Math’s really not my thing.” And it’s really—it is, it’s rooted in that fear. And so I do see the way that you’re talking about it; I see that come through in Sesame Street. That, in a lot of ways, it’s reeducating parents, right? Because we hope that our caregivers are sitting next to their kiddo and enjoying it together and having conversations about it later. And there’s a way that parents then are also getting their own sense of what math can be, expanded. And I think there’s such a beauty in that. And I love the way that you talk about that, that you really are looking at, “Well, we wanna celebrate counting and the joyfulness of that. And let’s use math talk, you know, and let’s use these words and try out these ideas.” And it’s not because you’re trying to check some list. But you’re really exploring it and having fun together.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (18:03):
And you’re embracing it. And you mentioned the word “mistake.” So often when it comes to math, if you make a mistake—you make a mistake in counting or, you know, we’re not doing a lot of math equations on Sesame Street, but that’s when people feel like they can’t do math. ‘Cause they made a mistake. And that’s something that we are trying to address on Sesame Street, that it’s OK to make mistakes and you learn through mistakes. But you have to have—and I’m gonna come up with this other phrase now—you have to have what we call a growth mindset. What that means is that I may not be able to do this yet. Like, it’s called “the power of yet.” So we know that learning any concept, it takes time and practice. And how do we have children embrace the process, right? So often we focus on right and wrong. Now, there is right and wrong with math, of course. You know, there’s a right answer and there’s a wrong answer. But how do we focus, not on the end product, but the process through which you are engaging in? So let’s talk about measurement. Let’s talk about measuring the length and the width or the height of something. You might make some mistakes along the way, but you’re processing it. My son used to make all of these little structures for all his little play animals. Well, you know, he would measure and think he got it right. And then when he put the animals in, of course, you know, either the animal was too wide or it was too tall. And he would have to redo it. But you’re not redoing it from scratch, you’re redoing it now from experience. “I realize that if I’m gonna put the giraffe in with the elephant, I’m gonna need something wide as well as high.” Right? For the length, tall. And that’s process. And then, for children, when they figure it out, that “oops” and “aha”—the “aha” was like, “I did it!” And it’s so empowering, you know, giving them agency—not swooping in and saying, “All right, I’ll fix it for you. You know, we got the wide elephant and the tall giraffe and I’ll you know…”. NO! Having them do it. And another fun activity is in what we call informal measurement. And that’s like getting something of an equal size. It could be paper clips or it could be same-size blocks, and then measuring how long something is. So if it’s measured by blocks versus paperclips, you’re gonna have a lot more paperclips than you are blocks. And that kind of comparison is so fascinating for children. And so that’s measurement. And now we have counting. Like, how many paperclips long is something versus how many blocks long is something.

Dan Meyer (21:02):
So checking my understanding here, you’ve talked about how caregivers and other adults can transmit math anxiety by naming it and claiming it for themselves. And you’ve talked about, some really exciting ways that adults can involve students and kids in different kinds of math. I’d love to go upstream with you a little bit and wonder out loud, where does this anxiety come from initially? It’s gotta be more than adult one to kid two talking about anxiety, and transmitting it from human to human. What is the original spring from which all this anxiety flows?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (21:36):
Yeah. I do think it does—a lot of it does come from the adults in their lives. It’s unfortunate, because there is a lot of math talk about it, right? I can’t do math; I’m not good at math. Even when you’re at a restaurant and you get the bill and someone’s figuring out the tip, I can’t tell you how often it’s like, “Pass the bill, because I can’t do math.” Or if you actually then bring gender into it, you know, “Oh, girls aren’t good at math,” and that’s not true. There’s no evidence of that whatsoever, right? So in the younger grades, there’s no gender difference in terms of math ability. What’s also interesting about even socioeconomic status differences, you don’t see a lot of differences between low-income and middle-income children when it comes to math skills. Where you see differences is children’s ability to talk about their mathematical thinking. So if a child doing a math problem is asked, “How did you solve the problem?”, low-income children don’t often have the language to explain their thinking. So that’s something that we did on Sesame Street, where we focused a lot on what we call math talk. So, not just show number and show doing math, but actually narrate and giving the language. Because math literacy is one of the predictors of overall school achievement. So there’s that. They’re getting it from the adults in their lives. They’re getting it, unfortunately, sometimes from their teachers. But I think the anxiety comes from the fear of making mistakes. Because math, there is right and wrong, and always wanting to get the right answer. So that’s why this whole idea of reframing, and saying, “But really, it’s in the process.” So, you know, my son, math is not his strong suit. And I’ve been doing a lot of growth mindset with him as well. And there was a teacher that he had—I think in like 10th or 11th grade—who said, “In a test, I don’t wanna—I’m not even gonna look at the answer. I wanna see the process through which you GOT to this answer. And I’m going to grade the process. So the process could yield a right answer; it could yield a wrong answer. But you’re gonna get graded on the process. Because I wanna see how you are approaching the problem and how you’re thinking it through.” And I think that is a great example of, maybe, to try to reduce math anxiety. Because if you can get people excited about the process through which you’re learning—and that applies to all subjects, it’s not just math!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:36):
I’m like, that applies to life! Right?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (24:38):
That applies to life!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (24:39):
That’s so spot on. Wow. Yeah.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (24:41):
But I think that there’s so much focus on right and wrong, and not really understanding the value of the process. So on Sesame, we’ve been doing a lot of “oops” and “ahas.” You know, we’re gonna make mistakes, but what’s important is what do you DO when you make a mistake? So there’s a great episode with The Count. A couple of years ago. The Count was counting. Something he does every day. A lot of time, every day, ’cause he’s obsessed with counting and numbers. And he was counting an array of items.

Gladys the Cow (25:17):
I need 10 sandwiches all together.

The Count (25:22):
Well, of course.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (25:23):
And he made a mistake.

Elmo (25:25):
The Count?

The Count (25:25):
Hmm?

The Count (25:25):
Elmo thinks The Count made a little mistake.

The Count (25:31):
No mistake.

The Count (25:32):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (25:33):
And first time ever, did he make a mistake. And he fell apart.

The Count (25:38):
I must make sure that that never happens again. So I shall never count again.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (25:46):
And that’s an example of showing that, you know, you could get upset when you make a mistake, but what’s important is you gotta come back and you gotta come back to doing what you love. In his case, is counting and letting him know that it was an “oops.” But you learn that mistakes are OK. It’s OK to make a mistake and continue to do what you love.

The Count (26:13):
I must keep trying and you should, too.

Elmo (26:17):
Yeah!

The Count (26:17):
So come, let’s count the carrots together!

Elmo (26:18):
Oh, cool!

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (26:19):
And what a beautiful gift to show kiddos. Show that to kiddos, right? And to the adults. I wanna, you know, really acknowledge it, and say, “Hey look this, it’s OK.” And again, you’re giving them that language. That’s such a gift.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (26:34):
Thank you.

Dan Meyer (26:34):
We spend a lot of time wondering why other subjects don’t seem to suffer from this negative perception. And I think you’ve unlocked a lot of that. You’ve mentioned that there are issues that cut across different subject areas, but I think from my own experience and research and interviews, it seems that in ELA and the social sciences, there’s this aspect where you need to come up with a claim and “how are you seeing this?” And there are multiple defensible claims. And I love how you imported that generous pedagogy over into math with this example of a teacher who says, “You know what? It’s about the process here.” Disassociating answer and process.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (27:09):
And I think the other thing is like, when children are engaged in a project, for parents to point out: “You’re doing math!” Because they don’t realize that they’re doing math. Once again, math is so often equated solely with numbers and mathematical computations. So it was really interesting—the same is true for science. You know, when we’re talking to parents about the use of everyday—like, going to the supermarket or making dinner or bath time, there’s so much math and science in the everyday. And then when you point it out to them—”you’re doing math”—it’s like, “I’m doing math!” Like, you’re setting the table for a family of six: you’re doing math. That’s called one one-to-one correspondence. “I’m doing math: I’m setting the table.” Yeah, but you’re doing math. You can’t set the table because you have to know how many people are gonna be sitting at the table for dinner. You can’t follow a recipe without doing math. You can’t go shopping without doing math. There’s quantity; you gotta figure out how many peppers you gotta buy, or pounds. “I gotta get a bunch of potatoes and I gotta put ’em in the scale. And I have to get two pounds of potatoes.”

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (28:29):
So your book Ready for School: A Parent’s Guide to Playful Learning for Children Ages Two to Five. First, as a parent of a young toddler, I gotta say it’s such a tool; it’s such a resource. It’s very conversational. And I think about these ideas a lot, both in my work and, you know, just for fun. And yet, even if this wasn’t my chosen field, I still feel like it’s just so accessible. And I wanna flag something.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (29:01):
Thank you.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (29:01):
Yeah, no. Thank YOU. . I wanna flag something that you said in the math chapter You were talking about the joy of math, and you said when it comes to our children, caregivers: “take pleasure in reading stories together, especially at bedtime, which in many households is a regular part of a child’s routine. But somehow the notion of introducing math concepts to our children seems daunting. In fact, some studies have shown that parents harbor a strong belief that while it’s important and pleasurable to support their child’s reading skills, it’s the responsibility of the schools to take care of teaching math.” And that quote, I highlighted it, I starred it! And I would love for you to say a little more about that, because you have given us already, like, a bounty of ideas that as caregivers we can do with our kiddos or the kiddos in our lives. And we’ve seen that even what they’re learning in school, it may not be the freeing, joyful math language that we hope our kiddos have access to.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (30:05):
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. Because a lot of our focus is on how children learn through playful experiences, and how they learn through play in particular. And there are so many playing, either a game or even playing ideas—like we talked about building, you know, a house for animals or building a fort. It’s just so filled with math. And I wish I could narrate for every young parent how I would hope that they would talk as they are co-engaged in this activity. And I think … we asked about, with the anxiety, the adults have to find the joy in math first. They have to see the math. That’s the problem. That’s why I hope that my book provides that. I want you to know that you are doing math and I want you to know that your child is what we call a mathematician—or in the science chapter, is a STEMist. Your child is already doing science, technology, engineering, and math. STEM is so integrated. So to acknowledge them—because babies are doing math! Babies know, they can distinguish between a small quantity and something that is a of a larger quantity and want the larger. Right? So, it’s natural for them. And they are taking it all in. I mean, the joy of watching a child just early counting: you know, one, two. And trying to then figure out the meaningfulness of two. It’s not three objects. There are actually two. And for a parent to see the joy in that I think is step one. And then to see the richness and how expansive math is, and that power of, oops, “I made a mistake, don’t freak out,” and then [not] say, “See, I’m not good at math,” but say, “Let me try again. I know I could figure this out.” Right? It’s all of that supportive language and supportive experiences that builds this mindset, a positive mindset. So that you hope that when you get into the higher grades, they’re not walking in and saying, “I can’t, I can’t do math.”

Dan Meyer (32:26):
Yeah. Super helpful. I think you point at one of the grownups—great powers in the world of kids, which is to label. To name things. And you know, you’ve talked about how grownups should ideally downplay some of their negative experiences with mathematics for the sake of the kid, but also to play up the positive stuff that they’re doing as mathematics. Like that right there, that’s math. I would love to know … you have an extremely loud megaphone to communicate messages about math and the world and everything through Sesame Street. One of the biggest that there is—and I just wonder if you could step out and imagine you had a magic wand to wave over the world in which students grow up, play and learn—what would you do like to help students have better associations or less math anxiety? And, you know, learn more about math itself?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (33:19):
If I had a magic wand, I would give everyone what we call a growth mindset that nothing is fixed and everything can be changed if you put the time and effort into the process, and enjoy the process. The joy of learning. I think, you know, it’s really sad. I don’t wanna be sad on your show. But when we were getting ready for the 50th anniversary, I was wondering, “What is gonna be the curriculum focus?” You know, we just came off of literacy and math literacy and social-emotional development. And we talked about the power of play. Playful learning. And building careers. Give children sophisticated play scenarios so that they could explore what they may wanna be when they grow up. Because there’s a concept: If I can see it, I can play it, I can be it. Right? So where are those portrayals? And it’s like, “What are we gonna do for the 50th?” And I had a convening of experts across all disciplines, and brought them into a room. And I said, you know, “What keeps you up at night? Like, what are you worried about?” Sort of like the State of the Union of Child Development. And this is where the sad part is. They talked about how that sense of joy, that sense of wonder, that sense of curiosity, that sense of flexible thinking and creative thinking, was disappearing in early childhood. Wow. If it’s disappearing in early childhood, we are in big, big trouble . ‘Cause I could see it disappearing later on, you know, as you advance in grade. But what do you mean, it’s disappearing in childhood? And then they talked about the fear of making mistakes. And that goes against—it’s the opposite of a growth mindset. And so we have to bring back that sense of joy, wonder, asking those why questions and embracing them. So it’s another problem parents have. They’re fine with the “why” questions until the “whys” become so difficult they don’t have the answers. And then they don’t want the “why” questions, because now they feel like they’re not smart enough to answer their child’s “why” questions. How do I flip that around to be much more positive and say, “You know, I don’t know! But let’s find out together. Let’s explore together; let’s experiment together.” That’s what I mean about the shift in the mindset, that growth mindset. We should not know all of the answers, but where’s the joy of, “Wow, I don’t know, let’s go find out together”? And that applies to math too. But you have to have that open mindset. You have to—you, as yourself, have to have that growth mindset.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (36:20):
I love that magic wand. I want that magic wand! And I think what—like Dan said about this megaphone, this opportunity to reach so many young people, so many caregivers—what a gift! And I’m so grateful that you took time to be in the lounge with us, and that you have shared these ideas. Because truly, I think, like you said, it’s really our youngest learners, right? How can we create and cultivate these opportunities for our youngest learners to find the joy in mathematics and just in learning, right?

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (36:54):
Yeah.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (36:55):
So thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Truglio. We are deeply grateful for your insight and for all the work you do. And we continue to invite the world of Sesame Street into our homes.

Dr. Rosemarie Truglio (37:08):
Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to come into your home, and for you to re-learn with your child as you’re watching Sesame Street. Because it’s very much a parenting show, as it is for a child-directed show, because we are blessed to have these wonderful human cast members who are the stand-ins for parents. And so we are often giving you the language for how to talk about and how to problem-solve together. So thank you.

Dan Meyer (37:43):
Thanks so much for listening to our conversation with Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content at Sesame Workshop.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (37:51):
Dr. Truglio is also the author of Sesame Street Ready for School, A Parents Guide to Playful Learning for Children Ages Two to Five, and we’re gonna make sure we put a link to that in the show notes because it is really, really a rich resource. I’m diving in. I have so many ideas bookmarked that I wanna try out with my kiddo.

Dan Meyer (38:09):
Yeah, it’s really exciting to see—like, for a classroom educator, I just kinda assumed that a lot of math learning happens in the classroom context. That’s my lens. So yeah, I loved reading the book and seeing all the different opportunities for parents for just out there in the world, in front of your house, at the supermarket. All the different opportunities there are for mathematical thinking, and then to think about how to bring that into some of those routines and ideas into the classroom, into formal schooling.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (38:35):
Exactly. Exactly. Like Dr. Truglio said, the caregivers’s disposition about mathematics matters so deeply. Your teachers’ dispositions about mathematics, their beliefs, the way that you hear people talking about math, that impacts our learners. That impacts—like, as a student, that impacts what you think is possible for yourself. So I love this, re-educating ourselves about what math can look like out in the world, in everyday conversations. I don’t know. I really, really appreciated this conversation with Dr. Truglio.

Dan Meyer (39:12):
Same. Yeah. We’d love to hear what you folks think about the work. the book, her ideas. Definitely get in touch with us. Subscribe to Math Teacher Lounge, wherever you get podcasts. And keep in touch with us on Facebook at Math Teacher Lounge Community, and on Twitter at MTL show.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (39:27):
Also, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to Math Teacher Lounge wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a rating and a review. It’ll help more listeners find the show. And while you’re at it, let a friend know about this episode, because you enjoyed it; they might enjoy it. On our next episode, we’re gonna be chatting with Dr. Heidi Sabnani and taking a closer look at best practices for coaching teachers to reduce their own math anxiety.

Dr. Heidi Sabnani (39:56):
One of the teachers that I worked with had done her student teaching with a teacher who had math anxiety and who never taught math. And so she entered her teaching career never having taught math before or seeing it taught.

Dan Meyer (40:10):
Thanks again for listening, folks.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson (40:12):
Bye.

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What Dr. Rosemarie Truglio says about math

“We all have to work together, because even though we are the experts [on curriculum and education], the real experts are the children themselves.”

– Dr. Rosemarie Truglio

Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content, Sesame Workshop

Meet the guest

Rosemarie T. Truglio, Ph.D. is the Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content at Sesame Workshop. Dr. Truglio is responsible for the development of the interdisciplinary curriculum on which Sesame Street is based and oversees content development across platforms (e.g., television, publishing, toys, home video, and theme park activities).  She also oversees the curriculum development for all new show production, including  Bea’s Block, Mecha Builders, Esme & Roy, Helpsters, and Ghostwriter. Dr. Truglio has written numerous articles in child and developmental psychology journals and presented her work at national and international conferences. Her current book is Ready for School! A Parent’s Guide to Playful Learning for Children Ages 2 to 5, published by Running Press (2019).

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About Math Teacher Lounge

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!

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Desmos Classroom Grades 3–12

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Welcome, Idaho SMART educators and schools!

In alignment with the Idaho Department of Education’s K–3 Idaho SMART Project, mCLASSⓇ DIBELSⓇ 8th Edition has been selected to support the initiative’s goals. This selection reinforces Idaho’s commitment to ensuring every child reads proficiently by the end of third grade using evidence-based practices grounded in the Science of Reading.

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About mCLASS in Idaho

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition will enable the early identification of students requiring additional reading support, providing the data and insights needed to build the strong literacy foundations envisioned in Idaho’s SMART Project through its collaborative work with leadership, district/building coaches, and educators.

mCLASS in Idaho is committed to providing literacy instruction for all by:

  • Aligning core curriculum, instruction, and assessments with the Science of Reading.
  • Providing appropriate literacy interventions to address the varying needs and challenges of reading development.
  • Implementing practices based on the Science of Reading in every classroom, every day.
  • Providing aligned resources to parents, guardians, and family members.

mCLASS is built on decades of research from the Center on Teaching and Learning at the University of Oregon, a national center for early childhood assessment and instruction. The measures are already in use in many districts in Idaho. The additional mCLASS suite includes reporting, grouping, lessons, and caregiver support.

Interested in more information? Watch the recording of the Idaho Department of Education’s overview of what is being offered to educators.

Check out the recording!

Transform your assessment and instructional skills with mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition training.

Ready to master one of education’s most powerful assessment tools? Join our comprehensive mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition training sessions and unlock the full potential of data-driven instruction!

You’ll gain:

  • Complete mastery of mCLASS essentials, from administration to scoring.
  • Confidence in using standardized assessment guidelines.
  • Expertise in leveraging powerful mCLASS reports and lessons.
  • Proven strategies to accelerate student outcomes through data-driven decisions.

Perfect for: Teachers, reading specialists, interventionists, and administrators who want to maximize student growth through precise assessment and targeted instruction.

Walk away ready to: Immediately implement what you’ve learned and start making a measurable impact on student reading achievement in your classroom or school.

Explore the abundant learning opportunities available for Idaho teachers and leaders below, including session recordings, training resources, and more. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your assessment expertise and drive real results for your students!

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Interest Survey

Interested in hearing more and determining your school or district’s eligibility? Complete the interest survey below.

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What to expect next: 

  • An email from Amplify will be sent to schedule professional development based on your survey responses
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  • Once approved, an Amplify representative will reach out to your technical contact and yourself and provide information on completing the Digital Onboarding
  • Schools or districts will then share roster data with Amplify 

Register now—limited spots available!

Support your implementation with our half-day virtual mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition training sessions offered throughout the 2025–26 school year. Various session topics will be offered at strategic times to support teachers at critical times. Sessions will be conducted via Zoom, providing a convenient online format for districts seeking flexible professional development without full-site commitments.

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition initial training (3 hrs)

Participants will dive into the essentials of mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition and leave ready to administer and score the assessment to collect data using standardized guidelines.

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mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Creating a data-driven culture for teachers (3 hrs)

What’s next? Dive deep into mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition reports and instructional recommendations to drive stronger student outcomes in your classroom. You will leave ready to leverage mCLASS progress monitoring and grouping tools to support a robust MTSS program.

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Prepare to implement mCLASS with your school or district. Determine systems-level actions that will ensure assessment fidelity and leave ready to leverage key admin reports to support data-informed decision making.

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mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition: Creating a data-driven culture for leaders (3 hrs)

Cultivate a school-wide culture of data-driven practices. Use mCLASS reports to drill into key school-level data and leave with a systems-level action plan to drive stronger student and teacher outcomes.

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Looking for additional training? No problem. Reach out to your local Account Executive to explore our flexible training alternatives that work with your district’s unique schedule.

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Training resources

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Madison County Schools: Early literacy success through the Science of Reading

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Madison County Schools is a diverse district serving nearly 13,000 students across 23 schools in central Mississippi. Over the past few years, the district has shifted its approach from balanced literacy to structured literacy. The transition wasn’t quick or simple—but it worked.

In 2016, the district’s elementary ELA proficiency was at 47.1%. By the spring of 2024, it had reached almost 70%, with all elementary schools receiving A ratings for the first time.

“Today, structured literacy is at the core of our instruction, and the results speak for themselves,” said Kacey Matthews, dyslexia coordinator for the district. “This historic achievement affirms that when we commit to evidence-based instruction, students thrive.”

That commitment, and the resulting achievement, has earned Madison County Schools our 2025 Science of Reading Star Awards District Captain award. These teacher awards honor educators, schools, and districts who’ve transformed their classrooms and empowered their students with the Science of Reading.

The constants: Building literacy and a love of reading

Madison County Schools spans four zones, from suburban to rural. Roughly one-third of its schools are Title I, and its teachers support more than 1,200 multilingual/English learners representing 36 languages. Nearly 40% of students in the district receive free or reduced-price lunch.

Madison County originally followed a balanced literacy model, but over time, educators began to see gaps—particularly among students experiencing reading difficulty and students with dyslexia.

“Our diverse student body underscores our belief that literacy is the key to unlocking potential,” Matthews said. Teachers came to understand that their shared desire to support a love of reading in their students and their dedication to paramount literacy goals had to be anchored in a curriculum aligned to the Science of Reading: explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, decoding, and language comprehension.

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Shifting practices and mindsets

According to Matthews, transitioning from balanced to structured literacy required more than a change in instructional methods. “The biggest challenge,” she said, “was shifting instructional mindsets.”

In classrooms, educators needed to trade in the familiar tools of running records and predictable texts for a new framework built on foundational skills data. “Initially, some educators were hesitant, but ongoing professional learning, hands-on support, and student success stories built trust and proved the effectiveness of this approach,” Matthews said.

District leaders, principals, and teachers also worked together to create a shared vision for literacy grounded in evidence and collaboration. Madison County invested in professional learning through LETRS, Phonics First, and the AIM Institute, ensuring every educator had the tools to teach early literacy skills effectively.

Each school added trained literacy specialists who provided classroom coaching and MTSS interventions, and the district instituted dyslexia training for all 1,500 staff members every three years, ensuring consistent understanding of structured literacy principles across every grade.

Principals received targeted professional development to lead with clarity, and the district introduced new, research-based curricula—including Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA)—to align instruction from kindergarten through fifth grade. To unify these efforts, Madison County also rewrote its Literacy Expectations guide, a districtwide roadmap detailing the five essential components of literacy, classroom strategies, and links to foundational research.

All told, Madison County teachers and leaders have reimagined classroom practice, embracing a structured literacy framework grounded in the Science of Reading.

From anxiety to confidence

In addition to the district’s impressive leap in literacy proficiency of more than 20 percentage points, they also saw transformation on the Mississippi Third-Grade Reading Assessment, a high-stakes gate test of readiness for fourth grade. Equipped with strong foundational skills, Madison County’s third graders are now thriving—with a 99.7% promotion rate in 2024.

“Instead of facing [the test] with fear, our students now enter with confidence,” Matthews said. In other words, data only tells one part of the story. “Students who previously dreaded assessments now approach them with readiness,” she said. “Students who once struggled with decoding now read with confidence and fluency.”

Sustaining a culture of literacy and growth

Madison County’s progress rests on persistence as much as innovation. The district’s educators continue to meet regularly for data discussions, lesson study, and reflection—sustaining the same mindset shift that began this journey. Professional learning remains a constant for them, demonstrating their dedication to teaching excellence and their belief that educational approaches are never static.

According to Matthews, Amplify has been a trusted partner in that work. Teachers can target support with precision by using mCLASS® for progress monitoring and the mCLASS Dyslexia Screener for early identification. Several schools also use Amplify CKLA to build decoding and comprehension simultaneously, engaging students with content-rich texts that deepen knowledge and vocabulary.

“When we commit to the Science of Reading, we are not just building better readers,” Matthews said, “we’re building a brighter future.”

More to explore

Partner with Amplify to power Georgia classrooms.

Georgia educators are leading the way for every learner, from the first sounds of reading to real‑world problem solving. Amplify is your partner with research‑based programs, actionable data, and on‑the‑ground support for administrators, teachers, and coaches.

Together, we’ll help students grow and get ready for what’s next.

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Amplify CKLA

Using a fundamentally different approach to language arts, Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts® (CKLA) is a PreK–5 program that sequences deep content knowledge with research-based foundational skills. Amplify CKLA met expectations and received all-green ratings from EdReports, making it an exceptional choice for Georgia schools. Read the review on EdReports.

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Amplify ELA

Amplify ELA is 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. Read the review on EdReports.

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Amplify Science

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

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Amplify Desmos Math

Amplify Desmos Math is a new, curiosity-driven program for grades K–12 that builds lifelong math proficiency. Through a structured approach to problem-based learning, Amplify Desmos Math helps teachers create a collaborative math community with students at its center. Grades 6–8 courses rated perfect scores on EdReports. Read the review on EdReports.

Explore Amplify Desmos Math

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mCLASS

With Amplify’s trusted assessment system, teachers can simplify their understanding of student thinking and skills in literacy and math. mCLASS® analyzes student results, highlighting each student’s strengths and identifying areas that need more focus. With the small group recommendations and instructional activities mCLASS provides, teachers have more time for other priorities and students quickly receive the support they need.

Explore mCLASS Math

Explore mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition

Boost Learning

It’s your digital assistant instruction—extending and complementing core instruction, addressing remediation needs, and constantly adapting activities for each student’s unique needs. Teachers spend less time planning and more time ensuring that every student’s specific needs are met—with customizable resources that help differentiate when and how it matters most. Boost Learning is personalized instruction and intervention for every student.

Explore Boost Reading Grades K–5

Explore Boost Math

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Spanish literacy resources

Discover a suite of Spanish literacy curriculum and assessment programs designed to build confident readers with mCLASS® Lectura, Amplify Caminos, and Boost Lectura. Amplify’s biliteracy suite includes assessment, core instruction, and personalized learning built on the Science of Reading.

Explore mCLASS Lectura

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Support is always available. Our team is dedicated to helping you every step of the way. Contact your dedicated Georgia representative for program access, samples, and additional information.

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Iliana Gonzalez

ilgonzalez@amplify.com

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Sean McFall

smcfall@amplify.com

Meet the Science of Reading superstars at Windber Elementary

Hardworking teachers, schools, school leaders, and school districts deserve applause every single day. We try to honor educators and their outstanding contributions in as many ways as we can at Amplify—which is why our annual Science of Reading Star Awards is one of our biggest events of the year! We’re currently accepting nominations through Jan. 31. Apply now!

This annual educator awards program is a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on the teachers, administrators, and entire schools working to improve student literacy outcomes in communities across the country—just like 2024 Science of Reading Rookie winner Windber Elementary in Windber, PA.

We hope their positive impact on student learning inspires you in your work—and inspires you to nominate a teacher or school for an award next year!

The challenge: Driving success in early literacy skills

Windber Area School District is a small, rural district in central Pennsylvania. Its preK–5 elementary school is Title One and has just over 620 students, 54% of whom are economically disadvantaged.

The district has been dedicated to helping its diverse student population succeed for years, but getting young learners to excel in literacy has always been a challenge.

That’s why, when Principal Charles Beckley stepped in to lead the way, he adopted a fresh approach to early literacy learning experiences. Principal Beckley has worked in education for a decade, first in North Carolina then at Windber Elementary as classroom teacher, dean of students, and now principal. Under his guidance, Windber’s educators worked together to transform the school’s reading program—and offer inspiration for literacy educators everywhere.

Best practices: Embracing a Science of Reading curriculum

Principal Beckley’s leadership did what truly powerful leadership does: inspire and equip others to lead, too.

First, he and his colleagues had to clarify the why of science-based literacy education. “We had to understand the literacy research and the rationale behind why we needed to make the shift,” he recalls. They collaborated with outside experts to get the information they needed, then they focused on teamwork.

“The original stakeholders who led the push for the Science of Reading, they talked to their colleagues, they collaborated. They were understanding of their teams’ needs and wants. It was a team effort and a team approach,” he says.

They knew they were on the right track when the school board offered their full support, aligning everyone behind their vision for research-based literacy education.

Individual teacher awards: Also deserved!

The most powerful drivers of this change, says Beckley, were the teachers: “Our teachers and coaches had the biggest lift because they had to learn the [CKLA] curriculum.” He affectionately calls them “the neurosurgeons of our school,” and emphasizes their ability to pinpoint areas of need and build the grade-level foundational skills students need most, as well as their readiness to embrace change and dedication to professional growth.

Beckley further emphasized his school’s collective effort, which other districts can look to as a model: “Our community has been on board with this,” he says, “and our students have been great.”

The adoption of Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) was also crucial, providing the teachers with a framework and instructional materials that skillfully combined both skills and content knowledge.

The results have been undeniable. “If you look at our kindergarten,” Beckley says, “at midyear, [we] were 72% on or above benchmark through DIBELS®.”

Windber’s progress is proof of the power of an evidence-based curriculum that nurtures capable and informed readers—and of a community willing to deliver innovative literacy approaches. Their story is one of commitment to research, dedication to student success, development of shared leadership, and access to the right tools and support.

“We know that we’ve done the best for our kids,” Beckley says. “And that’s the most important thing.”

Inspired? Nominate a teacher, school, or district for an award.

We’re looking for our shining 2025 Science of Reading leaders now! Find the specs, our nomination deadline, and more on our Star Awards page. Nominate a teacher for an award.

What’s included in our K–8 literacy assessment and instruction suite

mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition® provides every teacher, coach, and administrator with a data-driven system that supports each student’s unique needs—from efficient one-minute skills assessments in English and Spanish to granular diagnostic insights. You’ll have all of the tools you need to ensure your students receive effective instruction and discover their true skills as readers.

Learn more about mCLASS’s precise measurement, predictive results, and preventive instruction.

Skills at a glance

mCLASS includes benchmark, progress monitoring and dyslexia screening measures in English and Spanish that are predictive of long-term reading success and detect the critical early warning signs of dyslexia risk. Together, mCLASS DIBELSⓇ 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura identify whether a student is at risk due to a stronger proficiency in one language or difficulties associated with dyslexia.

Equal skill coverage in English and Spanish

SkillmCLASS DIBELS 8 measuremCLASS Lectura measureDescription
Letter names and rapid automatized naming (RAN)*Letter Naming Fluency (LNF)Fluidez in nombrar letras (FNL)Grades K–1: Naming letters from print
Phonological awarenessPhonemic Segmentation Fluency (PSF)Fluidez en la segmentación de sílabas (FSS)

Fluidez en la segmentación de fonemas (FSF)		Grades K–1: Hearing and using the smallest unit of sound in spoken words
Letter sound correspondenceNonsense Word Fluency (NWF)Fluidez en los sonidos de letras (FSL)Grades K–3: Knowing the sounds of letters and sounding out written words
Word readingWord-Reading Fluency (WRF)Fluidez en las palabras (FEP)Grades K–3: Reading common words easily, quickly and correctly
Accurate and fluent readingOral Reading Fluency (ORF)Fluidez en la lectura oral (FLO)English:
Grades 1–8
Spanish:
Grades 1–6
Reading words in stories easily, quickly and correctly
Reading comprehensionMaze¿Cuál palabra? (CP)English:
Grades 2–8
Spanish:
Grades 2–6
Understanding and gaining meaning from texts
*Fluidez en nombrar letras (FNL) in Spanish and Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) in English are validated as phonological processing measures (also known as RAN), thus making RAN available in both languages.

Additional dyslexia screening measures

EnglishSpanishDescriptionGrade level
VocabularyVocabularioKnowledge of grade-specific wordsK–3
Encoding (Spelling)OrtografiaArranging letters correctly to spell a wordK–3
RAN (Numbers)–Recognizing visual symbols, such as numbers, and naming them accurately and rapidlyK–3
Oral LanguageLenguaje oralAbility to use words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading and being read to, and responding to textsK–2

Educator and caregiver reports

The rich data you collect through direct observation is instantly available from a variety of reports that simplify student growth analysis and instructional planning. All stakeholders, from teachers and administrators to parents and guardians, will gain a deep understanding of student performance and know how to provide extra practice. See the complete mCLASS Reporting Guide.

Class and student reports

Detailed class and student reports help you quickly pinpoint which students need more support. You’ll be able to see every student’s skill progression from the beginning of their literacy journey to later grades and know exactly when a change in instruction is needed. Measure transcripts from every benchmark and progress monitoring probe also provide you with insight into student responses during assessment.

Goal setting

mCLASS includes tools for setting goals and evaluating growth outcomes to ensure the instruction you are providing each individual student is meeting their needs and accelerating their growth. The program uses each student’s initial performance to assign goals, which you can further customize as their learning progresses.

Administrator reports

The mCLASS reporting and analysis suite makes it possible to analyze performance trends across a variety of demographic categories at the class, school, district, and state level. Principals, administrators, and district leaders are empowered to evaluate the success of instructional strategies, allocate training resources, or decide where to deploy additional staff.

Caregiver reports

The Home Connect letter allows educators to share information about a child’s reading development with parents and guardians in simple charts and family-friendly language. The letters provided include instructional resources in print and online for families to help practice skills at home.

Data-driven instruction

mCLASS helps you make sense of data by instantly providing targeted instructional recommendations and teacher resources based on students’ assessment results. mCLASS data also informs instruction within Amplify’s suite of intervention, personalized learning, and core programs grounded in the Science of Reading.

Automatic small-group and one-on-one instruction

The mCLASS Instruction feature included with DIBELS 8th Edition and mCLASS Lectura automatically generates skill profiles and recommends teacher-led activities for small groups and individual students. Recommendations can be updated based on the latest benchmark and progress monitoring results.

Tier 2 and 3 instruction with mCLASS Intervention

mCLASS data not only helps you identify which students are in need of intensive support, but also places them into Amplify’s Tier 2 and 3 instruction program, mCLASS Intervention. mCLASS Intervention builds a skill profile for each student, forms engaging lesson plans, and updates the instructional recommendations every ten days based on the latest benchmark and progress monitoring results.

Core instruction with Amplify CKLA

By combining the results from mCLASS assessments with Amplify CKLA, you can provide targeted whole-class instruction specific to your students’ risk levels and areas of growth. The small-group instruction recommendations in mCLASS provide activities that reinforce what students have learned during Amplify CKLA core instruction.

Personalized practice with Boost Reading

mCLASS data seamlessly integrates with Boost Reading to personalize student practice in targeted skill areas. With more than 50 immersive mini-games that build skills in phonics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension, Boost Reading provides students with independent practice time they’ll love, while freeing teachers up to provide small-group instruction.

Explore more programs based on the Science of Reading

The programs in our literacy suite are designed to support and complement each other. Learn more about our related programs.

mCLASS Intervention

Boost Reading

Amplify CKLA

Universal screening built on the Science of Reading

Based on over 30 years of research, mCLASS® is the universal K–6 assessment and intervention suite for early literacy that helps every child learn to read confidently.

Request a demo
  • Teenage boy with red hair using a tablet for an mCLASS early literacy assessment in a classroom setting, focused intently on the screen.
  • A teacher sitting around a table with three students.
  • A teacher and a student using a tablet.
  • Students listening at an assembly

What is mCLASS?

mCLASS, powered by DIBELS® 8th Edition, offers teacher-administered literacy assessments and intervention for grades K–6.

When you use mCLASS, you can be assured your students are getting the best the Science of Reading has to offer. Our assessments have been built on decades of research in curriculum-based measurement science, delivering a proven approach that screens for at-risk students and provides deep insight into individual students’ reading development.

What educators say

“With mCLASS, the focus is on instruction. Teams work together to collaborate and share ideas and get excited about using each other’s ideas. And students are involved in looking at their own data too—they are involved in their own plan for growth.”

Linda

Principal, Colorado

What educators say

“There is no time to waste in a teacher’s day, and mCLASS is a quick and accurate assessment of a student’s reading strengths and weaknesses.”

Nita

Reading coach, Oklahoma

What educators say

“The reports are invaluable. One-click reports are useful and make it easy. I’m able to make adjustments and focus on the at-risk students in need—at the moment of need.”

Launa

DIBELS coordinator, Utah

Image of DIBELS 8th edition logo

Based on decades of leading literacy research

We partner with experts at the University of Oregon’s Center on Teaching and Learning, a recognized leader in early literacy assessment.

The University of Oregon are the creators of DIBELS® (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and mCLASS is the only licensed digital provider of the research-based DIBELS 8th Edition assessment. See more of our research.

Our approach

The comprehensive mCLASS system includes efficient DIBELS 8th Edition’s one-minute measures, a built-in dyslexia screener, intervention, and robust reports for teachers and administrators. It’s all you’ll need to monitor and support every student in your classroom.

Save hours of time

As the only digital provider of DIBELS 8th Edition’s one-minute measures, mCLASS eliminates the manual assessment process— saving you hours of time and giving you instant results and clear next steps for each student. Learn more about mCLASS’S efficient measures.

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Spreadsheet from mCLASS foundational literacy assessment, with rows of names and columns of categories, displaying individual scores and performance levels like "below benchmark" and "well above.

Catch at-risk students early.

Early intervention is critical. mCLASS offers universal and dyslexia screening in a single powerful tool—no additional assessment system required. Your most vulnerable readers are identified at the earliest levels. Learn more about mCLASS’s dyslexia screening.

Connect student data to personalized learning.

mCLASS connects with Boost Reading (formerly known as Amplify Reading), a K–5 student-driven literacy program that provides both remediation and enrichment for all students, leveraging the power of compelling storytelling to engage students in personalized reading instruction and practice. Learn more about Boost Reading.

Boost Reading - reading curriculum how it works image
A teacher instructing a classroom of students

Better data means better instruction.

mCLASS lets you know exactly which aspect of a skill a student is struggling with, and then gives you effective lesson plans for each student powered by reliable universal screening based on one-minute measures. Learn more about mCLASS reporting.

We’re making an impact

2,000,000

students

120,000+

teachers

1,200+

districts

6,000+

schools

What’s included

mCLASS provides benchmark and progress-monitoring assessments for grades K–6. Its ecosystem of elementary reading resources works to target skill gaps and provide the right instruction at the right time.

A laptop screen displaying the mCLASS assessment dashboard for Grade 1 reading. The screen shows scores for five students, with indicators for "Passed" or "Well Below" next to each name.

DIBELS 8th Edition

mCLASS is powered by DIBELS 8th Edition, enabling you to automate scoring and receive instant targeted instructional recommendations. DIBELS 8th Edition measures:

  • Phonemic awareness
  • Phonics
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary
  • Comprehension

Data you can trust

mCLASS’s teacher-administered assessment provides you with valid and reliable data that allows you to make informed decisions on instruction. Our assessments follow a  one-on-one observational model.

Pantalla de tableta que muestra instrucciones para una evaluación de la fluidez sin palabras, incluido el tiempo, indicaciones para la siguiente letra y pautas de interrupción. Un botón "Salir" es visible en la esquina superior derecha.
Two digital devices displaying educational software interfaces, one shows class performance statistics and the other showcases a foundational literacy assessment tool.

Comprehensive literacy assessment

mCLASS provides benchmark assessments, ongoing progress monitoring, and voice recognition technology to comprehensively support each student’s literacy development.

  • Foundational skills assessments
  • Comprehension assessments
  • Dyslexia screening assessments

Valid and reliable reporting

mCLASS gives educators detailed insight into your students’ reading development across foundational literacy skills. It provides a wealth of valuable reporting information for everyone—from classroom teachers and literacy specialists to principals and district leaders and parents and guardians at home.

  • Skill-based reporting view for each student
  • Real-time growth reports for each student
  • Class summary reports
  • School and district reports
  • Parent and guardian reports
mCLASS's reporting dashboard
A digital tablet displaying a detailed beginning-of-year academic schedule with various subjects including mCLASS Early Literacy assessments and teacher names.

Embedded dyslexia screening

Included at no additional cost, mCLASS’s DIBELS 8th Edition measures are validated to provide information about dyslexia risk. mCLASS also offers supplemental measures to screen for risk related to dyslexia.

  • Vocabulary
  • Encoding
  • Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN)

Easy to use, targeted lessons

mCLASS provides targeted instruction in all the critical foundational reading skills by automatically analyzing data to place students in skill-based groups with targeted activities.

A laptop screen displays an educational software interface with tabs labeled Benchmark, Progress, Instruction, and Home Connect. The current view shows activities related to Grade 1 under Advanced Decoding skills.
A teacher assisting a young girl with her reading in a classroom, surrounded by educational posters and materials.

Seamless student intervention

mCLASS connects to mCLASS Intervention, a proven companion intervention program that provides the analytical tools and resources educators need to make targeted, staff-led intervention a daily reality throughout the school year.

Learn more
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Dyslexia Fact vs. Fiction

Can you separate dyslexia fact from fiction?

Download our e-book

Explore more programs

Our programs are designed to support and complement one another. Learn more about our related programs.

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mCLASS Intervention

mCLASS Intervention is a staff-led reading intervention that does the heavy lift…

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Boost Reading K–5

Boost Reading accelerates reading growth for every student.

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Science of Reading

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Meet Science of Reading changemaker Altramez Simone McQuaige

Awards for teachers—we should probably give them out every day. We try to honor teachers and their exceptional contributions in as many ways as we can at Amplify. That’s why our annual Science of Reading Star Awards is one of our biggest events of the year!

We’re currently accepting nominations through Jan. 31. Apply now!

This annual award program is a great opportunity for us to shine a spotlight on the classroom teachers, school administrators, and educators who are improving student literacy outcomes in schools and communities across the country—like 2024 Changemaker Award winner Altramez Simone McQuaige. We hope her significant contributions inspire you in your work—and inspire you to nominate a teacher for an award next year!

A leadership role: Experience and experimentation

Altramez Simone McQuaige has spent more than 30 years in education, so it’s probably safe to assume she knows what she’s doing. But she’s not afraid to embrace change, or even take risks. “We didn’t go into this profession to do the same thing every day,” she says.

As supervisor of elementary reading and English language arts at Prince George’s County Public Schools, McQuaige took on the challenge of improving literacy instruction in her district by focusing on the Science of Reading.

Foundational skills: Noticing the problem

Several years ago, McQuaige and her team noticed a specific issue with foundational skills instruction, especially in first and second grades. “We were seeing a population of students that we weren’t seeing progress with consistency,” she says.

Under McQuaige’s leadership, a team of coaches, reading leaders, and administrators met to discuss how to improve their foundational skills instruction and student outcomes, asking themselves questions like: Should they shift their curriculum? Their classroom methods? Their entire literacy approach?

Then the pandemic hit.

Coming together: Exploring a new approach

Despite pandemic disruptions, McQuaige and her team convened and launched a cohort of 240 teachers, central office personnel, and reading leaders to learn more about the Science of Reading.

Openness to change was key. The cohort had to be willing to look at the latest research and see—as McQuaige puts it— that “some of the practices that may have been used from yesteryear were not effective.”

Their decision? Start to shift from a balanced literacy environment to a structured literacy approach involving explicit, systematic teaching of the elements of reading and a strong emphasis on phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies.

Varied stakeholders building energy for change

There was “energy around the shift,” she recalls. The excitement coming from that large team of varied stakeholders helped build further buy-in—and success.

“We wanted to ensure that our reading leaders and our central office personnel with ESOL teachers and special educators had an opportunity to engage in these conversations,” she says. “That led us to have teachers practice or pilot programs before we chose the best products to meet the needs of our teachers.”

“We were building capacity across our district,” she says, “and building leaders and allies to talk about why the shift is necessary, and what they noticed as they started to embed those practices in their instruction.”

Professional development: Continued improvement and support

The result? The district successfully moved to a structured literacy approach in just three years, and improvements in student performance data demonstrate the effectiveness of the changes. “Even those who were once reticent are seeing the shift in their students,” McQuaige says of the teachers around her.

She also acknowledges the essential role of their partners: “Amplify’s support was crucial as we shifted. We know that as you make the shift, it will never be one and done. The continuous learning across our district, using our Amplify team, is invaluable.”

But McQuaige knows that even if the shift in approach is technically complete, she—like her students—must always be learning. “Let’s follow the research,” she says. “I know research is always changing, and that means we’re always changing.”

Here’s your nomination form!

Inspired? We’re looking for our shining 2025 Science of Reading leaders now! Visit our Star Awards page for information like our submission deadline, and nominate a teacher for an award today!