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.

The post The power of high-quality instructional materials for K–8 science appeared first on Amplify.

Math is all about getting the right answer. Right?

Wrong! Getting the correct answer matters, of course—accuracy is part of proficiency—but when math instruction focuses primarily on correctness, students can miss something essential: the opportunity to think deeply, share ideas, and make sense of problems for themselves.

Many K–5 math classrooms follow a familiar and well-established rhythm: The teacher demonstrates a strategy, students practice it, and the class moves on. This approach is widely used for good reason—it can feel clear, efficient, and reassuring. But over time, it can leave fewer opportunities for students to reason, deepen problem-solving skills, explore different approaches, and develop understanding that lasts.

This is where problem-based learning comes in.

What problem-based learning means in K–5 math

Problem-based learning places rich mathematical problems at the center of instruction. Instead of starting with a demonstrated method, students encounter a problem first, then draw on what they already know, try strategies, and make sense of the math through discussion and reflection.

As students tackle complex problems, they explain their thought processes, compare approaches, and revise ideas. The right answer still matters, but it emerges through critical thinking and sense-making, not just following steps. The result is learning that feels purposeful, engaging, and durable.

This approach reflects how math works beyond the classroom. People begin by understanding a situation, not by choosing a procedure. Problem-based learning helps students build that habit early.

Why shifting to problem-based learning matters

When student thinking stays private, happening only in heads or notebooks, it’s hard to assess understanding or guide learning in the moment. Problem-based learning brings thinking into the open.

As students share strategies, representations, and explanations, teachers gain insight into how they’re reasoning. Instruction can respond to real understanding rather than relying solely on correct or incorrect answers. And students benefit, too, by seeing that their ideas matter and math is something they can actively participate in.

Over time, this approach supports deeper understanding, stronger engagement, and lasting mathematical proficiency.

Three practices that support problem-based learning

Shifting to problem-based learning doesn’t require a complete overhaul all at once. A few core practices can help math teachers support the transition in K–5 classrooms.

• Establish norms for learning math together. Productive problem-solving depends on a classroom culture where students feel comfortable sharing ideas, even when those ideas are unfinished. Norms that emphasize listening, explaining reasoning, and revising thinking help create a collaborative learning community.
• Use tasks that invite curiosity and access. Effective problems allow all students to get started while still offering opportunities to extend thinking. Open prompts such as “What do you notice?” or “What do you wonder?” encourage students to connect prior knowledge to new situations and engage meaningfully with the math at hand.
• Make learning goals explicit at the right moments. Problem-based learning includes purposeful instructional moments. Synthesizing student ideas near the end of a lesson helps students see how their thinking connects to the mathematical goal, bringing clarity without cutting short exploration.

Rethinking the teacher’s role

Problem-based learning also involves a shift in how teachers support instruction.

In classrooms grounded in problem-based learning, teachers guide learning by selecting meaningful problems, monitoring student thinking, and facilitating discussion. Strategic questioning helps students clarify ideas and make connections. Well-timed synthesis highlights important mathematical relationships and supports accurate understanding.

This approach allows teachers to focus less on delivering steps and more on supporting sense-making—while gaining clearer insight into where students are in their learning.

A gradual, supported shift

Shifting to problem-based learning is a process. Many classrooms begin by adjusting how lessons start, increasing opportunities for discussion, or rethinking how students share their thinking.

Over time, these changes add up. Instruction becomes more student-centered. Students engage more deeply. Fluency develops alongside understanding, and productive struggle becomes part of everyday learning.

When classrooms shift toward problem-based learning, math becomes more than getting the right answer. It becomes a way for students to reason, collaborate, and make sense of the world.

The post Shifting to problem-based learning in K–5 math appeared first on Amplify.

Struggling is not necessarily fun. It can be uncomfortable and frustrating. It can even feel like a great reason to give up.

But struggling and learning often go hand in hand. The key is for that struggle to be productive—for it to feel like something you worked through until you were successful, providing the confidence you need to tackle the next hard task.

That’s especially true—and essential—in math learning.

The key is productive struggle: the kind of effort that stretches students’ thinking without shutting them down. When designed intentionally, math activities for elementary students can challenge learners while still supporting confidence, curiosity, and persistence.

Here’s more about how productive struggle helps math students succeed.

What is productive struggle?

Productive struggle refers to students grappling with challenging problems that are not immediately solvable, but still within reach. It’s the space where students test ideas, make mistakes, revise strategies, and slowly build understanding.

Research shows that productive struggle helps learners move beyond surface-level memorization and toward deeper, more durable learning.

Rather than being told exactly what to do, students are encouraged to reason, explain, and persevere.

This doesn’t mean leaving students to flounder. Productive struggle requires clear goals, thoughtful scaffolds, and meaningful tasks so students know what they’re working toward and believe they can get there.

The role of growth mindset in math learning

Productive struggle is closely tied to another key idea: growth mindset.

A growth mindset is the belief that ability comes not from innate, baked-in talent, but through effort, strategies, and learning from mistakes. In the math classroom, this mindset helps students see challenges not as threats, but as opportunities.

When teachers communicate high expectations and normalize mistakes as part of learning, students are more willing to take risks. They begin to stop saying, “I can’t do this math problem,” and start saying, “I’m not there yet.”

This shift matters, especially in elementary grades. Students who develop a growth mindset early may be better equipped to avoid math anxiety and to handle increasingly complex math concepts, because they’ve learned that struggle is not a sign of failure, but part of the process.

Why struggle feels risky—and why it’s worth it

Supporting productive struggle can feel risky for teachers. Classrooms are busy. Time is limited. And no one wants students to feel frustrated or discouraged.

But avoiding struggle altogether creates its own problems. When math activities are too procedural or overly scaffolded, students may complete tasks without truly understanding them. Over time, students may come to believe that math is about following steps rather than making sense of ideas.

By contrast, well-designed struggle builds investment. Students engage more deeply when they’re asked to think, explain, and choose strategies. They develop problem-solving skills, perseverance, confidence, and a stronger sense of ownership over their learning.

What productive struggle looks like in practice

In classrooms that support productive struggle, students are actively involved, even when tasks are challenging. You might hear students explaining their reasoning, comparing strategies, or revising their thinking after a mistake.

Effective math activities for elementary students include:

• Multiple entry points so all learners can begin.
• Opportunities for students to explain why their strategy works.
• Support for more than one correct approach.
• Clear expectations paired with flexible pathways.

Even in kindergarten math activities, productive struggle for the youngest learners might look like counting, sorting, or representing numbers in different ways, paired with questions that prompt reasoning rather than quick answers.

Students need tasks that are mathematically meaningful, paired with structures that help them persist: opportunities to talk, visual representations, strategic questioning, and time to reflect.

In this way, struggle builds math muscle. Productive struggle helps students feel on top of their math game—and ready to learn more.

The post The power of productive struggle in K–5 math appeared first on Amplify.

If you’re fluent in Farsi, let’s say, you don’t search for every word or stop to translate every sentence in your head. You understand, process, and respond automatically, in real time.

Math fluency works the same way. This kind of fluency is something you can use naturally to understand what’s presented and respond to it meaningfully.

In K–5 math, fluency allows students to move beyond getting through the problem toward real mathematical thinking. Without it, even confident students can get stuck. With it, students gain access to deeper understanding, flexibility, and confidence.

What is math fluency?

Fluency in math is sometimes misunderstood as speed or memorization—but research and classroom experience tell a fuller story.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics defines procedural fluency as the ability to: “…apply procedures efficiently, flexibly, and accurately; to transfer procedures to different problems and contexts; to build or modify procedures from other procedures; and to recognize when one strategy or procedure is more appropriate to apply than another.”

In other words, the skills often referred to as computational fluency and math fact fluency tell only part of the story. Full mathematical fluency means knowing how and why strategies work, and being able to choose among them.

Memorization does have a role in math learning, but it alone does not lead to fluency. A student who has memorized facts but doesn’t understand relationships between numbers may still struggle when problems change slightly or require reasoning.

By contrast, a fluent student can adapt. They can explain their thinking, check whether an answer makes sense, and shift strategies when needed.

This is why fluency acts as a bridge between conceptual understanding and procedural application. It connects what students know to what they can do, and helps them do it with confidence.

Why procedural fluency matters in K–5 math

In the elementary grades, students are building the foundational math skills they’ll rely on for years to come. When procedural fluency is weak, students can feel overwhelmed by basic calculations, leaving little mental energy for problem-solving or new concepts.

Students without strong procedural fluency often feel stuck. For them, math can start to feel like an endless series of obstacles rather than a meaningful, engaging exploration—and that experience does not set anyone up to feel like a math person.

Fluency is what frees students up to focus on the heart of a problem. When they’re not bogged down by calculations, they’re able to reason, explore patterns, and tackle more complex tasks. Fluency opens doors—to higher-level math, to confidence, and to a more positive math identity.

In their paper, “Eight Unproductive Practices in Developing Fact Fluency,” Gina King and Jennifer Bay-Williams write: “Being fluent contributes to a productive disposition about mathematics, opens doors to a range of mathematics topics, and arms students with a skillset applicable to whatever they wish to pursue.”

What teaching math fluency looks like in the classroom

Effective K–5 math instruction treats fluency as something that develops over time, through meaningful practice, discussion, and reflection. Students need opportunities to explore number relationships, explain their thinking, and revisit strategies in different contexts.

In classrooms where math fluency is developing, instruction consistently supports flexible thinking, reflection, and revisiting ideas over time. You might see and hear the following:

• Revisiting strategies across problems. Students are encouraged to solve the same problem in more than one way and to compare approaches. Classroom discussions focus on how strategies work and when one might be more efficient than another, helping students build strategic thinking and confidence.
• Frequent, well-spaced opportunities for practice. Key facts and strategies reappear over time rather than being practiced once and set aside. This spacing helps students retain learning and apply it more accurately and efficiently when they encounter familiar ideas in new contexts.
• Regular routines that emphasize reasoning. Short, consistent routines invite students to mentally compute, explain their thinking, and listen to others’ ideas. The focus is on understanding number relationships and reasoning through solutions rather than relying on memorized steps.
• Thoughtful use of visual representations. Tools such as number lines, arrays, and other models help students see how numbers and operations relate. These representations support flexible thinking and make procedures more meaningful and accessible.

Across these experiences, fluency is something you can hear as well as see. Students explain their reasoning, reference strategies they’ve used before, and check whether their answers make sense, building accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility over time.

Math fluency helps students open their minds to the richness of math, and to their own power as math learners.

The post Why fluency matters in K–5 math education appeared first on Amplify.

When you think of what goes on behind the scenes of building Amplify Classroom lessons, you probably envision carefully calculated math formulas and complicated equations, right?

Not exactly. Meet Sara Barring and Sean Sweeney from our interaction development team! They create animations and interactions for many of our most popular math lessons, and one day they decided to record some of their work sessions. What began as a simple “Wouldn’t it be fun…” conversation turned into something pretty remarkable: a front row seat to their joyous exploration of math.

Sean and Sara spend their days bringing math problems to life using Activity Builder, Amplify Classroom’s lesson-building tool. Their goal is to encourage students to explore their own thinking, moving beyond traditional right-and-wrong feedback. Instead of being told “no” when a guess is off, students get visual Responsive Feedback that demonstrates the meaning behind their thinking. In the grade 6 lesson Weight for It, for example, the animation shows them what would happen if the dog actually weighed what they guessed!

Sean and Sara help create a safe, playful space where making a mistake isn’t a failure, but a visual stepping stone that encourages students to try again. This creative process is exactly what they decided to capture on camera. Their video series, “Graph Time With Sara and Sean,” reveals what happens when pure curiosity guides work in graphing mathematics. Each episode opens the window into a genuine, surprising discovery, showing the magic happens when you stop worrying about perfection. Watching these videos, even those who feel intimidated by math or think math isn’t for them may feel inspired to try it themselves.

Redefining mistakes as happy accidents

In any field, the word “mistake” can feel loaded. But for Sara and Sean, the process of creating math animations is less about avoiding mistakes and more about seeing what happens.

A great thing about working in Activity Builder’s graphing calculator, Sara notes, is that you can immediately see how every adjustment affects the animation. This instant visibility helps shift your perspective—an unexpected result isn’t a failure, but a happy accident. According to Sara, these moments provide a pivot point into a new, unplanned direction.

Take one episode of “Graph Time” that wouldn’t exist without a happy accident Sean had while trying to create a firework animation for one of our lessons. That “mistake” led to the discovery of unexpected mathematical patterns that the team may not have found otherwise. These patterns seem to magically emerge from simple sine and cosine functions, revealing flower-like designs, perfect circles, and intricate geometric shapes that feel limitless in their variety, proving that mathematical beauty often reveals itself through curious experimentation rather than careful planning.

Sara and Sean hope to show viewers the reality of their work–with all the struggles, detours, and joy. You might expect someone who creates math animations all day to have their steps carefully mapped out. “We don’t,” Sean says, “and that’s part of what we like about it.”

The ripple effect: Transforming math culture

Sara and Sean’s playful approach to building curriculum content creates waves they hope will extend beyond their own creative joy, inspiring a new generation of math explorers.

For teachers, these videos offer more than just creative techniques—they provide a blueprint for shifting classroom culture. Sean emphasizes that viewers are seeing “the real work they do every day,” providing educators with an authentic model for bringing genuine excitement to mathematical learning. Sara, drawing from her teaching background, recognizes the transformative power of just changing the narrative: “Math gets such a bad rep a lot of the time, so even if Graph Time with Sara and Sean just offers a positive rebrand on some things, I think that’s powerful, too.”

When students see people having fun with math, through teachers or videos like “Graph Time With Sara and Sean,” they begin to see math as an invitation to explore. Sean and Sara are hoping they can help students find their own magic, making math less about intimidation and more about fun.

Check out Sara and Sean’s videos to see their graphing creations in action!

Ready to create your own amazing math adventures? Check out our Lesson Building Toolkit for bite-size tutorials on making your own lesson creations with Amplify Classroom.

The post Building math lessons: The playful side you never knew existed appeared first on Amplify.

The Science of Reading is a large body of research that helps answer a key question about the human experience: How do people learn to read?

It also helps answer a fundamental question for educators: How should we teach reading?

The Science of Reading draws on decades of research from fields like cognitive science, neuroscience, linguistics, psychology, and education. This vast (and still growing) body of research describes our up-to-date understanding of what reading requires, and therefore shapes our approach to effective literacy instruction.

Two frameworks are widely used to capture and communicate those core takeaways:

• The Simple View of Reading
• The Reading Rope

In this overview, we’ll walk you through both.

Why reading needs science

Spoken language develops naturally. Children typically learn to understand and use language simply by being around other people who talk.

Reading, on the other hand, works differently. Written language is a human invention; our brains did not evolve to read. When we are born, the parts of our brain that see letters are completely separate from the parts that hear sounds. So to become readers, students require explicit instruction. They have to be taught specifically to build new connections between what they see on the page and the language they already know.

For a brain to read words, it needs to create new pathways that connect letters with sounds. For example, when a child sees the letter “f” and connects it to the /f/ sound in “funny,” their brain builds a new bridge between the areas that handle sight and sound. Reading actually rewires the brain, bringing together the regions for vision, speech, sound, and meaning into one coordinated reading system.

The Science of Reading explains what those new connections involve—and why some students need more support than others to build them.

The Simple View of Reading

At the heart of the Science of Reading is one of the most widely accepted frameworks in reading research: the Simple View of Reading, first proposed by experts Philip Gough and Bill Tunmer in the 1980s.

The Simple View answers a basic question: What has to be in place for a reader to understand a text?

According to the Simple View, reading comprehension depends on two essential components:

• Decoding: the ability to turn written words into spoken language
• Language comprehension: the ability to understand the meaning of that language

Both are necessary, and neither works on its own. One reader may decode words accurately but struggle to understand what they read, while another may understand spoken language well but be unable to read the words on the page. In either case, comprehension breaks down.

The Simple View captures this core finding of reading research: Skilled reading depends on both word reading and language understanding working together.

Decoding: Reading the words on the page

Decoding involves learning how letters and letter patterns represent sounds. This task is complex in alphabetic writing systems like English, where many letters represent more than one sound, and many sounds can be spelled in different ways.

When children begin learning to read, they already understand a great deal of spoken language. What they don’t yet understand is written language. Letters and printed words are unfamiliar in a way that speech is not.

As students practice decoding, they become more accurate and more fluent. Over time, decoding becomes increasingly automatic.

And this automaticity matters—when students no longer have to focus most of their attention on reading the words, they can devote more mental energy to understanding what the text means.

Language comprehension: Understanding what you read

Language comprehension includes vocabulary, knowledge about the world, and an understanding of how language works across sentences and texts.

Research shows that what readers already know plays a major role in comprehension. As shown in the baseball experiment, students understood and remembered more when the text described a familiar activity—even when their reading skills were relatively weak.

When students read about unfamiliar topics, comprehension becomes more difficult. This is true even for students who can read the words on the page accurately.

So what’s the best way to teach reading comprehension? Combine both elements of the Simple View. In other words, reading comprehension grows alongside vocabulary and knowledge, and exposure to a wide range of topics supports reading development.

The Reading Rope

The Simple View of Reading identifies what reading requires, while the Reading Rope reflects how those requirements develop and become integrated over time.

The Reading Rope organizes reading into two broad strands:

• Word recognition, which includes phonological awareness, decoding, and fluent word reading
• Language comprehension, which includes vocabulary, background knowledge, and the ability to make meaning from text

Each strand of the Rope is made up of multiple interconnected skills. With effective instruction and practice, these skills become more coordinated and more automatic. As that happens, reading becomes smoother and less effortful, allowing readers to focus more fully on meaning.

The Reading Rope builds on the Simple View by showing how skilled reading emerges as these components strengthen and work together.

Instructional practices: Putting it all to work

The Science of Reading is the broad body of research on how reading develops, and the Simple View of Reading and Reading Rope capture the core takeaways of that research.

Together, they show that skilled reading depends on both accurate word reading and strong language comprehension, and that these abilities develop through explicit and systematic instruction, practice, and growing knowledge over time.

For educators, this understanding provides the strongest possible foundation for reading instruction. When students become skilled readers, new possibilities open up—in their classrooms today, and for the rest of their lives.

The post What is the Science of Reading? appeared first on Amplify.

Every discussion teaches kids about math—and about themselves.

Among many other reasons, discussions are important because they’re moments when the teacher assigns value to students. In a discussion, the teacher says, “Hey—I have precious little time to teach what I know. Still, I’m going to dedicate some of that time for you to share and talk about what you know.” That’s a moment when students learn about math, but also that their own ideas have value.

Discussions are difficult, and “more wait time” is rarely the reason.

There are a few reasons why discussions frequently fail, and it’s rarely because the teacher didn’t give students enough “wait time” to respond, as is commonly believed.

1. The question was hard to understand or find your way into. For a long time, I’d ask my kids at dinner, “How was your day? What happened?” And my kids wouldn’t have much to say. Lately, I ask them to tell me two things about their day that happened and one thing that didn’t, and we all guess which was which. It’s an easier prompt, one that kids can find their way into with ease and then use as a launching pad into a larger conversation.

2. There isn’t enough to talk about. If your math class consists of a lot of binary, right/wrong questions, what is there for anyone to talk about? “A lot of us got this one wrong. Here’s a pie chart that shows how wrong we were. How about I show you how to do it?” That’s fine, but it isn’t a discussion, and it’s quite often a very dreary classroom environment for children.

In Amplify Desmos Math, a curriculum I work on, kids generally have plenty to talk about. Our interactives stir a kid’s imagination for even the most abstract areas of math. For example, this submarine interactive stirs up a kid’s ideas about adding positive and negative integers.

And then we ask kids, “Hey, what do you think about the star at +5? Can you come up with something that none of your classmates do?”

Let me tell you: Kids accept that challenge.

3. There is too much to talk about.

This is a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem. In the class screenshotted below, 25 students have put 300 thoughtful words in front of the teacher, every response different from every other!

Teachers now have a problem of abundance, not scarcity. They have to decide which responses to select, and why, in an environment of cognitive overload.

This is very hard work for teachers, especially novices, especially teachers who lack mathematical content knowledge, especially teachers who are hanging onto the school year by their fingernails.

We offer teachers lots of different support for discussions throughout our curriculum—both in print and digital activities—but our new discussion support for digital activities is first-of-its-kind and best-in-class.

Discussion Moments.

1. Student responses stream into the teacher’s dashboard.
2. A message appears: “Analyzing Student Responses.”
3. Shortly after, the message changes: “Open Discussion Moment.”

You click the message and see a classroom-ready discussion screen.

First, you see four student responses, each one authored by a student in the class, each one interesting on its own. This was not luck. Those responses were curated by a large language model at the direction of our curriculum experts. “Find three responses that capture the star in different ways,” our experts prompted the AI. “Responses that add anchors. That remove anchors. Find one response that might not capture the star.”

Next to those responses you see a question: ”Which one is not like the others?” That question feels surprisingly well-matched for this math and for those student responses. This, also, isn’t an accident. Curriculum experts made that decision.

You click the right arrow and see a suggested narration for the Discussion Moment, narration which was authored, again, by our human authors for this particular problem, to help novices learn to facilitate productive discussions in math.

That’s a “Discussion Moment.”

In the past, coaches, experts, and publishers have all asked teachers to . . .

• Select and sequence student responses.
• Construct a student-facing discussion resource.
• Lead the conversation.

Now we are asking teachers to . . .

• Lead the conversation.

In our experience, computers do quite well with the first two jobs while teachers obliterate computers at the work of leading a conversation, at connecting student ideas, at asking one kid what they think of another kid’s idea, at pulling ideas out of a kid who maybe doesn’t think they have ideas to offer. Discussion Moments delegate to humans and computers the best work for each of them.

Discussion Moments are different.

Lots of edtech companies are putting AI to work in lots of different ways. Discussion Moments are unique.

First, they’re designed to work through rather than around the teacher, during class rather than outside of class. They’re designed to support social interactions between students and teachers in the moment of instruction. This is the action.

Second, this is a classroom-ready resource. So many AI applications just output a ChatGPT-style resource. Lots of text. Several main bullets. Lots of sub-bullets. An emoji or two. And I am very sorry, but they are not useful in class. The teacher has to read all of that text, copy and paste and edit it, and then construct the student-facing resource all in the middle of class. That’s fantasyland, folks. At Amplify, we have, instead, created a one-click, classroom-ready resource.

Third, we’ve fortified these digital Discussion Moments with gallons of human expertise. Since December, I’ve worked with several of our curriculum experts—Casey Nelson, Brian Kam, and Tom Snarsky—and for every problem across several units of middle school math, they:

• Reviewed thousands of student responses to each problem.
• Identified thematic trends in the student responses.
• Decided whether or not those themes demand a discussion.
• Decided which of several discussion frames would be most appropriate, given those themes.
• Wrote an AI prompt specific to each problem to increase the odds that the large language model will curate useful student responses.

Most edtech companies would prefer to let AI lead this process from end to end, using the same prompt for every problem, even at the cost of the teacher and student experience. Meanwhile, we only ask AI to execute instructions and construct a resource. The nature of those instructions, the type of resource, and how it’s used—that is all determined by different humans and their expertise.

What do teachers and administrators think?

I ran a small-scale pilot of this feature last spring and kicked off a larger-scale pilot last week. A couple hundred teachers overall. I have never had an easier time recruiting teachers for a project than with this one. Every district math curriculum lead knows how challenging it is for teachers to lead discussions, and every one I asked was eager to support.

Two other examples of Discussion Moments.

Compare and Connect. We asked a large language model to locate responses that have one of a couple of important features but ideally not both. Then we constructed a Discussion Moment asking students to write a response that combines the best of both answers.

Critique, Correct, Clarify. Our curriculum authors noticed a frequent incorrect answer to a question. We told the LLM to watch out for it and frame it in a Discussion Moment where the class is asked to find value in the wrong answer before correcting it. Try to imagine what it does to a kid to hear their incorrect answer described as valuable.

Wait—don’t you hate AI?

I get why you might ask me that, but no. I think generative AI is perhaps the most overrated education technology of my lifetime; I don’t think the chatbot tutors or lessonslop generators are going to transform K–12 education. But I do think generative AI is neat. And look, I have tried to support discussion work with K–12 teachers for the last ten years in other ways, too. I have run in-person and remote PD. I have written math lessons and teacher supports for those lessons. I have sent nifty little customized email sequences tailored to teacher usage. None of those supports have been as promising as AI is here. None of them has moved the needle like Discussion Moments because none of them has been able to meet teachers in their moment of need, at the point of use.

That’s it. You can find Discussion Moments in Amplify Desmos Math next school year.

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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!

More to explore

• The Science of Reading
• The Amplify Science of Reading Star Awards
• Amplify Science of Reading district success stories
• Nominate a teacher for an award!

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If you’ve been in the math world for a while, you know the name Desmos. It’s synonymous with free dynamic math tools.

And lately, you’ve probably also been hearing about Amplify and Desmos together. But other publishers also say they have Desmos, so what’s the deal?

Let’s clear it up.

The most important thing to know is that, back in 2022, the original Desmos split into two separate parts. Think of them like a calculators and other tools part and a classroom activities and curriculum part.

The tools part: Desmos Studio

This is the Desmos you first fell in love with.

What it is: Desmos Studio is the name of the company that builds and maintains the powerful, free Desmos calculators. This is an independent Public Benefit Corporation, and can be found at www.desmos.com. That team builds and maintains a collection of free math tools:

What it’s for: This is your go-to for exploration, demonstrations, and “What if I change this?” moments. It’s the blank canvas you use on your smartboard or the tool your students use for homework.

The bottom line: The calculators are run by an independent company called Desmos Studio PBC. You can find their tools for free at their website, desmos.com; on state tests; and in curriculum programs (including ours).

The lessons: Amplify Classroom & Amplify Desmos Math

What it is: In 2023, Amplify acquired the Desmos instructional platform (then called Desmos Classroom, now called Amplify Classroom) as well as their math curriculum for grades 6–8 and the teams that built those resources. We had already been working on our own math curriculum, decided to combine forces with the Desmos curriculum team, and created Amplify Desmos Math, now available for grades K–12.

When other publishers may talk about having “Desmos,” what they mean is they license the calculators and Geometry tool from Desmos Studio.

What it’s for: Amplify has these tools, too, but we also have the Activity Builder, which integrates these tools much more deeply than is possible with other Desmos Studio partnerships. We take this powerful Desmos technology and layer instruction, student collaboration, and dynamic teaching tools on top, creating classrooms that buzz with excitement and learning.

What’s available for free:

• The “Desmos activities” platform (you might know it from teacher.desmos.com), now Amplify Classroom. This is where you can find hundreds of free lessons and activities. You can also use the Activity Builder tool to create your own custom activities from scratch.
• The beloved, pre-built “Activity Builder” activities like “Marbleslides” and more are still available for free on Amplify Classroom.

The bottom line: Educators can still use the vast library of free activities and build their own on Amplify Classroom. This is not changing.

The core curriculum: Amplify Desmos Math

This is the new, comprehensive curriculum available to districts and schools.

What it is: This is a full core math curriculum for grades K–12 that Amplify has built in collaboration with the Desmos curriculum team that joined us a few years ago. It uses the Desmos instructional philosophy and tools as its backbone, but it’s much more than a collection of activities.

What it’s for: This program is designed to be your primary, day-to-day curriculum. It includes a complete, standards-aligned scope and sequence, print materials, digital lessons (with activities enhanced and aligned to standards), assessments, intervention resources, and personalized practice.

The bottom line: If you want a complete curriculum in which every lesson is built on polished Desmos-style activities, you want Amplify Desmos Math K–12. This core curriculum is offered exclusively by Amplify.

Quick-reference chart

	What is it?	Where to find it?	Cost
Desmos Studio Tools	Powerful math tools and calculators (graphing, scientific, etc.) for graphing, calculations, and geometry visualizations.	Access via desmos.com or embedded in partner products	Free for individual use
Amplify Classroom	A teaching and learning platform that couples Desmos Studio tools with instruction and collaboration tools – Rich activities and lessons that develop understanding with Responsive Feedback – Collaboration and facilitation tools designed for the classroom – Student ideas used to build new problems and scenarios Browse free activities and lessons or build your own with Activity Builder.	Only available from Amplify at amplify.com/classroom (previously Desmos Classroom)	Free
Amplify Desmos Math	A comprehensive K–12 math curriculum built on the Amplify Classroom platform – Ready-to-teach print and digital curriculum built on the Amplify Classroom platform – Comprehensive coverage of all standards without the searching. – Additional support for your classroom, including assessment, differentiation, practice, professional development, and more.	Try lessons for free on Amplify Classroom Contact us for more information on purchasing for your district	With a paid subscription

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