Lesson-level resources
Every lesson in the Amplify Science Teacher’s Guide begins with a “Lesson Brief” that contains the following information intended to help teachers prepare:
- Lesson Overview: A one-paragraph overview of the lesson and what students will learn, as well as a pacing guide for the activities in the lesson. This sections also clearly identifies the Anchor, Investigative, and/or Everyday Phenomena explored in the lesson.
- Materials & Preparation: A list of steps to prepare the classroom for today’s class, as well as recommendations on how a teacher can best prepare themselves for the class (e.g., “Read the Science Background document before today’s class.”). This section identifies:
- Materials to be used in the lesson.
- Preparation to be done before the day of the lesson, immediately before the lesson, between class prep, and at the end of the day.
- Digital Resources: Quick access to all digital resources used in the lesson, including media embedded in the lesson, multilingual glossaries, PDFs of all projected images, the Investigation Notebook pages related to this lesson, and more.
- Vocabulary: A list of vocabulary words used in this lesson.
- Differentiation: Research- based recommendations that are specific to the lesson’s objectives, including:
- Embedded supports for diverse learners
- Potential challenges in this lesson
- Specific differentiation strategies for English learners
- Specific differentiation strategies for students who need more support
- Specific differentiation strategies for students who need more challenge
- Standards: Quick access to the NGSS and Common Core standards that are targeted in this lesson. The lesson’s 3-D statement is also included here.
- Downloadable Lesson Guide: From the Lesson Brief, teachers can generate a PDF version of the Lesson Guide. This download will extract much of the content from the lesson out of the curriculum website and into a printable PDF, in case teachers prefer a hard copy (Note: Pre-printed Teacher’s Guides are also available through Amplify.).
- Classroom Slides: These customizable Powerpoint/Google Slide files offer clearly sequenced, engaging, and easy to follow slide shows that help teachers bring the rich storylines and 3-D instruction of every Amplify Science lesson to life.
- Assign in Google or Microsoft Teams: Button that offers middle school teachers, and elementary teachers using Interactive Classroom, the flexibility to integrate Amplify Science content with their Google Classroom of Microsoft Teams streams. This feature simplifies navigation for students by providing a direct link to any Amplify activity within Google Classroom.
- Assign in Amplify: Button that offers middle school teachers, and elementary teachers using Interactive Classroom, the ability to send students a simple pathway, with optional due date information, to access lessons digitally within Amplify.
- Unplugged: Information for teachers about if and how students can complete the lesson without devices or with limited devices, available in approximately half of the lessons in each unit.