Amplify Math with Betsy Lange

This week I visited Betsy Lange, NEMS Math Department Chair, to see how things are going with the new Amplify Math curriculum. Here are my three big takeaways.

Classroom Talk

The Amplify Math curriculum consistently requires students to put their thinking into words. This kind of work can be a big jump for students without adequate support. Enter sentence starters. Before chatting with Betsy, I had never considered sentence starters in a non-ELA or social studies classroom. Betsy shares that providing students with scaffolds to articulate their thinking has been key for elevating math talk. Betsy's answer is to talk when asked how families can best support their students. She posts the unit's Caregiver Letter at the beginning of each Canvas page and encourages families to talk through lesson slides together. The bottom line: whoever is doing the talking is doing the thinking.

Triple E Framework-Friendly

The Triple E Framework developed by Dr. Liz Kolb at the University of Michigan has shaped our district's vision for what technology should look, sound, and feel like in a K-12 classroom. Conversation with Besty revealed that Amplify Math hits all three pillars of the framework.

• Engage - Amplify Math actively engages kids in the content through classroom discussion and virtual manipulatives. If you're skeptical, pop by one of our middle school math classrooms.
• Enhancement - Technology in the classroom should make tasks possible that were not previously conceivable with traditional tools. Betsy has seen this in pre-algebra classrooms with rotations and reflections.
• Extension - Amplify Math connects students to the world outside of school. Betsy, who has an MBA and a background in engineering, has been impressed with how Amplify moves students past memorizing a process into conceptual thinking. She and I agreed that paper and pencil jobs will become obsolete in the future.

Paper and Digital, Not Paper or Digital

Betsy appreciates how the Amplify curriculum marries traditional math tools with the digital. One example is students using tracing paper with a geometry screen projected to a whiteboard. She wraps up the week with Bob Ross Fridays. Students work through practice problems while Bob paints happy little trees with his gentle voice in the background. When given the choice between paper and digital for working through practice problems on Bob Ross Fridays, most choose digital while others choose paper. It's all about the choice!

Kristin Patrick, Blended Learning Coach