2nd Grade - Gateway 3

The materials for Grade 2 provide strategies for informing all stakeholders, including students, parents, and caregivers about the program including suggestions for how they can help support student progress and achievement. There are examples across all units in the Printable Resources of the Teachers’ Guide:

• In the NGSS Information for Parents and Guardians, for each grade level there is an explanation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and how the lessons within the grade level address three-dimensional learning. This document is available in English and Spanish.

• The Eliciting and Leveraging Students’ Prior Knowledge, Personal Experiences, and Cultural Backgrounds sections recommend teachers send home a Family Connections Homework assignment. This support provides questions for students to ask their families, so students are positioned to engage in class discussions about class experiences connected to the focal phenomenon. .

The materials also include forms of communication for parents and caregivers, including for families that may speak and read in a language other than English.  

In each grade level’s Teacher Guide, Printable Resources section, there are letters titled NGSS Information for Parents and Guardians about the NGSS that are available in both Spanish and English.

Each chapter of each unit at every grade level includes At-Home Discussion Questions. The At-Home Discussion Questions are offered in both English and Spanish.

The Amplify website has some materials available for caregivers in Spanish and English. While the site does provide some materials in both Spanish and English, it misses the opportunity to support caregivers in other languages. The Amplify website has resources for teachers to send to parents with information about the NGSS standards, unit maps, resources for back-to-school night and Home Investigations that extend instructional units completed in school.  These caregiver and family extension resources are found through a direct search on the website and miss the opportunity to be embedded in the teacher materials. 

Within the teacher materials, each grade level had specific examples of strategies for informing stakeholders. For example, In Grade 2,  Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Digital Resources, under the Chapters tab, there is a Home-Connection Homework Letter in Lesson 1.1. It is English-only.

The materials for Amplify Grade 2 include some opportunities for teachers to effectively plan and utilize materials with integrity and to further develop their own understanding of the content. The materials are feasible for one school year. The materials within each Unit and Lesson allow students to learn at an appropriate pace for the given grade level. In the Materials and Preparation section of the Unit Overview, it lists the preparation time required for each Lesson, with some Lessons requiring more time to prepare than others.

Examples of information related to feasibility and flexibility include:

• The Program Guide, Scope & Sequence states that Grade 2 consists of three Units made up of 22 Lessons each. In each Unit, two days are allocated for the full session Pre-Unit Assessment and End-of-Unit Assessment. Each Lesson for Grade 2 takes approximately 60 minutes “though teachers can expand or contract the timing to meet their needs.” The Program Structure K-5 Trifold provides the same information as the Program Guide.

• In each Unit, the Teacher Guide, Teacher References, and Lesson Overview & Compilation summarize lessons and provide suggested time allocations for each lesson activity. This information is also found in the Lesson Brief and Step-by-Step for each lesson. 

• In each Lesson, the Lesson Overview and Lesson at a Glance list the activities for the Lesson and the time allocated.

According to an Amplify Q&A article on the Amplify Help Site, all collections, Amplify Science, Amplify Science K-8 Resources, Amplify Science Pacing Guidance, “Because science is implemented in such varied ways across districts, we do not offer a specific pacing guide. However, the lesson information below will help you determine the best way to fit the program into the structure of your district’s instructional calendar.” 

Lessons for each Unit provide a summary of suggested time frames for each lesson activity. This information is provided within the Lesson Guide for each Lesson. Adaptations for materials or guidance for a range of district constraints due to time and or scheduling differences are not directly available in the materials. 

The materials for Grade 2 include some assessments that offer accommodations that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without changing the content of the assessment. The materials offer some general suggestions to help students demonstrate their knowledge such as allowing more time for writing. Most support is provided for formative assessments as they are embedded within the instructional process. However, the materials miss the opportunity to provide specific examples for access or accommodation for the summative assessments for disabled students or multilingual learners beyond suggesting that teachers think about how to accommodate students who need more support.

In the Materials Overview of each Lesson, a section regarding differentiation provides embedded support for diverse learners, potential challenges in the lesson, specific differentiation strategies for multilingual learners, and specific strategies for students who need more support and who may experience more challenges. This information is provided at the Lesson level but is applicable to the formative assessments as these assessments are embedded within the lesson structure. To the extent that instruction is supported with accommodation suggestions, most lessons have suggestions for differentiation that rely on the teacher to “make a plan” for special accommodations but do not provide specific guidance to support the teacher. For example, in Grade 2, Properties of Materials, Print Teacher Guide, Lesson 1.9, Differentiation, Specific Differentiation Strategies for Students Who Need More Support, the More time for writing section suggests, “Some students will benefit from having additional time to complete the writing. Consider who these students might be and how you can provide them with this extra support during the Critical Juncture Assessment.”

The materials for Grade 2 provide multiple approaches to presenting the material throughout the lessons. Students are engaged in reading, watching videos, making observations, partner discussions, class discussions, developing models, contributing to class models, analyzing models for patterns, and writing explanations. The approaches to learning vary throughout the materials based on the topic and the appropriate types of observation needed for the information being taught in the Unit. 

Examples include:

• Properties of Materials, Teacher Guide and Digital Materials, Think-Pair-Share is a three step routine used for discussing questions. 

• Think. When the teacher says, “Think,” students think silently about the question for about one minute.

• Pair. When the teacher says, “Pair,” students discuss their ideas with their partner.

• Share. When the teacher says, “Share,” students stop talking and raise their hands to share an idea—their own ideas or their partner’s—with the class.

• Properties of Materials, Teacher Guide and Digital Materials, Lesson 1.8: Talking before writing: “At the end of the unit, students will be writing letters to the principal in which they will make a claim about what the best recipe for glue is and providing evidence to support their claim. To help prepare for this, in lesson 1.8,  students discuss their ideas before writing their arguments, first in a Thought Swap activity (Activity 2) and then in a whole-class discussion (Activity 3).”

• Properties of Materials, Teacher Guide and Digital Materials, Lesson 4.1, Peer Feedback: “Before a design is finalized in the real world, other engineers will review and test it to make sure that it works properly. Often times, engineers learn from each other and improve their own designs in this way. Students understand that the purpose of having them work alongside a partner and of sharing results with the whole class is not to make any of them feel bad about how their designs compare to those of their peers but instead to create a supportive community that helps to make everyone’s designs better. Encourage students to be supportive of one another and to provide suggestions about how a solution could be improved to better meet the design goals.” 

Resources provide information about regular opportunities for students to assess their own learning. One specific example is in Unit: Properties of Materials, Teacher Guide and Digital Materials, Assessment System, Student Self-Assessments: where it describes the role of student self-assessments and an example from the Unit, “At the end of each chapter, students are invited to check their progress toward understanding and asks students to reflect on whether they understand or don’t yet understand about the core concepts from the unit. 

• I understand how to describe the properties of a material like glue. 

• I understand how mixtures made of different ingredients can make glue that has different properties.

• I understand that heating or cooling can change the properties of ingredients that are mixed to make glue. 

• I understand that scientists and engineers look for causes and effects, like how ingredients can cause the properties of mixtures to change” 

Additionally, the Student Notebook resource indicates that student self-assessments are optional, however, this is not indicated in the Teacher Guide.

The materials for Grade 2 include limited opportunities for teachers to use a variety of grouping strategies and limited guidance for grouping students. The different groupings promote interaction, engagement, and learning. Teacher guidance on how and when to use groupings is provided; however, there is a missed opportunity to provide suggestions on how to form the different groupings strategically. In all units, pairs of students engage in Partner Reading, exploring simulations on digital devices, and the Think-Write-Pair-Share routine. During hands-on investigations, students may be encouraged to work in groups of four. Examples of teacher guidance on how and when to use a variety of grouping strategies to increase interaction, engagement, and learning include: 

• Grade 2, Unit: Properties of Materials, Lesson 1.2, Overview, Differentiation, Specific Differentiation Strategies for Students Who Need More Support, the guidance for reading with a small group or as a class states, “One option for adjusting the lesson to support some students who need more support is to form small groups of students who would preview the book together before the first read, and/or who would read with you or another adult.”

• Grade 2, Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Unit Overview, Planning for the Unit, Getting Ready to Teach, the guidance to make a plan for how students will move between individual, partner, and group work states, “Most lessons involve students working individually as well as discussing with a partner. Some lessons also have students working in groups of four. If you already have table groups, this will be relatively easy. If students sit at individual desks, decide how they will talk to partners and how they will reorient their seats to work in groups of four.”

• Grade 2, Unit: Changing Landforms, Lesson 1.3, Lesson Overview, Differentiation, Potential Challenges in This Lesson, the guidance for group work states, “Throughout this unit, students will need to work in groups–sharing sand samples and using different materials for models.  Before you asks students to explore and compare sand samples…,you may want to review guidelines for working in groups.”

The materials for Grade 2 provide a balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic characteristics. These contain images and drawings of people from various cultures, demographic regions, and different genders. Additionally, the materials provide ebooks that also include a diverse representation of people across the series. Depictions of people in the materials and books represent many different physical characteristics.

Examples include:

• Grade 2, Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Lesson 1.4, Digital Resources,Classroom Slides, Slide 3, there is a picture of four students with diverse characteristics.

• Properties of Materials, Lesson 2.1, Digital Resources,Classroom Slides, Slide 4, there are two male-presenting engineers depicted displaying different characteristics.

The materials for Grade 2 provide some guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student home language to facilitate learning. This is evidenced in the teacher-facing guidance documents, specifically the Teacher Guide section that includes a section titled Differentiation of English Learners. A specific strategy that is identified in some lessons across all Grades K-2 is the use of Spanish cognates. Teachers are encouraged to show Spanish cognates for certain science terms discussed in lessons to support English learners in developing meaning. Students are provided language support in their Investigation Notebooks in the form of bilingual and multilingual glossaries. The materials guide teachers to use the student’s preferred language and previous exposure to everyday and academic English strategically in instruction. However, there is a missed opportunity to provide guidance to teachers with strategies for using home languages, other than English or Spanish, to facilitate learning. 

Examples of using home language to facilitate learning include:

• Grade 2, Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Printable Resources, Investigation Notebook includes the glossary that has the words and definitions also in Spanish. 

• Grade 2, Unit: Changing Landforms, Teacher Guide, Lesson 1.4, Differentiation, Specific Differentiation strategies for English Learners, Cognates section states, “You may decide to support students by keeping a running list on chart paper of cognates that students encounter in this unit, or by encouraging students to keep their own lists that they can refer to as needed. The Spanish cognates that will be helpful for students in this lesson are: visualize/visualizar, observation/la observación, and evidence/la evidencia. Cognates are especially rich linguistic resources to exploit for academic English language development and for biliteracy development.”

• Grade 2, Unit: Properties of Materials, Teachers Guide, Lesson 4.3 Brief states,“During the Properties of Materials Sorting Tool activities, encourage students to write their observations in their primary language, if they would prefer. You can also invite pairs who speak the same primary language to share their ideas in that primary language if they wish. Allowing English learners to draw upon their existing linguistic resources supports their science learning and the development of English science vocabulary.”

• Grade 2, Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Teachers Guide, Lesson 1.2 Brief states, “Having access to translations and definitions of new science terms in Spanish is helpful for English learners for whom Spanish is their primary language. Have students turn to pages 73–74, Glossary, in the Plant and Animal Relationships Investigation Notebook to see Spanish translations and definitions. Encourage students to refer to this glossary as needed throughout the unit.”

There is a missed opportunity to offer lesson based guidance for languages beyond Spanish, or to provide teachers with strategies for using home language as an onramp to a common and shared scientific language. However, resources, such as the multi-language glossary are included.  

The materials for Grade 2 provide some guidance to encourage teachers to draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning. For instance, in every unit in Grade 2, the Teacher Guide, Printable Resources, Eliciting and Leveraging Students’ Prior Knowledge, Personal Experiences, and Cultural Backgrounds, there is an explanation for teachers for why eliciting and building upon student prior knowledge, personal experiences, and cultural and social backgrounds is important to the learning process. Teachers are encouraged to collect student ideas on “What We Think We Know Charts” and to return and connect student prior experience to what they are learning multiple times per chapter. Every chapter of every unit contains this guidance which includes the following:

“Prompts for eliciting students’ funds of knowledge. While leading discussions, the following prompts may be helpful in eliciting contributions from students: 

● What does… remind you of from your own life? 

● When have you had an experience related to…? 

● When have you observed something similar to…? 

● Can you connect… to something in your family or neighborhood? 

● What have you heard from your family about…? 

● Is there another word you would use for…? 

● What words do you know in another language about this topic? 

● Have you ever visited somewhere that reminds you of…? 

● Have you ever seen a TV show or read a book that’s similar to…? 

● Is there anything in our city/town that reminds you of…?

There are example student responses and suggested actions for teachers based upon these prompts.

The materials for Grade 2 provide consistent general literacy supports for students; however, they miss the opportunity to provide information and/or supports for students at varied reading levels.  While reading levels may be limited at this grade level, special supports for readers that are struggling and reading levels other than Grade 2 are not identified in the grade level readers. 

Examples of literacy supports include:

• Grade 2, Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Teachers Guide, Lesson 1.2 Lesson Brief section 1, Teacher Support tab, Rationale, Literacy Note states, “Approach to Reading Skillful readers use a variety of strategies to actively engage with informational text. The books in this unit are designed so that the responsibility of reading science text can be gradually released to students. This allows students to read more independently as the unit progresses and as they become increasingly familiar with the concepts and vocabulary in the unit. In this unit, the sensemaking strategy of setting a purpose helps students focus as they read and make sense of what they are reading. Whenever possible, model how to use this strategy by thinking aloud about how you set a purpose as a reader. Students will have multiple opportunities to learn about and practice this strategy through a gradual-release model: you initially provide a high level of direction and support, then decrease your level of support over the course of the unit. By the end of the unit, you will still provide some support, but you will also be guiding students toward independent use of the strategy.”

• Grade 2, Unit: Properties of Matter, Teachers Guide, Lesson 1.2, Lesson Brief, Section 2, Predicting as a Reading Strategy: Teacher Support, Background, Literacy Note: About Making Predictions states, “Skillful readers use a variety of strategies to actively engage with the text. In this unit, the focus is on becoming an expert with one or two strategies through explicit instruction, modeling, and guided practice. Making predictions is one of the focus strategies for this unit. Making a prediction involves using prior knowledge and information gathered from the text in order to think ahead. Making predictions is something that students should do not just before they read the book, but also as they read. Students should check in with themselves as they read to see whether the evidence in the text confirms their predictions or whether their thinking needs to be readjusted based on what is in the text. Whenever possible, model the use of this strategy by thinking aloud about how you make predictions as a reader.”

The materials reviewed for Amplify Science for Grade 2 integrate some interactive tools in ways that support student engagement in the three dimensions. In the Program Structure and Components Trifold, Program Components, Slide 5, Amplify’s digital tools overview indicates that Grades K-1 include the digital teacher’s guide and videos, while Grades 2-3 also include student practice apps and Grades 4-5 include all resources including practice apps and simulation tools.

By clicking on the Programs and Apps Waffle and visiting the Elementary Student Apps page, classes and/or students visiting the Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships apps will find 4 Science practice tools. Three tools are modeled simulations that have students drag and drop seeds to see where they will grow and where they will not in varied environments. If the seed is placed in an appropriate location with adequate resources, the seed “grows” into a plant. This is repeated in three separate modeled simulations, one for an oak tree, one for a gumbo-limbo tree, and one for a mesquite tree, all in different environments. This Unit’s set of practice tools also includes a drag-and-drop visual interactive pertaining to seed structure and function.  

Other examples include:

• In Grade 2, Unit: Properties of Matter, Lesson 1.6, Data Tools, there is an interactive data application that asks students to enter the data they collect from an activity titled “Sticky Trees.” There are three different results the student enters data from and graphs are developed automatically from each set of data.

• In Grade 2, in the Science Practice Tools section for Changing Landforms, a tool is connected with lesson 3.4 of the unit. Students are instructed to move pieces from a digitally rendered mountain to illustrate erosion at two separate times. All the pieces can be moved in both images, one image illustrates the mountain 50 years ago and one represents the mountain 1 million years ago. The slide deck for the lesson shows students how to use the simulation. There are follow-up questions in the student notebook referenced on slide 21 of the associated slide deck.

The materials for Grade 2 include or reference digital technology that provides opportunities for students to collaborate with each other in some instances. In all cases, students are focused on learning how to use the technology in collaboration with other students in a face-to-face format.

The materials for Grade 2 include a visual design that supports students in engaging thoughtfully with the subject. The materials are neither distracting nor chaotic. Teacher materials are arranged uniformly throughout the grade levels, each unit beginning with an overview, then providing chapters of each unit with chapter sections in a labeled grid format (e.g. 2.1, 2.2, 2.3). Section grids are followed by resources for the teacher and are organized similarly for all Units. 

These Resources are organized in the following order: 

• MENU TAB: Printable Resources; 

• MENU TAB: Planning for the Unit; Unit Map, Progress Build, Getting Ready to Teach, Materials and Preparation, Science Background and Standards at a Glance; 

• MENU TAB: Teacher References; Lesson Overview Compilation, Standards and Goals, 3-D Statements, Assessment System, Embedded Formative Assessments, Books in This Unit; 

• MENU TAB: Offline Preparation.

Materials are predictably accessible throughout each unit as the format remains consistent from unit-to-unit, grade-to-grade.

Student materials are similarly consistent. Each unit includes a Student Investigation Notebook that provides documents from the chapters in the corresponding unit. There is a table of contents and consistent and repeated Safety Guidelines for students in each investigation notebook followed by the pages for each chapter. Each notebook contains a glossary and provides the students ample room to write and/or type responses/observations.   

Student readers are presented digitally and easy to manipulate for students online, or for classroom presentation using a digital screen. The books are colorful and contain appropriate illustrations and utilize easy to read font (format and sizing).

The materials for Grade 2  provide teacher guidance for the use of embedded technology to support and enhance student learning, when applicable. As a broad approach to providing guidance, every Lesson of every Unit for Grades K-2 contains a Lesson Brief, Materials and Preparation, and Before the Day of the Lesson Section that tells teachers which digital resources should be used and how to prepare them for each Lesson.  

In addition to general preparation guidance, examples of technology use at Grade 2 can be found within Unit lesson briefs such as Unit: Changing Landforms, Lesson 3.1, Lesson Brief, Creating Digital Maps that states, “3. Project the Changing Landforms Modeling Tool and demonstrate the activity. Go to the Student Apps Page. Show students how to select the unit and then Box 1, 3.1 Beach Map. With 3.1 Beach Map projected, model visualizing the beach from above. Point out the photo of the beach and think aloud as you visualize looking down at the beach from above.

To create a map of this beach, I would first visualize flying high above the land and looking down. I see a beach on the left and water on the right. The land is flat—it is low land. Explain that you will now model how to use the Modeling Tool to make a Beach Map. Let students know that one important thing you can do with the Modeling Tool is drag the colored squares from the map key to create a map in the grid next to the photo.”

Similar guidance can be found for the Mystery Mixtures activity associated with Unit: Properties of Matter, Lesson 4.3, Lesson Brief, Engaging in the Mystery Mixture Sorts and the Plant Growth and the Everglades activity associated with Unit: Plant and Animal Relationships, Lesson 2.5, Lesson Brief, A good Place to Grow in the Everglades.