Shaped

A community-driven blog supporting educators, building lifelong learners,
and shaping the future of education.* 

Latest Posts

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Stevin Smith
Senior Vice President of Technical Services, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

April Mindset 2

Emily Diehl
Education Consultant

Our fall Literacy Leadership Talks featured insightful takeaways from thought leaders Kate Kinsella, Shane Templeton, David and Yvonne Freeman, David Dockterman, and Sheila Valencia. Read them here, and access the recorded webinars.

Shaped Staff

Join Us At Ncss For Student Engagement Thumb

Conferences are a great way to meet thought leaders in your content area and experience new solutions firsthand. HMH will be hosting two popular authors at NCSS, along with Channel One reporter Azia Celestino. Find out what else we have in store.

Shaped Staff

Formative Assessment Thumb

Thought leader Sheila Valencia continues our popular Lead the Way to Literacy series with some insight on formative assessment. Can it help close the achievement gap? Find out here.

Dr. Sheila W. Valencia
Professor, Language, Literacy, and Culture, University of Washington; Journeys Program Consultant

With Essa More Equitable Assessment Brings Hope For Parity Thumb

Wondering about ESSA’s effect on assessments? Dr. Malbert Smith weighs in on three areas where he sees hope for improvement.

Dr. Malbert Smith
CEO, President, and Co-Founder of MetaMetrics

Claims Evidence Reasoning What Youre Already Doing In Science Class Thumb

New education standards can bring new language to describe teaching strategies that are already in place. Here, author Marjorie Frank illustrates the Claims-Evidence-Reasoning language of NGSS with some everyday examples.

Marjorie Frank
Author, ELD Specialist

Use Reading Data To Encourage Students Independent Reading Thumb

As you assess students’ reading levels at the start of the school year, here are some strategies for supporting students in taking risks, expanding their reading choices, building skills—and becoming engaged independent readers.

Shaped Staff

Do All Reading Comprehension Tests Assess Equally Thumb

Dr. Laurie Cutting, a leading expert in cognitive neuroscience, explains the importance of using a multiple assessment formats to get a complete picture of a student’s reading comprehension level.

Dr. Laurie E. Cutting
Professor, Vanderbilt University

Navigating Essa The Platform A New Definition Of Professional Development Thumb

What’s the best way to comply with ESSA’s requirements for Professional Development? Thought leader Sue Gendron offers valuable strategies for implementing sustainable job-embedded coaching in your schools.

Sue Gendron
Former President, International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE)

Will You Be At The Apa Convention Thumb

HMH will be in booth # 305 at the APA Convention, sharing our expertise in the area of cognitive assessment and proudly sponsoring the APA’s School Psychology Division.

Shaped Staff

The Engagement Factor And A Renewed Emphasis On Social Emotional Learning Thumb

This week in our ESSA series, HMH Chief Academic Officer Francie Alexander discusses the importance of SEL for student engagement and ways to support SEL efforts with research, measurement, and developing critical behaviors for success.

Francie Alexander
Senior Vice President, Efficacy & Consulting Research

Top Takeaways From Our Literacy Experts Thumb

HMH’s spring Lead the Way to Literacy Leadership Talks have wrapped up, and we’d like to leave you with some collected wisdom from our experts.

Shaped Staff

Assessment Can You Have It All Thumb

Does your district debate when and how often to assess? Hear from HMH assessment expert, Dr. Douglas Becker, on the goals of purposeful testing.

Dr. Douglas Becker
Advisor - Test Development, Research and Psychometric Activities. Association of Test Publishers (ATP)

Spark Roundup

In this edition of The Spark News Roundup, we highlight a California early learning campaign to shrink language disparities by installing conversation prompts into playgrounds, an innovative scaffolding technique for teaching English-language learners, how America’s academic approaches differ from the rest of the world, and more.

HMHCo

Teacher Showing Students A Science Concept 472

Former teacher and current HMH program author Michael DiSpezio explains how a “sage on a stage” teaching the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) can inspire student enthusiasm and engagement in the classroom.

Michael DiSpezio
Author, ScienceFusion and HMH Science Dimensions Programs

Girl Learning Math 472

In a Q&A with Dr. Matt Larson, a former math teacher and current President Elect of The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, HMH takes a closer look at the opportunity gap in mathematics and how effective tracking and assessments are.

HMHCo

Video Screenshot 472

HMH program advisor Dr. David Dockterman explains the role of emotions in reading comprehension.

Dr. David Dockterman
Lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education

*The views expressed in our blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.