S Is for Sea Serpent

Children learned about the sea serpent that lived off the New England coast by reciting from their geography textbooks.

Don't Blame the Bovine
Mrs. O'Leary's cow did not cause the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 by kicking over a lantern. It is believed a newspaper reporter invented the story to make the copy more colorful.

Listen, My Children, and You Shall Hear
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. introduced millions of students to Longfellow, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and other American writers by publishing the first affordable, child-friendly literature texts. Called the Riverside Literature Series, the books’ annotations, illustrations, and vocabulary lists made them popular with teachers and students alike.

Adiós Latin and Greek. Bonjour Semester Abroad!

Textbook company, D.C. Heath and Company (now part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) anticipated that students would prefer to study languages that that they could actually use, and created the successful D.C. Heath's Modern Language Series. Considered a great and critical change in pedagogy.

The Dangers of Reading
According to John Dewey, an early education reformer, teaching six- and seven-year-old children to read "cripples rather than furthers later intellectual development," and has "a sad record of injured nervous systems and of muscular disorders and distortions."

Titanic Sinking; No Lives Lost
Newspapers rushed to tell the story of how the "unsinkable ship" hit an iceberg but "all are safe" based on unconfirmed reports.

"The object of this Manual is to bring enthusiasm into the teaching of reading and to show various ways in which to motivate the reading period to get better results."

Emma Miller Bolenius
Teachers’ Manual of Silent and Oral Reading

First Teachers' Aid
The Bolenius Readers, published by Houghton Mifflin & Co., were the first to provide diagnostic tools, exercises, and other projects to engage students.

Science in Action

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. first introduced hands-on science experiments for the classroom to engage students in new ways.

Bye-bye Dick. Bye-bye Jane.
Developed at the request of the head of the Educational Division of Houghton Mifflin, Paul McKee's Language for Meaning series taught grammar and writing based on the way we use language in everyday life: conversations, discussions, reports, and letters.

Dewey Defeats Truman
The Chicago Tribune went to press before Harry Truman was declared the winner of the presidential election, leading to this famously incorrect banner headline.

An Idea that Put Us on the Map
Norris Hoyt, a Houghton Mifflin editor, said it drove him crazy when a text would mention an unfamiliar place in the United States and then not show its location on a map. This is America's Story by Wilder, Ludlum, and Brown included maps with every place cited in the text, as well as phonetic pronunciations of every name of a person or place that could be mispronounced. (Hoyt had been mortified when he pronounced Ponce de Leon as "Ponke de Lee-on" as his teacher did and wanted to spare others from a similar embarrassment.)

The End of Civilization
The Millennium or Y2K bug was a programing glitch that threatened to crash computers worldwide on New Year's Day 2000. Many prominent journalists and other public figures believed that the Y2K bug would shut down electrical, air traffic control, banking, and other crucial systems and trigger an international crisis. Never happened.

Driving Student Achievement

"There is strong evidence that the choice of instructional materials has large effects on student learning—effects that rival…teacher effectiveness."

In "Choosing Blindly," Chingos and Whitehurst make the case for applying rigorous evaluation criteria to the selection of instructional content, based on evidence that curricula impact student achievement. The authors cite a recent federally sponsored study of the effectiveness of math curricula spanning several years. The results concluded that differences in instructional materials accounted for a difference of 0.17 standard deviations in student achievement. By way of comparison, a review of ten research papers on the impact of teacher quality found that teacher effectiveness impacted student achievement by 0.08-0.11 standard deviations.¹

1. Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, "Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher Effectiveness, and the Common Core," Brown Center of Educational Policy at Brookings, 2012

Enhancing Outcomes

"Content has the most substantial impact on achievement growth."

In a study sponsored by the American Educational Research Association, Carbonaro and Gamoran examined the factors that contribute to unequal achievement outcomes for students. Focusing on high school English instruction, the authors evaluated four key aspects of instruction: "quantity of assignments, coherence of instruction, student voice in curricular and pedagogical issues, and the content of instruction." Analyzing data from over 8,000 students tracked in Grades 8–12, the researchers found that of the four instructional dimensions studied, content quality had the greatest impact on student outcomes.²

2. William J. Carbonaro and Adam Gamoran, "The Production of Achievement Inequality in High School English," American Educational Research Journal (2002) 39: 801-827

Achieving Higher Scores

"The positive impact of the standards-based programs on student performance was remarkably consistent."

In 2001, Riordan and Noyce examined the impact of standards-based curriculum on student achievement, relative to "traditional" instructional programs, and found statistically significant differences that favored the standards-based curriculum in nearly all dimensions of instruction. These differences were "remarkably consistent" across student demographic groups and across student ability levels. Furthermore, when controlling for other externalities, the researchers found that the differences favoring the standards-based curriculum "could not be attributed to differences in teacher qualifications nor differences in self-reported teacher instructional practice."³

3. Julie E. Riordan and Pendred E. Noyce, "The Impact of Two Standards-Based Mathematics Curricula on Student Achievement in Massachusetts," (2001) Vol. 32, No. 4, 368–398

LEARN

We're Listening

When teachers, administrators, and students suggest ways to increase engagement and instructional effectiveness, we listen carefully. Once we identify the need for a new solution, we review the latest efficacy studies and standards, and define the program’s goals and objectives and the specific K–12 audience it will benefit.

We Heard You

Educators asked for a downloadable program that lets students participate offline and online; interactive content that teachers can customize; and the ability for students and teachers to collaborate.

Our Solution

The HMH Player app. Teachers can modify HMH lessons by adding their own resources, and then pushing the differentiated content to students' devices. Students can work offline or online.

Watch the video to learn more.

SHAPE

Aligning What’s Taught and When

Our Curriculum Experts align the most current local and state curriculum standards with the typical school calendar to generate curriculum guidelines, thus providing options for covering the required material and maximizing student learning during the school year.

Meet Our Team of In-house Experts

Learning Architects drive the instructional and pedagogical design of our content and are advocates for the students, ensuring that the content engages them and helps them master the intended skills and knowledge. Learning Architects study the most current formative research, teaching methods, and newest technology in order to determine which learning solutions and instructional technology would be most effective for the designated audience and subject.

Design Architects are skilled in graphic design, animation, user experience, and interactive design for the educational market. They optimize our content to ensure that it captures imaginations; is visually engaging, grade appropriate, intuitive to navigate; and delivers on our educational philosophy.

Curriculum Experts review our materials for accuracy and curriculum alignment, assist in copyediting, ensure that our materials fit the learning needs of the intended audience, check for and address cultural bias, and suggest activities and assignments. They review the curriculum to ensure that individual materials and tools fit together within the larger scope and sequence.

Content Engineers are web, game, and mobile app developers who take the content and optimize it to work in the chosen format. They work closely with the team to craft the content for each format and audience.

Supporting all of these functions is an expert team of content analysts, professional librarians, copyright professionals, and intellectual managers who ensure the integrity of all HMH content.

Meet Some of Our Authors

Kylene Beers, Ph.D.

Kylene Beers, Ph.D. is a program consultant of Collections and co-author of Holt McDougal Literature. She is the author of When Kids Can't Read/What Teachers Can Do and co-author of Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading. She is the Senior Reading Advisor to Secondary Schools for the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, and previously was the Senior Reading Researcher at the Comer School Development Program at Yale University. A former middle school teacher, she has turned her commitment to adolescent literacy and struggling readers into the major focus of her research, writing, and teaching.

Edward Burger, Ph.D.

Edward Burger, Ph.D. has authored or co-authored several HMH math programs, including GO Math!, HMH Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2. He is President of Southwestern University and a former Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Mathematics at Williams College. He has authored or co-authored more than 65 articles, books, and video series; delivered over 500 addresses and workshops worldwide; and made over 50 media appearances. He is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and has earned many national honors, including the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching in 2010. In 2012, Microsoft Education named him a “Global Hero in Education.”

Michael DiSpezio

Michael DiSpezio is a co-author of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ScienceFusion. Mr. DiSpezio’s knowledge of natural history has resulted in numerous publications and speaking engagements throughout the world on an assortment of scientific topics that range from optical illusions to learning and the brain. A former marine biologist, he completed his graduate studies at the Marine Biological Lab at Woods Hole and worked as a research assistant to a Nobel Prize winner. Leaving the laboratory, he celebrated his passion in education as a K–12 classroom teacher for nearly ten years.

Timothy Kanold, Ph.D.

Dr. Timothy Kanold is the lead author of HMH high school mathematics programs Integrated Mathematics 1,2, 3, Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2. He has co-authored various McDougal Littell Math programs since 1994. Dr. Kanold served as Director of Mathematics and Science at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, for 17 years where he also served as district superintendent. Since 2007, he has worked relentlessly as the lead developer and presenter for Mathematics at Work, a mathematics teaching and learning professional development program for school administrators, leaders, mathematics teachers, and support staff.

Carol Jago

Carol Jago is a Common Core consultant to Journeys, a program consultant to Collections, co-author of Holt McDougal Literature, and author of Steck-Vaughn Transitions: Preparing for College Writing. She has taught English for 32 years and is associate director of the California Reading & Literature Project at UCLA. She serves as chair of the College Board's English Academic Advisory committee and is past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She has received the NCTE Teacher of Excellence award, the 2014 IRA Adolescent Literacy Thought Leader award, and the Conference of the Living Tree Lifetime Achievement Award.

Erik Palmer

Erik Palmer is the author of Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students, Digitally Speaking: How to Improve Student Presentations, and Teaching the Core Skills of Listening & Speaking. As an education consultant, he focuses on improving oral communication and updating classroom instruction through the use of digital tools. He holds degrees from Oberlin College (B.A.) and the University of Colorado (M.A.). After a career in business, he spent 21 years in the classroom, primarily as an English teacher, but also teaching math, science, and civics.

Louis Wilson, Ph.D.

Louis Wilson, Ph.D. co-authored Holt McDougal The Americans. He was past chair of African American Studies and African Studies at Smith College. An expert in African and African American History, he has lectured in Malawi, Namibia, and South Africa for the U.S. State Department. Dr. Wilson received a Resident Fellowship at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research. He was a Fulbright Professor in the History Department at the University of Ghana and at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Museum of African American History in Boston.

BUILD AND VALIDATE

Develop Content and Build Live Products

Learning Architects create content while adapting the style, word choice, and complexity level to a specific audience. Design Architects create a visual and interactive environment that engages students and enhances their understanding of the material. Our Build Studio turns the architects’ vision into solutions that can be used by learners worldwide.

Seek Expert Opinions

In-house discipline experts, instructional reviewers, and external curriculum specialists review content for domain accuracy; instructional appropriateness and effectiveness; adaptability for individual learning styles and needs; and pedagogical integrity.

Listen to Users

We solicit and incorporate feedback to ensure that our content enables teachers to teach effectively, engages students in a learning experience that is optimized for their needs and preferences, and holds users’ interest throughout the year.

Meet Districts’ Needs

The state board of education and/or school districts evaluate the proposed educational materials and may request that they be adapted to meet their specific curriculum standards. This helps ensure that our materials provide the highest quality content possible.

Design Different Formats with a Similar Experience

We ensure that all educational content, regardless of format, offers optimal learning experiences—and allows teachers to adapt the instructional content to individual student needs.

Copyright Our Materials

Developing content that consistently produces the desired outcomes and also meets local and state standards requires time, resources, and investing in licensing protection. To ensure our content’s quality, we must protect it through copyrights and digital rights management.

DELIGHT

We review the external and user testing results, make any updates and refinements, and then test with users again. Only after we are confident that the content will delight and engage learners, and accelerate learning, will we release it.

Support

Developing curricula that can be adapted to meet a wide variety of curriculum standards is challenging, as every state and district has different criteria. As a national content provider, we have an expert team of content analysts, professional librarians, and correlations specialists who are well versed in these requirements so that we can:

Develop curricula that builds on each teaching module to prepare students for state-testing and evaluation
Create engaging and effective educational content that is aligned with the standards

Raise The Bar

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards* (NGSS) aim to ensure every student has access to an education fueled by rigorous standards. HMH shares that goal.

Facilitating Collaboration

We collaborate with educators, authors, alignment specialists, researchers, and curriculum experts to align our content with the individual state standards and to support instruction at the specified cognitive levels.

Supporting Educators

We provide educators and administrators with professional development services that offer both high-level strategic and tactical implementation strategies to meet their state’s and district’s standards, and differentiated instruction strategies to meet the needs of all learners.

NGSS & C3 Frameworks

While much attention is focused on Common Core, efforts are underway for national standards and frameworks for other disciplines as well. Several states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Meanwhile, the National Council for the Social Studies released the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. We are following these developments closely and are building next-generation instructional programs from the ground up to address these initiatives.

Informing Stakeholders

For an overview of the standards, which states are adopting them, and the consortia-driven assessments linked to the standards, please visit:

Next Generation Science Standards and logo are registered trademarks of Achieve, Inc.

Common Core 101 ASSESSMENT 101

Standards

Common Core

Assessments

NGSS

Common Core
Which states have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)?

As of September 2015. Minnesota: English Language Arts only.
Assessments
See each CCSS state’s assessment provider: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC™), the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), and others.

As of September 2015. PARCC is a trademark of PARCC, Inc.
NGSS
Which states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)?

As of September 2015. Next Generation Science Standards and logo are registered trademarks of Achieve, Inc.

ADAPT CONTENT

Personalized

Adaptive

Personalized Learning

Personalized learning is when a teacher sees a student struggling with a concept and implements an intervention. The intervention can be as simple as assigning a child additional reading activities.
Adaptive Learning

Adaptive learning is data driven. Once a student uploads his assignment, the system compares his activities and performance to those of other users and then employs an algorithm to determine which activity to assign next to help him reach his learning objectives. A true adaptive learning system doesn't merely identify a student's learning needs, but knows the likely source of said needs, and uses those insights to create a customized learning path for him.

SUPERCHARGE

Supercharge Learning with Knewton

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has partnered with Knewton, a proficiency-based adaptive learning software developer, to develop adaptive learning solutions. These include our Personal Math Trainer^®, Powered by Knewton, that:

Analyzes each student's interactions to determine personal strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and pace
Compares each student's interactions to a vast database of student interactions to identify the most effective learning strategies
Establishes a personalized syllabus for every student to ensure the most efficient route to achieving his or her goals
Provides each student with targeted recommendations for assignments
Gives educators real-time insights into each student's needs, challenges, and learning styles.

Watch the video below to see how it works.

Knewton™ is a trademark of Knewton, Inc.

USING BIG DATA

Until recently, collecting and analyzing large amounts of digital information was prohibitively expensive and time consuming. Now, while ensuring appropriate attention is paid to student privacy, we can quickly and affordably analyze massive amounts of data with the help of technology. With these new capabilities, educators are using big data to:

Discover What Works and What Doesn't

When a student pauses, skips, or reviews a section of digital content, the system records his or her interactions. Then, once the system aggregates and analyzes the data from many students’ interactions, patterns begin to emerge. We can tell which lessons result in which outcomes and can make improvements based on what we've learned.

Create a Truly Individualized Learning Path

When a student interacts with digital content over time, the system can identify the student's learning style, abilities, and preferences. Teachers can use this information to individualize instruction.

Optimize What Students Learn, When They Learn, and How They Learn

Big data lets us apply empirical evidence to education. Once we have granular, up-to-date data on the efficacy of learning experiences, we can use that data to create algorithms that will tell us what is most likely to improve a specific individual's outcome—and what will most likely work best for the whole class.

What does the future of education look like? Find out more about how big data is transforming the learning experience.

Learn More

Edfusion

Our edFusion™ product quickly integrates data from many disparate sources into one unified platform to extract usable data. On the classroom level, having real-time access to student-centric data allows educators to monitor academic progress, and modify lessons based on the knowledge, skills, and learning styles of individual students. On the district, state, or national level, the data provides educators with opportunities to discover patterns, develop predictive models, test hypotheses on how best to improve learning and retention, and gather empirical evidence on what works. Moving forward, we can use this data to increase the efficacy of our content and ultimately enhance outcomes.

edFusion is a trademark of Choice Solutions, Inc.

GREAT DESIGN

Great educational design targets specific groups of learners; stimulates their curiosity for a given subject; and entices them to interact with that content, over and over again. Click on the images below to learn more about some of our great designs.

Curious World App

Offers children a magical world where they can investigate, imagine, observe, and discover new things as they play.

Collections HISTORY Video

This library of A&E^® and HISTORY^® video excerpts brings Collections' literature selections to life for students.
Dr. Michael DiSpezio is a co-author of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ScienceFusion.Dr. DiSpezio is a renaissance educator, speaker, and author.

Modern Chemistry^® Virtual Labs

Students can hone their lab skills in a virtual environment with interactive experiments.

HMH Player Dashboard

Provides direct access to program materials and lesson resources for Integrated Mathematics 1, 2, 3.

Curious About Letters App

Curious George^® helps preschoolers develop foundational reading and writing skills in this app.

Biology

From our iBooks^® Textbooks science collection: interactive, visually stunning resources that engage students.

Math on the Spot App

Video math lessons from expert math teachers and kid-friendly characters for K–2 students.

Go Math! Academy ™

This engaging online tool encourages kids to practice math at home.

HMH My Close Reads App

Students can practice close reading of complex text using annotation tools.

HISTORY^®, A&E^®, and related logos are the property of A&E Television Networks [AETN]. CURIOUS GEORGE, created by Margret and H.A. Rey, is copyrighted and trademarked by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. iBooks is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Games

While educators have long recognized the benefits of incorporating aspects of games and game theory into the curriculum, they also know that without quality, few learning outcomes will be achieved.

When and How Games Work Best

Content is most effective when we start by defining its educational objectives and determining the best way to achieve them. If this includes game-like features, then we consult with child development and game strategy experts to decide which aspects of game design to incorporate, such as creating a story around the learning experience that delivers context; providing multiple chances to succeed; and using reward systems to motivate, engage, and promote resiliency.

Including actual games into our programs—and using them to generate the outcomes we want—requires a great deal of planning and formative research. Evidence suggests that games work best when we integrate them with other classroom activities that deepen students' skills and understanding, such as discussions, writing about their learning, peer tutoring, and group decision making.

What Games Do Well

According to a leading expert on game design, Jane McGonigal, "Gamers spend 80 percent of their time failing in game worlds, yet they consistently come back for more."⁴ When kids fail at digital games or apps, they keep trying until they succeed. This doesn’t happen in our classrooms. When kids make mistakes in school, they soon get frustrated or lose confidence and give up. Imagine what our students could accomplish if we could bring this paradigm from gaming into the classroom? We could motivate kids to overcome obstacles and enjoy acquiring new skills and knowledge.

Play with Us

A few examples of how we incorporate sound educational principles into games.

Provide meaning that goes beyond the game itself. The Charly & Max site teaches elementary students about money. Players earn rewards that they can use to support an actual cause.

Provide a scaffolded learning experience. Max & Ruby Science Educational Games build skills by leading kids through several levels of challenges with progressive difficulty.

Give the player a sense of their improvement. Go Math! Academy™ rewards users with points for achievements and badges for milestones.

4. As quoted in a Marketplace story, marketplace.org/topics/life/big-book/playing-video-games-can-change-world
Go Math! Academy™ is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

DELIGHT OUR USERS

User Experience

User Interface

Our User Testing

User Experience

When you pick up a book and open the cover, you know to read from the top of the first page to the bottom of the last. When you visit a new website or app, it's more challenging because you have to figure out how it works, where you are, and where to go next. Knowing this, we develop digital experiences that users intuitively understand and want to remain engaged with.
User Interface

When you click, use a pull-down menu, or scroll down a web page, you control what you see and the order in which you experience it. The more intuitive the interface is to use, the more quickly you can find what you want—and the more likely you are to continue using that site or app.
Our User Testing

We observe students and teachers as they interact with our digital experiences throughout the content design and development process. We interview users one-on-one and in focus groups. We encourage in-school trials. We test and retest our materials to ensure that every label, every button, every navigation menu, every dashboard, and every page is engaging, intuitive, and effective.

See what we learned from some typical testers here.

HMH Player™

In May 2014, students aged 5–7 tested our new tablet-based educational platform, HMH Player.
BEFORE:
- Didn't understand how to use the interface
- Didn't understand the "week picker" label
- Didn't understand the numerical lesson references (e.g. 1.1)
- Weren't engaged by the static activity "cards"
AFTER:
- Simplified the interface
- Limited activity picker to display only the current week, by day
- Made numerical listing of activities less prominent in favor of activity type illustrations
- Used rotating carousel, with fewer, larger cards, more prominently highlighting currently selected activity
- Enlarged the arrows
Go Math! Academy™

In January 2014, we watched as students in Grades K–3 completed two to three problem sets appropriate for their grade level.
BEFORE:
- Didn't understand using circles as row labels
- Were confused by the "breadcrumbs" at top and right-side navigation
- An audio option was deemed important and valuable
- Wanted more interactivity
AFTER:
- Replaced colored counter labels with letter labels
- Simplified navigation by removing breadcrumbs and right-hand labels
- Added audio option
- Transformed this from a descriptive exercise to an interactive example

MEET THE NEEDS

Engaging students also means aligning instruction to their specific educational needs. We make every effort to provide resources to help teachers meet their diverse students’ learning needs with differentiated instruction strategies.

Differentiated Instruction Strategies

While we design our content for the grade level at which it is most commonly taught, we also integrate suggestions for activities and scaffolds to meet the needs of students who are performing below grade level and/or have special needs. Most of our programs offer either full text audio or chapter summaries. Additionally, several of our programs include TextHelp, a feature that turns online editions into text-to-speech readers. Similarly, we provide enrichment activities to meet the needs of advanced students.

English Language Learners

Meeting the needs of all learners also requires providing resources for students learning English. We have provided resources to support English language learners for decades and are intensifying our efforts. We recently released a new version of our comprehensive English language development program, On Our Way to English, which approaches language development through rich literature and highly visual content. Furthermore, we are working to establish a protocol of methods to assist English language learners that we will apply to all of our educational materials across disciplines.

Addressing Cultural Bias

We carefully build our educational content to present an accurate, balanced, and respectful representation of ethnic groups, genders, religions, ages, language backgrounds, and abilities. We engage teams of expert reviewers to ensure that our content avoids cultural bias and provides learners with opportunities to see themselves and their cultures in a positive light.

RELEVANT RESEARCH

Will it Help Your Students?

We serve a large and diverse marketplace. While the scale, scope, and rigor of our research are impressive, we can't test every program in every district or population group. So to answer "Will it work?" we employ various research designs and examine our programs in a variety of contexts. For example:

Foundational research outlines how our programs align with pedagogical best practices based on volumes of academic research
Impact reports, such as case studies and testimonials, provide valuable insights into a program's effectiveness for a specific context
Scientific, experimental studies assess student achievement in a more rigorous empirical manner

By executing a wide range of research, we enable districts to find studies that speak to their unique situation and determine which programs meet their specific needs.

RELIABLE AND ROBUST

What Makes for Great Efficacy Research?

Providing reliable and robust evidence that allows customers to evaluate program effectiveness requires dedicated resources, a methodological approach, and a clear understanding of our customers' needs. Not all efficacy research is created equal. Here's what sets our approach apart:

Objectivity: we use outside firms whose reputation relies on delivering expert, objective evaluations to conduct the vast majority of our efficacy research.

Scientific and Statistical Rigor: gold-standard efficacy research calls for the inclusion of control groups, multivariate analyses to account for externalities, and measures of statistical significance—research methodologies we employ regularly in our studies.

Portfolio Approach: at HMH, we don't rely on any single study as THE evidence of a program's success; instead, we take an iterative approach to building a portfolio of efficacy research—of various types in terms of scope and design—for our programs.

Mixed Methods: content that improves outcomes is of little value if the content is difficult to use or implement. For that reason, we gauge a program's potential for success in terms of more than just test scores; we take qualitative insights into account as well.

Consumability: we believe that the conclusions and implications from our research studies should be as accessible as possible, presented in a manner that doesn't require a Ph.D. to understand the key findings and their implications.

OUR EFFICACY

Study Our Efficacy

The ultimate measure of content quality is, of course, its instructional effectiveness. At HMH, we take our approach to evaluating that measure very seriously. Visit our Efficacy page to see a small sampling of the output those efforts have yielded.

View Research

Compatible Educational Technology

See if our programs, platforms, and mobile applications are compatible with the technology you're currently using or planning to purchase.

Visit Technical Support

Asking "Will it work?" begs another question, "How will it be implemented?" In order to derive the full benefit from educational technology, teachers must:

Be comfortable with it
Understand how they can use it to transform the learning experience
Know how to manage a classroom full of devices

To ensure effective implementation and teachers' ongoing success, we provide in-depth professional development, product training, and support via our professional communities of practice.

Support

We support our platforms with 24/7 technical assistance for the life of the contract. We proactively update our platforms to prevent them from becoming obsolete when a new operating software version or device is released for market-standard technology. Our Technical Support Group works tirelessly to ensure that our systems and links are functioning properly and that our digital content reflects the latest changes and updates. Our support team works to ensure that your instructional technology is performing at its best.

Ongoing Updates

One of the benefits of digital content is that we can easily correct outdated information. For example, when scientists determined that Pluto wasn't a planet, we immediately revised our digital products to reflect this new information. Another advantage is that when there are technological innovations or new curriculum versions, we can offer customers updates over the lifetime of a product or throughout their contract.

The Learning Transformation

Using technology to enhance the learning process requires more than just acquiring devices. Learn what it takes to be successful.

Content for a Digital Age

Providing students with engaging, adaptive, and effective content creates incredible opportunities—and a few challenges.

Change the Conversation

Learn what it will take to achieve the outcomes we all want, starting with some very tough questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does CASE² stand for?

CASE² is the acronym for the process we use to develop high-quality content. It stands for Construct, Align, Smart, Engage, and Efficacy. While our process has hundreds of steps, we grouped them into these five categories.

Where can I learn more about HMH's efficacy research?

You can view a selection of our research reports here. For additional inquiries about a specific program's efficacy, or if you have questions regarding any of our studies, please contact us at efficacy@hmhco.com.

I'm an educator interested in HMH content. With whom can I speak to learn more?

We recommend talking to an HMH account executive who is familiar with your district and can best address your specific needs. Please visit: Find Your Sales Rep.

I'm not a teacher, but I’m interested in learning more about HMH's products. Where can I start?

Check out our website to learn more about our offerings, from educational to entertaining. Whether you're a student, a parent, a homeschooler, or just a curious reader, you'll find that our quality content extends far beyond the classroom.

How do I use the Quality Content Rubric?

Since there are no widely accepted standards or grades to evaluate content, we created a rubric to ensure that the content we develop is of the highest quality. You can use this rubric to evaluate a variety of instructional content, including ours.

How can I use the Quality Content White Paper?

Our white paper helps educators, administrators, and parents understand what quality content is — and why it is so important. You can share the white paper with policy makers, administrators, or anyone else who makes decisions about instructional content.

My school doesn't subscribe to any national assessments. Does your curriculum align to other high-stakes tests?

Yes. We provide a wide array of assessment resources for our educational programs. From ready-made tests, quizzes, and preparation resources to digital resources like ExamView that allow you to customize or build your own assessments, we can help you determine the right materials to prepare students for their high-stakes tests.

What if I don't teach Common Core Standards? Do you have materials for me?

Yes. For years we have worked with local and state educators to align content to their specific standards and will continue to do so. Visit our site to see what we offer by subject and/or grade.

Where do I send suggestions about the Content Manifesto?

We welcome your thoughts about the Content Manifesto. Please send feedback, observations, or suggestions to manifesto@hmhco.com.

Quality Content Rubric

To help you make dependable judgments about the quality of content, we've created guidelines based on the standards we use.

Download Rubric

A Brief History of CONTENT

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QUALITY MATTERS: The Research

What Makes HMH EXCEPTIONAL?

Learn

Shape

BUILD AND VALIDATE

DELIGHT

SUPPORT

RAISE THE BAR

STANDARDS

ADAPT CONTENT

SUPERCHARGE

USING BIG DATA

OUR EDFUSION

GREAT DESIGN

GAMES

DELIGHT

MEET THE NEEDS

RESEARCH RELEVANT

RELIABLE AND ROBUST:

OUR EFFICACY

The HMH COMMITMENT to Content

WHAT'S NEXT? A Look Toward the Future

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S Is for Sea Serpent

Don't Blame the Bovine

Listen, My Children, and You Shall Hear

Adiós Latin and Greek. Bonjour Semester Abroad!

The Dangers of Reading

Titanic Sinking; No Lives Lost

First Teachers' Aid

Science in Action

Bye-bye Dick. Bye-bye Jane.

Dewey Defeats Truman

An Idea that Put Us on the Map

The End of Civilization

Driving Student Achievement

Enhancing Outcomes

Achieving Higher Scores

LEARN

We're Listening

We Heard You

Our Solution

SHAPE

Aligning What’s Taught and When

Meet Our Team of In-house Experts

Meet Some of Our Authors

BUILD AND VALIDATE

Develop Content and Build Live Products

Seek Expert Opinions

Listen to Users

Meet Districts’ Needs

Design Different Formats with a Similar Experience

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DELIGHT

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Raise The Bar

Facilitating Collaboration

Supporting Educators

NGSS & C3 Frameworks

Informing Stakeholders

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Modern Chemistry^® Virtual Labs