Des-blog

Last August we welcomed 39 teachers to the first cohort of our Desmos fellowship. Our goal for that program was simple. We wanted to bring together some of the most interesting, talented, and diverse math educators we could find. Then we wanted to support and learn from them however we could.

Some of that support happened over a weekend retreat in November full of professional learning, collaboration, community, and good food. We carried that community forward onto the internet after our weekend retreat where we support our fellows remotely, through Slack, and email, and direct communication with anyone on the Desmos team.

Let’s be clear: as hard as we try to support the Desmos Fellowship, we receive just as much as we give. The Desmos fellows keep us connected to the classroom and students. They use our tools in ways we never imagined and their reports from their classrooms improve our work immeasurably. The fellows receive a preview of nearly every new feature we release at Desmos and their feedback always improves the public release.

Given the success of our first cohort, how could we not invite a second?

So let us introduce you to the 41 teachers we have invited from across the United States and Canada into the second cohort of the Desmos fellowship:

• Alisa Marie McPherson. Panama Buena Vista Union School District. Bakersfield, CA
  
• Andrew Knauft. Pleasanton, CA
  
• Angela Reilly-Harden. USD 497, Lawrence Public Schools. Lawrence, KS
  
• Carl Oliver. New York City, NY
  
• Cindy Whitehead. Arlington School District. Stanwood, WA
  
• Daniel Luevanos. San Marcos Unified School District. San Diego, CA
  
• Dylan Kane. High Mountain Institute. Leadville, CO
  
• Elizabeth Statmore. San Francisco Unified School District. San Francisco, CA
  
• Ivy Kong. Pacific Grove Unified School District. Marina, CA
  
• Jarrod Huntimer. Brookings School District. Brookings, SD
  
• Jay Chow. Keaau Middle School. Keaau, HI
  
• Jennifer Fairbanks. Hopkinton High School. Hopkinton, MA
  
• Jessica Breur. Mounds View Public Schools. Vadnais Heights, MN
  
• Jocelyn Dagenais. College St-Hilaire. Saint-Hubert, Quebec, Canada
  
• John Berray. Grossmont Union High School District. San Diego, CA
  
• Jon Orr. Lambton Kent District School Board. Tilbury, Ontario, Canada
  
• Jonathan Claydon. Spring Branch Independent School District. Houston, TX
  
• Joshua Link. Maret School. North Bethesda, MD
  
• Julia Finneyfrock. Cannon School. Charlotte, NC
  
• Kathy Henderson. Seven Hills School. Kensington, CA
  
• Kevin Ji. Oakland Unified School District. Berkeley, CA
  
• Kristen Fouss. Forest Hills School District. New Richmond, OH
  
• Kristen Smith. Summit Public Schools Atlas. Seattle, WA
  
• Madison Knowe. Christ Presbyterian Academy. Nashville, TN
  
• Mark Kreie. Brookings High School. Brookings, SD
  
• Martin Smith. Roselle Public Schools. Franklin Park, NJ
  
• Mary Bourassa. Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. Kinburn, Ontario, Canada
  
• Matthew Baker. New York City Schools (District 14). Brooklyn, NY
  
• Meghan McGovern-Garcia. Granada Hills Charter High School. Woodland Hills, CA
  
• Michele Torres. Community High School District 94. Westmont, IL
  
• Neel Chugh. Great Neck South High School. Brooklyn, NY
  
• Nikki Chiba. Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School. Lihue, HI
  
• S. Leigh Nataro. Moravian Academy. Easton, PA
  
• Sameer Shah. Packer Collegiate Institute. Brooklyn, NY
  
• Sarah York. Tustin Unified School District. Lake Forest, CA
  
• Scott Leverentz. Township High School District 113. Gurnee, IL
  
• Sherryl Proctor. Vantage Career Center. Haviland, OH
  
• Tawana Stiff. Evanston-Skokie School District 65. Chicago, IL
  
• Thach-Thao Phan. Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
  
• Veronica Enriquez. Merced Union High School District. Atwater, CA
  
• Zachary Patterson. Columbus City Schools. Columbus, OH
  

Keep an eye out for their awesome work online and in person.

The Friday Fave is in its summer splendor. Whether school is out yet or not, the reader must acknowledge that the first weekend in June is something special (sorry, Southern Hemisphere!)

The season not a thing to do with this week’s Friday Fave, though. It’s not antithetical; just irrelevant.

This week’s Fave is Point Collector. Possibly the reader can imagine that there are certain personalities at Desmos HQ that insisted not just on solving the Point Collector challenges, but in solving them more cleverly than anyone else.

Whether you’re just solving for your own delight, or being competitively clever, Point Collector offers multiple routes to success. We offer you some red and some blue points, and some rules about how including these in the shaded region of your inequality will affect your score. How to capture—or exclude—these points is up to you.

So go ahead and challenge yourself, your students, or a clever coworker to a few rounds of Point Collector. You’ll be playing along with the Friday Fave when you do.

And while you’re thinking about inequalities, here are some more activities to explore:

Inequalities on the Number Line

Absolute Value Inequalities on the Number Line

Polygraph: Linear Inequalities

The Friday Fave doesn’t really understand running. The Fave runs fast, but only when chasing a Frisbee or ball. The Fave is a bit like a Labrador Retriever that way.

Nonetheless, the Fave understands that people do run when they are not chasing things, and that such people keep track of how far they have run and how long it has taken them. If you’re going to be doing such a thing, you really should be sharing the mathy results with the rest of us.

That’s exactly what’s going on in The Running Game, this week’s Friday Fave. The Running Game isn’t an elaborate affair; it’s a simple, clear activity that has students use proportionality to go from inaccurate guessing to very reasonable predicting.

So go ahead and give your students the experience of using math to do something better.

And then make them run laps. It’s the end of the year; there’s a lot of energy to burn off! Tell ‘em the Friday Fave said they had to.

And while you’re watching the clock, here are a few more activities that use time as a variable.

Water Line

Predicting Movie Ticket Prices

Commuting Times