Des-blog

We asked the Desmos fellows to share pitfalls to be avoided when facilitating a Desmos activity. They shared challenges they’ve faced in the past as well as areas of growth. Read their tips below.

Identify your learning targets.

Glenn Waddell and Dave Sabol both had experiences in the past where student work or activity review could have benefitted from more intentional planning. Glenn shared that “I think the biggest pitfall I have had was a lack of intentionality. I would make slides thinking, ‘Oh, this slide will teach x, y, and z concepts’ and then discover that it was so confusing to learners that they struggled and questioned the presentation instead of being able to deeply dive into an concept or idea. Having the story clear and mapped out, having a clear intention for each slide, each question, each element of the AB is essential so the learners are questioning what I want them to question, instead of the way it is delivered.” In the past, Dave would explore each screen with the class during a review. More recently he’s found it helpful to consider the greater purpose of each screen and what type of feedback might be appropriate. Planning with learning targets in mind can help here as well.

Plan your teacher moves.

Lisa Bejarano shares that the biggest mistake she’s made in the past is assigning an activity to students with no facilitation plan or time for discussion or reflection. Stephanie Blair has also faced this challenge, and has been taking advantage of Desmos teacher guides since their release: “Since the creation of the teacher guides, I have became a lot more purposeful in planning when to use the conversation tools. I also have a place to write down anticipated discussion prompts and what I hope to highlight in front of the class. This has been incredibly helpful.” Lisa uses the teacher guides to plan by working through the activity herself first, anticipating student responses, and planning teacher moves. She’s also found it helpful to be flexible and ready to adjust plans based on student responses.

Leave time for closure.

Several of the Desmos fellows have created activities that were too long or contained too much content. This is challenging for a number of reasons, including the lack of time for closure. Linda Saeta reminds us of the importance of closure: “I feel that I can create some excitement in class, but like a soda that is bubbling, I don’t leave time to close the lid on tightly, so most of those bubbles are gone by the next day.” It can be helpful when planning to consider which parts of the activity can be skipped or saved for the next day to ensure that there is sufficient time to wrap up the learning for the day.

These are just three of many considerations that can be helpful in planning to use a Desmos activity. Consider downloading a teacher guide for your next Desmos activity and use the Activity Checklist to help with planning.

Sample Activity Checklist from a Teacher Guide

At Desmos, we like to build things that get students talking, and sometimes even arguing (we’re looking squarely at you, Central Park!) There’s lots to talk about in this week’s Friday Fave, starting with the title.

Which do you prefer and why?

(a) Scatter Plot Capture

(b) Scatterplot Capture

© Scatter-Plot Capture

Having resolved (or not) the orthography issues, it’s on to capturing points! The beautiful thing about statistics is that right answers usually consist of ranges of numbers, and they are usually “better” or “worse” answers rather than “right” or “wrong”.

In order to capture a point, you’ll need to pay attention to the trend, and to the degree the points appear to adhere to this trend. A small interval that catches the point is a better answer, but that is not always the advisable thing to try.

So the best answer is one that is the smallest you can make it, while staying certain that you’ll capture the point. You’ll need balance the constraints, and you’ll have something to talk about while you do.

So pair students up, play Scatter Plot (Scatter-Plot (Scatterplot)) Capture!

And while you’re think about scatter plots, maybe give these a test drive too….

Alligator Investigation

Polygraph: Scatter Plots

Commuting Times

This week Desmos fellow Anna Scholl asked us where our inspiration comes from when building Desmos graphs and activities. The Desmos fellows shared their sources of inspiration as well as activities and graphs to help inspire others.

Like many others, Jenn Vadnais shared that “My inspiration often stems from need. Necessity is the mother of invention.”

While most of our group was inspired to create based on a need to help students learn, several of us were inspired by our own need to learn and grow, the need to figure out how things work, and interest in general. Several of the Desmos Fellows pointed to our Potluck activities as a source of inspiration as well as activities and graphs posted on Twitter and in our internal chat channel. Suzanne von Oy shared that she generally makes graphs just for fun, finding inspiration from websites, tweets, and even requests from coworkers and students such as the graph below.

Bob Lochel shares that “What inspires me most when creating activities is thinking deeply about the path a student will take during an activity - I want there to be a clear thread weaving through, but I don’t want students to encounter any brick walls.” Our group was similarly inspired by this need for connecting ideas and supporting students in their thinking. Read our list below of student needs that inspire our activity creation.

• The need to visualize. Patty Stephens built this graph to help her students visualize a 3-Act task called Frosted Cube Cake.
  

• The need to play and explore. Jade White finds that her students are more active in discussions with their partner when they are working through an activity. Including activity screens where students can explore a math concept can increase discussion and student questioning as well.
  
• The need to discuss and make sense of mathematics. Allison Krasnow has been choosing problems from her curriculum’s exit tickets and using those to build quick error analysis activities. After discussing both correct and incorrect ways of thinking, students are invited to improve their initial responses.
  

• The need to reflect. Paul Jorgens asked his students to spend time noticing how this set of class generated equations for the screen above were the same and different. “We wondered if they drew the same graph. Groups used their understanding of reciprocals, division and negative exponents in the process of arguing whether they were the same (or not).”

• The need for feedback. Nerissa Gerodias appreciates activities that help students see their misunderstanding immediately. She hopes that over time this feedback leads to both increased understanding as well as curiosity that will inspire students to explore on their own and see the beauty in mathematics.
  

What inspires you in your Desmos creations? Let us know on Twitter @desmos.