With Earth Day, the March for Science and the National Math Festival all
descending on our nation’s capital this weekend, the Friday Fave turns
its attention to analysis of the world we live in.
That means modeling. And one of the Fave’s Fave modeling lessons right
now is
Charge!
What is the relationship between time spent charging your phone and its
percent charged? Can you use this relationship to predict how long it will
take to fully charge your phone? Are piecewise-defined functions just a cute
trick mathematicians play, or are they useful for describing actual phenomena?
These questions and more are in play in this week’s Friday Fave:
Charge!
And while the Fave is in a modeling mood, here are three additional gems. Enjoy!
This week we asked the Desmos fellows to discuss ways to give participants a
voice in workshops. The responses included a variety of strategies that the
fellows had experienced success with, either as a workshop participant or as a
presenter. The two main areas of focus had to do with how a workshop is
differentiated to meet the needs of participants, and the strategies that the
presenter can use to make participants active contributors to the session.
Differentiation
Several of the fellows mentioned that the most valuable professional learning
experiences for them allowed them some choice in what they would explore. For
example, Glenn Waddell has used
Desmos Bingo in workshops to differentiate the learning experience for
beginning and more advanced users of the Desmos calculator.
Patty Stephens attended a
Google workshop in which the presenter gave an overview of three Google
add-ons, then participants chose one to explore in-depth. This sort of
exploration also gives teachers the time and space to consider how the
learning applies to their own classroom.
Allison Krasnow and
Jenn Vadnais appreciate
differentiation and time to explore in a workshop, though they encouraged our
group to be intentional with closure. Allison has struggled with bringing
participants back together after exploration time to discuss the big ideas and
learning that are relevant to the entire group. One idea to help with closure
is to have a whole group share-out on take-aways and next steps, though Jenn
shared that she has had mixed success with this strategy. “The successes
occurred when there was a high level of trust in the room. The participants
knew and respected each other. When presenting at a conference, participants
were more comfortable talking in small groups than sharing whole group.”
Strategies
Jenn’s point reminds us that the strategies that presenters use can have a big
impact on whether or not participants feel heard and whether or not they feel
like their ideas are valued. Trust and feeling safe are also key, and our
group had many ideas for how to build a safe space, even in a short amount of time.
Tony Riehl has used a shared Google
Doc with the agenda and prompts for participants to encourage questions and
dialogue with the other participants. He’s found this to be helpful both as
a presenter and as a participant in workshops.
Paul Jorgens has appreciated
Desmos workshops in which the presenter begins with a question to help gauge
the experience level of the room and then records thoughts in a shared
google document. He notes, “As a participant that was spot on for me knowing
that my voice was valued.”
Adam Poetzel uses short
“turn n’ talk” strategies to help keep participants
engaged, reflecting, and sharing with others. Adam has had participants form
a “talking group” near the beginning of a workshop and do a
quick ice-breaker to build some initial community and make sure everyone has
a group.
Scott Miller has had two
participants collaborating on one device to allow for continual discourse.
This is a great strategy to use with students as well while working on
Desmos activities.
Nick Corley likes to check in
with participants between workshop sessions to see if any adjustments need
to be made in the following session.
What ideas have you tried or experienced in workshops that help give
participants a voice? We’d love to hear from you! Let us know on Twitter @desmos.
The Friday Fave took a week off for the big math conference, but is back in
action and ready to go with a brand-spanking new activity:
Battle Boats.
It’s coordinate-grid practice in the form of a game. Fire away! The
results of your tries will teach you something about the location of your
partner’s boats. Can you reveal your partner’s boats before they
reveal yours?
IMPORTANTNOTETOTEACHERS! You’ll need to orchestrate a little
real-world device (or seat) swapping in order to make the game go. Full
instructions in the Teacher Tips and the activity.
While your in a Cartesian kind of mood, you might also have a peek at these
other grid-based activities:
