Des-blog

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?

IMPORTANT NOTE TO TEACHERS! 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:

The (Awesome) Coordinate Plane Activity

Mini Golf Marbleslides

Blue Point Rule

Desmos is proud to announce the beta release of our geometry tool. You can find it at www.desmos.com/geometry, with support materials at learn.desmos.com/geometry.

“Beta” means this product will continue to change in ways small and large. “Beta” means we’re in the process of creating helpful documentation, tutorials, and examples. “Beta” means we don’t warranty this product for your classrooms or presentations just yet, and if you use it in those contexts you should offer lots of assistance along with all of these disclaimers.

“Beta” also means we want your feedback. (Send email to feedback@desmos.com or tweets to @desmos.) What features do you want? Do you see sharp edges that need sanding? Tell us what you like and, more importantly, what confuses or surprises you. Your feedback makes us and our products stronger.

Our goal is to release our geometry tool without the “beta” label sometime over the summer, right in time for the start of the 2017-2018 school year in North America. Even at this early stage, we wanted to let our users know why we’re building this product, and how we envision its integration with the rest of our toolset.

Why did we build geometry?

We grew up as students of interactive geometry software. Pioneers like Geometer’s Sketchpad and Cabri laid the groundwork for an entire industry. Other tools, like Geogebra and Euclidea.xyz, have since emerged with their own unique perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses.

Given this wealth of great existing technology, why did we choose to build our own?

First, our goals are different than those embodied by most of those other tools. When we design products, we design first for students who struggle with math and we assume they may also struggle with technology. We strive for a student’s first creation with our tools to feel effortless and joyful. For that reason, our geometry tool has a far shorter list of features than some of those above. We will carefully expand that list over time, never trading power for ease-of-use.

Second, we wanted a geometry tool that integrates cleanly with the rest of our products. We wanted a lightweight, blazingly fast, browser-based tool. We wanted a Geometry API for partners that closely resembles our Graphing API. We wanted a tool that could fit neatly inside of our Activity Builder.

We don’t intend our work in geometry to replace the existing set of interactive geometry tools, but rather to supplement them. We hope our work will open up the magic of synthetic geometry to millions of new students.

Will geometry be free?

Yes. Our geometry product will be completely free, now and for as long as we support it.

We can’t promise that Desmos will always exist (though we promise to try!) nor can we promise that we will always support any given product. (As a small organization, focus is critical and we can only support products that we believe have the biggest impact.) Our promise, instead, is to never move any of our free products behind a “paywall.” We won’t ever charge you for products that are free today.

We can sustain that promise because we’ve partnered with organizations who license our products for commercial use. Those organizations – dozens of them, both large and small – get access to our APIs, which makes it possible to integrate our technology into their programs. They also get access to the knowledge and experience of our team. Partnerships fund our growing business and allow us to keep our products free for teachers and students.

You’ll soon see our geometry tool in products from organizations like Pearson, College Preparatory Mathematics, and Kendall Hunt. If you see one of those products, give it a good, critical evaluation. We only work with ambitious partners who care deeply about teachers, students, math, and technology. And if that sounds like your organization, please email an introduction to partnerships@desmos.com.