Des-blog

There are two reasons why Point Collector is this week’s Friday Fave:

First, it combines practice with strategy.

Second, it’s the first lesson we’ve released with our “Computation Layer” technology.

Practice

Practice is an important part of a math education. Some practice is totally dreary, though. (You know what we’re talking about.) Our preferred form of practice has students repeating the same operations in the context of some larger strategy.

For example, in Point Collector, your students will practice writing lots of inequalities, but always in the context of the goal of capturing the highest score possible.

Give it a try.

Computation Layer

Point Collector is a more sophisticated activity than you’ve seen in the Friday Fave for a long while. Look at it! What you type in the input is plotted in the graph and the points you collect in the graph are reported in the note, along with the news that you have the highest score or that someone else in your class has an even high score, giving you fuel for continued practice.

Those connections and representations are enabled by a Computation Layer that lives on top of the activity. It looks like this:

Wild, right?!

The upside is that these internal tools will allow us to make more sophisticated activities and release them more quickly than ever before. Watch this space for more.

A potluck is defined as a meal or party to which each of the guests contributes a dish. Like any party, a potluck is a place to enjoy conversation and make new friends.

In the past we’ve helped Desmos friends connect, level up their calculator skills, and expand their knowledge of what is possible with the Desmos Calculator by participating in a Desmos Potluck.

The Desmos Fellows and team have spent the last week preparing dishes for the latest Desmos Potluck, and we want to extend an invitation to all of our math friends. Here’s how you can participate:

• Find a graph from the activity that interests you. Try to recreate that graph. If you need support, you can ask us on Twitter or take a look at the contents of the folder.
• Let us know on Twitter which graph you recreated. What did you learn as you created the graph? Any surprises or challenges?
• What dishes can you contribute?

We hope you’ll join in the meal.

The Friday Fave is enjoying the fresh crop of apples and a few changing leaves this week. And the Fave’s mind is turning to hexagons.

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