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If you haven't used Desmos in your instruction yet, take mine (and many other's) word for it and dive right in! Most know Desmos from their innovative, online and FREE graphing calculator and while it is incredible, their Activity Builder is what I think of when I hear "Desmos" now.
Desmos' mission is to "build a world where every student learns math and loves learning math, where a student's access to the power and beauty of math doesn't depend on their place of birth, race, ethnicity, gender or any other aspect of their identity." What an incredible goal! In addition to that, if you asked me to write their mission I'd say it was also to make math engaging, visual, meaningful and exploratory.
The challenges of this school year have required all of us to adapt and learn new tools to better engage our students and bring effective learning into their homes. Desmos has been an incredible tool for my instruction in this process and today I would like to share 5 dynamic activities that I am going to use as I continue on to my next unit, where I will introduce my students to Quadratics Functions.
The challenges of this school year have required all of us to adapt and learn new tools to better engage our students and bring effective learning into their homes
Please note: all screenshots of activities have been taken by me directly from the Desmos.com activities on their website.
Activity #1: Will It Hit The Hoop?
Will It Hit The Hoop is an impactful activity for introducing students to the existence and the importance of quadratic functions as well as their key parts. Desmos founder, Dan Meyer, created this activity when he was in the classroom and it has been modified as an activity in desmos.com for an engaging and dynamic instructional activity.
Students begin with a low floor, high-ceiling task of determining if a basketball that he shoots will make it into the basket. The activity starts with simple yes-or-no guesses based off some still frame photos of his shots, then the activity builds into overlaying those photos with a moveable quadratic graph that students can maneuver to model the shot and make a more educated guess at their answer.
All students have an equitable chance at exploring, getting some skin in the game by submitting anonymous answers and wait time to make their own conjectures. Students can learn in a tangible, visual way by seeing a real world quadratic function as they are building there understanding and vocabulary. This also creates an opportunity for students to discover vocabulary words and for teachers to meaningful introduce the vocabulary words to their students.
A versatile feature of Activity Builder is that you can now copy and edit activities made by others. I added some screens to the end of this activity with the intent of solidifying vocabulary of key parts of the quadratic graph, as seen in the example below here:
I used the "overlay" feature on Desmos Activity Builder to present to my students an overlay of their responses, which helped to reveal the location of the axis of symmetry, as well as providing a jump board for rich discussion which translated into deeper understanding.
Activity #2: Polygraph: Parabolas
Do you remember the game Guess Who? Desmos has an activity just like it, but for mathematical graphs! It's called Polygraph. I love to use this activity in many of my units, and I plan on using this one for my Quadratics unit. It's a great follow up to the Will It Hit The Hoop activity as it requires students to implement their new vocabulary. I like to start this lesson off with generating a word splash of all the applicable vocabulary to create a checklist of that vocabulary for
students to use as they play the game. I encourage students to try to cross off every single word by the time we are done playing. This game reveals misconceptions and allows students to self-assess and peer-assess their understanding of the vocabulary.
What I love is that the game starts with an easy-to-understand practice round so that the format of the game does not get in the way of its efficacy. Once students understand the format of the game they get randomly paired with other students in the class to engage in a game like the one pictured below.
Activity #3: Match My Parabola
Match my Parabola is an exploratory activity that allows students to instantaneously see the result that altering the equation of a quadratic function has on the graph of its parabola. By exploring and making observations students can start to discover patterns amongst the equations and the graphs that they generate. I love this activity because it encourages students to play and recognize patterns in a fun way. It is like a "Notice And Wonder" activity come to life as students can notice patterns and test their wonders, seeing the result instantaneously.
Students are presented with various challenges that require them to manipulate functions in order to match the points that are plotted on the graph. The graph instantaneously changes to match the equation allowing for efficient self-checking.
Furthermore, this activity offers tasks that require students to recognize overarching patterns and defend them with reasoning. Shared responses expose students to their classmates learning in a way that allows everyone to move and learn at their own pace.
Activity 4: Card Sort: Parabolas
Card Sorts are a staple in Desmos activities. They can be used for so many different topics and I particularly like the one presented here for quadratics.
Sometimes I find "less-is-more" and the simple set of cards in the Parabolas set pack a ton of concepts within them. I like to allow students time to explore and sort the cards as they see fit and then I will to present their work
anonymously in order to generate discussion about whether or not they are sorted properly.
These authentic conversations produce deeper understanding and some incredible questions and with the copy and paste feature on activity builder you can follow up with a screen that has similarly formatted set of cards with new functions in order to provide students the opportunity to translate their learning with a similar task to further
assess formatively. I love how card sorts allow for a more engaging, kinesthetic skill practice task where students can physically move the cards around on the screen instead of simply filling in answers, like on a worksheet. With this style task everyone has an opportunity to participate.
Activity 5: Marbleslides: Parabolas
The final Desmos activity is the Marbleslides for Parabolas. Marbleslides are a relatively new activity and that Desmos has created for most graphing skills. Marbleslide tasks are engaging ways to turn practice of higher-order graphing skills into a game-like experience. Students must manipulate the graph in order to collect all of the stars.
Just like the previous activities, Marbleslides allow for an instantaneous visual of a student's response which in turn generates quick data to allow students to self-assess their learning. This activity is seamlessly differentiated by allowing students to continue on at their own pace and in later screens provides challenges for advanced learners. The set that is here created also includes screens with tasks that incorporate graphing on a certain domain.
This can be a great opportunity to introduce the concept of domain, if your students are ready for it. If they are not quite there yet you can simply copy and paste the screens and change them to meet your students needs where they're at!
Share your questions, comments and experiences in the comments below!
Which activity is your favorite?
What questions do you have about Desmos Activity Builder?
What challenges or successes have you had with Desmos?
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